He rose to the rank of captain, within the Marine Corps, during the five years he served as a JAG officer. He had also served as an
Assistant District Attorney in
Manhattan, and an anti-racketeering prosecutor for the
Department of Justice, before holding a series of posts as counsels to Congressional Representatives, or to Congressional committees. Obama had announced the creation of two positions during a speech about Guantanamo at the
Defense University in May 2013.
William Lietzau, the most recent
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs had resigned in July, without being replaced. Lewis's position was not a direct replacement for the empty DASD-DA position. The other position was that of a special envoy for Guantanamo closure within the
State Department. That position had been filled in June, by
Clifford Sloan. On October 7, 2013
President Barack Obama appointed Lewis to be
United States Department of Defense's Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, the most senior Pentagon official tasked with closing the notorious
Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in
Cuba. Lewis is currently a law professor at
Georgetown University.
Carol Rosenberg, writing in the
Miami Herald, reported that, at Georgetown Lewis had specialized in teaching legal ethics.
The Hill reported Lewis also had responsibility for finding new homes for the foreigners the USA held in
extrajudicial detention in
Afghanistan. ==References ==