Sen. Lindsey Graham stormed out of a nomination hearing for Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson. His hurried departure followed a heated exchange over the status of prisoners still being held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility.
He was arguing with Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin.
Durbin said that the 9/11 detainees are being held at a cost of around $12-$13 million per year, suggesting the government could dramatically lower those costs by transferring them to a prison in Florence, Colorado.
He wants to put them in with regular criminals where the terrorists will radicalize them. Cagey lawyers will also be able to get them freed at some point. Additionally, GITMO is too valuable to lose.
Durbin claimed that the recidivism rate of a released terrorist detainee is only 5 percent.
“Mr. Chairman, according to the Director of National Intelligence, it’s 31 percent,” Graham interjected. “Somebody is wrong here.”
“If you’re gonna talk about what I said I’m going to respond to what you said. If we close Gitmo and move them to Colorado, do you support indefinite detention under war for these detainees?” Graham demanded to know.
“I just want to be clear here that I’m giving the facts…” Durbin said in response as Graham cut him off.
“The answer is no,” Graham interrupted. “What does it matter when it goes back to? We had them and they got loose and they started killing people. If you were one of the people killed in 2005, does it matter to you when we release them?”
Graham went on to say that the “system has failed miserably,” noting that “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,” he continued.
“As long as they’re dangerous, I hope they all die in jail if they’re gonna go back and kill Americans,” the South Carolina Republican added. “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 gonna go back to the fight!
“Look at the friggin Afghan government, it’s made up of former detainees in Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working!” he noted.
At that, Graham got up from his seat and left the hearing. He’s probably attention-seeking, but he makes a good point. In truth, we can’t really know what the recidivism rate is unless they are caught on the battlefield, but we know it’s much higher than 5%.
Sen. Lindsey Graham gets angry and walks out after Sen. Dick Durbin fact checks him on the rescidivism rate at Gitmo, which Durbin says was six times lower than Graham stated. pic.twitter.com/fDd7ribloa
— David Heath (@davidhth) March 22, 2022
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