Ian Moss, a former Marine, joined the State Department during the Obama administration and worked for five years in the office of the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, where he led inter-agency delegations to negotiate transfers of dozens of Guantanamo detainees, before he was seconded to what was supposed to be a career-enhancing temporary assignment in the National Security Council in May 2016 where he worked as Director of Human Rights and National Security Issues.