As Kerry Eleveld has written, citing State Department communications, Hillary Clinton spent much of the last few weeks of her time as Secretary of State pressing President Obama to make good on his promise to finally close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Now Jason Leopold follows up with a report, also citing State Department communications, showing that SoS Clinton had taken an interest in seeing Canadian-born Omar Khadr — whose father had brought him to Afghanistan when he was just fifteen and compelled him to fight against US forces there, killing one in the midst of a skirmish — removed from Gitmo and sent back home to Canada:
Hillary Clinton lauded the work of US State Department legal adviser Harold Koh shortly after he helped secure the release of Omar Khadr from Guantanamo in 2012, according to emails released by the State Department Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by VICE News.
"Thank you for all you did to get this resolved," then–Secretary of State Clinton wrote in an email to Koh, dated September 29, 2012.
"So glad we got this done," Koh responded the following day. "After spending the last 10 years on GTMO, at least this young man finally has another chance."
[...]
The emails lend credibility to a 2010 report published by NBC News that claimed Clinton personally intervened on the eve of Khadr's scheduled military tribunal by phoning Canada's then–foreign minister Lawrence Cannon to explore ways to resolve the case. The tribunal never happened, and Khadr accepted a deal in which he pled guilty to war crimes charges in exchange for an 8-year sentence.
Of course, the right-wing Daily Caller proceeded to put as ugly a spin on this as possible:
Emails: Hillary Cheered Transfer Of Gitmo Detainee Who Killed American Soldier With Grenade
Hillary Clinton cheered the transfer of convicted murderer Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay to a Canadian prison, emails released on Monday show.
Let’s see how the rest of the press handles this.
UPDATE 12/0202015, 7:26 am: I didn’t want to mention this right off the bat so as to avoid accusations of incitement and baiting, but, since some of the usual suspects went off on this anyway — here’s my prediction from a day and a half ago on how this news would shake out:
My mistake was in assuming the lefties wouldn’t lie about it as well.