Yes, McCain is indeed a flip-flopper and earns an upside-down Pinocchio

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Did John McCain flip-flop on the Bergdahl deal?
By Glenn Kessler, June 6, 2014

“Now this idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man. I would be inclined to support such a thing depending on a lot of the details.”
– Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), interview on CNN, Feb. 18, 2014

“We were never told that there would be an exchange of Sergeant Bergdahl for five Taliban.”
– McCain, interview on CNN, June 3, 2014

Is Sen. John McCain a flip-flopper? Did he support a trade of five Taliban fighters for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl back in February, only to turn around and denounce it once the deal was made?

The Fact Checker began looking into this issue earlier this week, and the McCain team has been pushing back hard. Spokesman Brian Rogers issued a statement accusing the media of “selectively” quoting McCain, while McCain himself went on CNN’s “The Lead” on Thursday to defend himself after host Jake Tapper highlighted his contradictory statements the day before. McCain focused on the fact that his support was dependent on “the details.”

“The details are outrageous,” he said. “Like any other agreement it’s, as I said, in the details. The details as I found out here are unacceptable.” Among the details he objected to were the identities of the five Taliban and the requirement that they only remain in Qatar for a year.

“These are also war criminals,” McCain said. “A couple of them were accused of killing thousands of Shiite Muslims. These are the ones that used to take the women into the soccer stadium in Kabul and hang them from the goalposts.”

The Facts

First, let’s set the context for McCain’s interview in February. In a front-page article, headlined “U.S. seeks prisoner swap with Taliban,” The Washington Post on Feb. 17 reported that a potential deal was in works with the Taliban to secure Bergdahl’s release:

Five members of the Afghan Taliban who have been held at Guantanamo for years would be released to protective custody in Qatar in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2009 and is thought to be held in Pakistan by the Haqqani network, an allied insurgent group.

To refresh the American offer, which has been on the table for more than two years, senior officials from the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies decided within the past month to allow the simultaneous release of all five men. Taliban representatives had objected to the previous plan to release the prisoners by ones or twos as a test of Taliban and Qatari intermediaries’ ability to make sure the men did not return to militancy.

As you can see, the key elements of the deal that was announced last week were apparent in the article four months ago — the exchange of five Taliban members held at Guantanamo for Bergdahl and the protective custody of Qatar.

Throughout the discussions, it has always been the same five men, so their identities would have been no surprise to any lawmaker keeping track of the discussions. The five are Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, the former interior minister; Mullah Mohammed Fazi, a senior commander; Mullah Norullah Noori, a provincial governor; Abdul Haq Wasiq, deputy chief of intelligence; and Mohammned Nabi Omari, a member of a joint al-Qaeda-Taliban cell in eastern Khost province.

[snipped]

In other words, these names were not a secret — and in any case, McCain sits on the relevant Senate committees (Armed Services and Foreign Relations), with security clearances, and thus could have found out about the names and the background of the individuals.

Indeed, Rolling Stone reported in 2012 that McCain called them “the five biggest murderers in world history” during a 2011 briefing on a possible prisoner exchange to spur peace negotiations. “McCain reluctantly came around on the prisoner exchange, according to those present at the meeting, but he has continued to speak out against negotiating with the Taliban,” the article added.

[major snippage]

Yet, on CNN this week, McCain insisted he was never told about a possible exchange in briefings by the administration:

[snipped]

The Pinocchio Test

We fully appreciate that the details of a prisoner exchange are important, and McCain certainly made that caveat clear. But since the deal was announced, he has suggested that the question of trading the Taliban Five for Bergdahl was a surprise — and that’s certainly not the case. These five men were always part of the prisoner swap, so that is not a detail that can be in dispute. Indeed, only a day after The Washington Post revealed that a deal was in the works to trade the five men for Bergdahl, McCain appeared on television with what was billed as a “new position.”

McCain is on a bit stronger ground when he objects to a one-year stay in Qatar. The length of the detention was not clear in February, though the former detainees will remain longer in Qatar (to mid 2015) than was contemplated under earlier proposals (end of 2014.)

But what is the point of a prisoner swap if the released prisoners are not at some point going to be free? By the very nature of such a deal, an experienced lawmaker (and former POW) like McCain should expect that the Taliban Five would have been able to go free eventually.

McCain may have thought he left himself an out when he said his support was dependent on the details. But then he can’t object to the most important detail — the identity of the prisoners — that was known at the time he indicated his support. McCain earns an upside-down Pinocchio, constituting a flip-flop.
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