After days of intense, closed-door negotiations with members of both chambers in Congress, the White House released an official statement Wednesday declaring that the president’s senior advisers would not recommend that he veto the National Defense Authorization Act, despite previous warnings to the contrary.
“As a result of these changes,” Carney said, referring to the concessions made by Congress, “we have concluded that the language does not challenge or constrain the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people, and the president’s senior advisors will not recommend a veto.”
The NDAA, which is widely considered a “must-pass” bill because it funds military operations for the year, also contains two controversial provisions that deal with the detention of terror suspects.
Authored by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, the provisions would mandate military detention for certain terror suspects, even if they happened to be American citizens captured in the United States.
News of the bill’s details had quickly attracted a veto threat from the White House on the grounds that mandated military detention would curtail the executive branch’s authority to use its own discretion in deciding the best course of action.
Although the Senate tried to allay the administration’s fears by passing an amendment proposed by California Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein that explicitly precluded the possibility that the provisions would affect current law, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney indicated a few days later that the president still harbored serious concerns.
Much of the floor debate has focused on whether the provisions would negatively affect the ability of civilian law enforcement to carry out counter-terrorism operations, but a few voices in Congress and in the administration have opposed the bill because of the threats it poses to civil liberties.
Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan called the detainee provisions “troubling” in an interview with NPR last week, and added that allowing the government to indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of terrorist activity without charge or trial could compromise diplomatic outreach overseas.
In his statement, Carney seemed to acknowledge these concerns, warning that the administration would pay attention to how the provisions might “negatively impact our counterterrorism professionals and undercut our commitment to the rule of law.”
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has been a strong critic of the provisions since their inception, remains skeptical. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Mueller said, “the statute lacks clarity with regard to what happens at the time of arrest.”
“It lacks clarity with regard to what happens if we had a case in Lackawanna, New York, and an arrest has to be made there and there’s no military within several hundred miles,” Mueller continued.
Former military officials have also been critical of the provisions.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday, retired Marine Corps. Generals Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar argued that the bill would compromise due process and harm national security by placing an onerous burden on the military.
The military mandate, Generals Krulak and Hoar wrote, “would force on the military responsibilities it hasn’t sought” and “sideline the work of the F.B.I. and local law enforcement agencies in domestic counterterrorism.”
“Right now some in Congress are all too willing to undermine our ideals in the name of fighting terrorism,” Krulak and Hoar declared.
“They should remember that American ideals are assets, not liabilities.”
The House is expected to vote on the NDAA Wednesday evening.