American held as Islamic State suspect, creating quandary for Trump
By Eric Schmitt NEW YORK TIMES OCTOBER 06, 2017
WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials are divided over how to handle a US citizen that the military has held in Iraq for more than three weeks as a suspected Islamic State fighter, according to an official familiar with internal deliberations.
The detention is raising a dilemma that could resurrect some of the biggest wartime policy questions of the post- 9/11 era.
Providing the first details about a predicament that the Trump administration has kept draped in near-total secrecy, the official said the problem facing Pentagon and Justice Department officials is how to ensure that the man will stay imprisoned. The prisoner surrendered Sept. 12 to a Syrian rebel militia, which turned him over to the US military.
It may not be possible to prosecute the man because most of the evidence against him is probably inadmissible, the official said. But holding a citizen in long-term wartime detention as an enemy combatant — something the military has not done since the George W. Bush administration — would rekindle major legal problems left dormant since Bush left office and could put at risk the legal underpinnings for the fight against the Islamic State.
Admissible evidence is sparse, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information without authorization, adding that the FBI and Justice Department were working to build the case.
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