Donald Trump: Guantanamo Prisoners Swapped for Bowe Bergdahl Are ‘Back on the Battlefield’

Donald Trump says you can tell that America’s current leaders are the only people in the country who haven’t read his book, The Art of the Deal, because they make such bad deals.

At a campaign rally in South Carolina July 21, 2015, Trump, the wealthy businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate, called out the White House for making deals he disagrees with. One he cited specifically was the controversial decision to exchange five Guantanamo detainees for Taliban prisoner Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May 2014. Bergdahl has since been charged by the military with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy.

“We get a traitor, a no-good, rotten traitor like Bergdahl,” Trump said. “And they get five killers that they most wanted in the whole world, who are right now back on the battlefield, trying to kill everybody, including us. Okay? What kind of a deal is this?”

Are the five former detainees — who were senior Taliban operatives — now “back on the battlefield” and re-engaged in terrorism? We decided to take a closer look.

… 

It’s also possible that some or all of the Taliban Five have had more contact with the Taliban or other jihadist networks without the public (or even the government) knowing, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But mere communications, or even giving orders from a distance, is not the same thing as literally being “back on the battlefield.”

“There are indications that they would like to return to the battlefield,” Gartenstein-Ross said. “There’s reason for concern, but there’s not evidence to support (Trump’s) particular claim.”

… 

Read the full article here.