Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unloaded on Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) during Tuesday’s hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, and once he had said his piece, he walked out of the room.
Graham who had just finished with his questions for Judge Jackson, jumped back into the conversation when Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee chair, began to address some of the things he had asked about.
The conversation began with Jackson’s comments about her own history as a public defender — which had occasionally involved defending detainees at Guantanamo Bay — and she argued that she had simply been “standing up for the constitutional value of representation.”
Durbin jumped in after Graham concluded his questions, noting that there were 39 detainees who remained at Guantanamo Bay and that keeping just one of them there was costing the United States some $12-13 million annually — some $540 million in total each year.
He went on to suggest that housing the detainees in a federal super-max facility in Colorado would be more cost-effective — and that since 2009, the recidivism rate of those who were eventually set free was 5% — but Graham interrupted.
“Mr. Chairman, according to the Director of National Intelligence it’s 31%. Somebody is wrong here,” Graham shot back. “If you want to talk about what I’ve said I’ll respond to what you said. If we close Gitmo and move them to Colorado do you support indefinite detention?”
“I’m giving the facts,” Durbin said.
“The answer is no,” Graham insisted.
“I just want to make sure it’s clear that 31% you referred to goes back to the year 2009,” Durbin pressed.
“What does it matter what it goes back to? We had them, and they got loose and they started killing people,” Graham objected. “If you are one of the people killed in 2005, does it matter to you when we released them?”
“I suggest the president of your own party released them, and —” Durbin claimed, in spite of the fact that four of the five Taliban fighters that Democratic President Barack Obama released — in exchange for U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl — are now serving in the Taliban-controlled Afghan government.
“I’m suggesting the system has failed miserably and advocates to change the system like she was advocating would destroy our ability to protect this country. We’re at war, we’re not fighting a crime. This is not some passage of time event,” Graham continued. “As long as they are dangerous, I hope they all die in jail if they’re going to go back to kill Americans. It won’t bother me one bit if 39 of them die in prison, that’s a better outcome than letting them go. And if it costs $500 million to keep them in jail, keep them in jail, because they’re going to go back to the fight. Look at the frickin’ Afghan government, it’s made up of former detainees at Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working.”
Graham stood up then, walking out of the hearing as Durbin continued to cite others who had defended the idea of allowing legal representation for Guantanamo detainees.