Dana Perino: Obama Used Bergdahl Swap To Try and Empty Gitmo

PERINO: "It is hard for me to believe that they didn't know and it's also hard for me to believe how this actually happened. I remember as it unfolded sitting back and watching and saying, 'They are talking in such absolutist language that they are going to prove wrong at some point.' Now, I think what the White House will try to do now is say, 'We believe in the system. We're going to let this play out. He's not been proven guilty. Let that play out.' And they will hope that everybody sort of gets over this story in the next several weeks. But there is no doubt it's a permanent stain on the White House. Now, if I am -- let me just put myself in the White House's shoes tonight. OK. So I understand when they say that we had to bring him back."
KELLY: "Right." 
PERINO: "But they did not have to have Rose Garden ceremony. I think what happened is they got enamored with this idea of what the story is going to look like and how the movie would play out in their minds; that President Obama would be a hero and the parents of a prisoner of war can be in the Oval office and walk out to the Rose Garden and speak to their son, and they loved the theater of it. What's amazing, Megyn, is that no one in the White House -- lots of different officers have weight in on this. No one says, 'Maybe we could just do a photo release from the Oval office of him calling his parents."
KELLY: "It wasn't a mystery that he was suspected of desertion.”
PERINO: "No."
KELLY: "We have talked about that on this show prior to this whole thing.”
PERINO: "So they knew it and in addition what happens is they get this idea in their mind that president from the beginning -- we know this was a campaign promise -- he has wanted to close Guantanamo Bay."
KELLY: "There it is."
PERINO: "And I think that when they saw the opportunity to take five prisoners and swap them for someone they wanted to bring home --"
KELLY: "Five top commanders. This is what I want the audience to understand. This is what General Kean says. He says, 'I believe' -- he's the former vice chief of staff of the army. He says "I believe in getting back every man but not at this price. It could have been done in different ways. He didn't have to trade those five guys.' So the question is why did they do it? Is it more about emptying Gitmo than it is, or was at the time, about getting Bowe Bergdahl?"