Vice is said to have withdrawn a documentary investigating claims that Ron DeSantis authorized force-feeding while working at Guantanamo Bay, fearing retaliation from the governor.
The film, titled “The Guantanamo Candidate,” examines claims that while DeSantis was the Navy’s Legal Counsel in 2006, he advised military officials on how to force-feed prisoners who were on hunger strike.
The documentary was scheduled for release on May 28 as part of a Vice docuseries airing on Showtime, but was reportedly canceled on May 25, the day after DeSantis announced his candidacy for president.
This also came just weeks after Vice, once praised for its daring and disruptive journalism, filed for bankruptcy in mid-May.
The controversial practice of force-feeding was declared a form of torture by the United Nations in February 2006, just a month before DeSantis arrived at Guantanamo and served there for a year.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis served as legal counsel to military officials at Guantanamo Bay. He is pictured with his wife Casey during his wedding in 2009, three years after his stay in Guantanamo in 2006
According to the transcript, Mansoor Adayfi (pictured) was interviewed for the Vice film. Adayfi has previously claimed he remembered DeSantis watching and smiling as he was force-fed through a tube inserted into his nose
Assistant reporter Seb Walker asked DeSantis about his time at Guantanamo Bay in 2006 during an April independent news conference in Jerusalem. The governor angrily replied, “This is all bullshit.” Total bullshit
A script for the 30-minute film, seen by the Daily Beast, reveals it was hosted by assistant journalist Seb Walker, who conducted several interviews with people who were in Guantanamo Bay at the time.
The first was a prisoner who previously recounted how DeSantis watched and laughed as he was force-fed via a tube in his nose during a hunger strike.
DeSantis was reluctant to discuss the allegations at length, but was infamously questioned by Walker at a press conference in Jerusalem earlier this year.
The governor vehemently denied the claims and questioned the prisoner’s ability to remember his face.
“This is all nonsense.” “Total nonsense,” he said.
“Do you really think that’s credible?” The year is 2006. I’m a junior officer. Do you really think they would have remembered me since Adam?’ he told Walker.
“Of course not, they’re just trying to break into the news because they know people like you are going to consume it because it fits with your predetermined narrative that you’re trying to spread.” Focus on the facts and stop worrying about the narrative,” he said.
According to protocol, a prison guard, Sergeant Major Joe Hickman, was also interviewed for the documentary.
Hickman has claimed that three hunger strike leaders were killed in prison by US officials who later claimed they died as a result of a suicide pact. According to the transcript, he implied in the film that DeSantis had no authority to be involved in the incident.
He also described DeSantis as “extremely handsome” and said “Navy girls would go crazy over him,” the transcript reads.
“You wouldn’t put that kind of responsibility on someone like that,” Hickman said, regarding the possibility of his involvement in the deaths of the three inmates.
According to the transcript, a jail warden, Staff Sergeant Joe Hickman (pictured), was also interviewed for the Vice documentary. He said in the movie “Navy girls would go crazy for DeSantis”.
While DeSantis was stationed at Guantánamo, officials had problems with prisoners who went on hunger strikes over prison conditions
DeSantis said military commissions should have been established earlier to try Guantanamo Bay detainees
This is in contrast to claims made by DeSantis commander at the time, Capt. Patrick McCarthy, who told the Washington Post that DeSantis was actually involved in this alleged incident.
“He would have been one of the people I sent to facilitate the investigation,” McCarthy told the Post. According to the Vice transcript, he declined an interview for the film.
A source with direct knowledge told the Daily Beast that the documentary was shelved on May 25, just four days before the documentary was due to air and after promotional material was shared.
The episode description reads, “Seb Walker is investigating allegations by former Guantanamo Bay detainees that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis witnessed acts condemned by the United Nations as torture during his previous service at the controversial detention center as a Navy JAG officer.”
A person with knowledge of the decision told Semafor that Showtime’s Washington lobbyist DeDe Lea had raised concerns about the Guantanamo film.
The prisoner interviewed for the film was recorded as Mansoor Adayfi.
In April, he wrote a now-famous op-ed for Al-Jazeera detailing his experience of being force-fed and claiming that DeSantis watched and smiled.
Adayfi described in the article how he was “forcefully strapped into the chair so tightly that I could not move.”
“A nurse pushed a thick tube up my nose and down my throat. My nose was bleeding and the pain was so bad I thought my head would explode. The nurse wouldn’t stop. Instead, he started putting surah in a feed bag attached to the tube,” he added.
“As I tried to free myself, I noticed DeSantis’s pretty face in the crowd on the other side of the chain link. He watched me fight. He smiled and laughed with the other officers while I cried out in pain.’
Adayfi further claimed that he remained strapped to the chair overnight after being force-fed and they started the procedure again the next morning.
“Because I was throwing up, they gave me another case.” This time, they put laxatives in the bag. The mixture of sura and laxatives completely wrecked my gut after going without solid food for more than nine months. “They left me stuck in this chair all night, soiled with my own feces and vomit,” Adayfi wrote.
A view of the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, where DeSantis served as legal counsel for a year beginning in March 2006
A US Army soldier stands at the entrance to Camp Delta, where detainees are held
The Daily Breast wrote to Showtime regarding the decision to scrap the documentary and received the same response as The Hollywood Reporter, which first published the story.
The Showtime spokesperson said, “We do not comment on scheduling decisions,” and did not respond when asked if the DeSantis office had held discussions with the network about the documentary.
The beast also wrote to the DeSantis campaign regarding claims that he witnessed force-feeding and was referred to the relevant section of the Jerusalem press conference.
Questions regarding collusion with Showtime were not addressed.