One of the few, and political ways that the administration can salvage this is if they had drugged and bugged the five they released during their time in Gitmo. This whole thing is going to be buried under a pile of “Squirrel!” moments over the next couple of weeks. This whole thing may resurface sometime in the late summer/early fall time frame when one of the following happens.
1: Berghdal is reinstated or discharged, honorably, and proceeds to go on a mass shooting/attack on a military installation or public place. Firearms/Gun Control will once again take center stage.
2: There is an attack here or abroad coordinated by any of the five released from Gitmo. Possibly coming from the boarder.
3: There will be five miracle drone strikes of these five right before the elections so the admin can bolster the image of the drone program, score political points with the voters and claim they’ve done massive damage to the Taliban prior to a final pullout of Afghanistan, and finally enhance the rep of Kill List Barry.