President Obama’s legal advisers, confronting the prospect of new restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are debating whether to recommend that he issue a signing statement asserting that his executive powers would allow him to bypass the restrictions, according to several officials…

During that era, Mr. Obama and many future members of his legal team criticized the Bush administration as taking too sweeping a view of executive power. They also criticized Mr. Bush for his frequent use of signing statements to claim a constitutional right to override laws…

But several other future members of the Obama legal team argued at the time that signing statements were lawful and appropriate so long as the president invoked only mainstream legal theories. Mr. Obama adopted the latter approach, pledging greater restraint.