Three former administration officials who were involved in the process told The Daily Beast that Clinton was worried about the ability to enforce the deal and disinclined to trust the Taliban or the Haqqani network in Pakistan, which held Bergdahl until this weekend. After that, Bergdahl would be handed over and the other two Taliban would be released from Guantanamo Bay. With Bergdahl’s mother and father by his side, Obama celebrated the soldier’s return Saturday as a late milestone in the United States’ longest war and a necessary step in helping conclude America’s post-9/11 era. Despite that the White House’s claim this week that the United States did not negotiate “directly” with the Taliban to secure the Bergdahl swap, the State Department, Defense Department, and White House officials did meet several times with Taliban leaders in 2011 and 2012 to discuss the deal. Three U.S. intelligence officials told The Daily Beast on Monday that James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, flat out rejected the release of the five detainees, saying there was too high a risk these Taliban commanders would return to the battlefield and orchestrate attacks against Americans. “I think we have a long way to go before we really know how this is going to play out.” 
 
 Either way, Obama may have done Clinton a huge favor by proving he can release high-risk detainees from Guantanamo without Congressional approval, because that could save her the trouble of dealing with them later on, if she became president.
– Hillary Clinton offered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap yesterday, calling the administration's no-man-left-behind ideal "noble," but adding, "I think we have a long way to go before we really know how this is going to play out." Which isn't surprising, sources tell the Daily Beast, because while Clinton actively led negotiations for Bergdahl's release in 2011 and 2012, she was "very skeptical" about a prisoner swap deal, and might not have signed off on any final agreement. She "felt that the Haqqani network were really bad guys," Congressman Jim Moran explains. Clinton was negotiating a tougher version of the deal that would have staggered the release of the Taliban detainees, and subjected them to more restrictions, like monitoring and travel bans. At the time, people like Adm. Mike Mullen and Leon Panetta were advocating a rescue operation instead of a prisoner swap, the Washington Post reports. Obama hoped a swap would help along the Afghan-Taliban peace process, but Clinton, Robert Gates, and James Clapper all believed that releasing the detainees was too risky. A spokesman for Clapper confirmed that he'd had doubts, but added that "circumstances have changed dramatically" since then.