When federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court seat hearing began, Republicans made a big show of swearing it wouldn’t turn into a circus. That didn’t last long. One GOP lawmaker after another has attempted to come for President Biden’s unfailingly calm nominee. Ted Cruz even asked her if “babies are racist.”
One of the most dramatic moments came courtesy of Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina senator is no stranger to throwing hissy fits during Supreme Court justice hearings. Back when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was being grilled over credible accusations of sexual misconduct, Graham nearly imploded. This time he blew up over another unusual subject: his desire to keep Guantanamo Bay’s detention center open forever.
It’s been much discussed that as a public defender, Jackson — whom Graham has twice voted to the federal bench — has represented detainees at the facility, which became so infamous during the Iraq War a Harold and Kumar movie was named after it. Graham seized upon this, but he wound up having his biggest tiff not with Jackson but with Dick Durbin, the Democrat Illinois senator, who tried to put her previous legal filings into context. Durbin also pointed out that the cost of keeping each detainee there is incredibly high, while the recidivism rate is incredibly low.
“On the issue of Guantanamo, 39 detainees remain,” Durbin tried to explain to Graham. “It’s $450 million per year. Each of these detainees is being held at the expense of $12 or $13 million per year. If they would be incarcerated in Florence, Colorado, the supermax federal prison, the amount would be dramatically less. Since 2009, with the beginning of the Obama Administration, the repeat rate of Guantanamo detainees is five percent.”
That set Graham off. When he asked Durbin if he supported the “indefinite detention” of Gitmo prisoners, Durbin pointed out that some of them were apprehended up to and over 20 years ago.
“If you are one of the people killed in 2005 does it matter to you when we released them?!” Graham shouted at Durbin. “We’re at war, we’re not fighting crime! This is not some passage of time event.” He added, “As long as they’re 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 cost $500 million to keep them in jail, keep them in jail because they’ll go back to the fight.”
After saying the “freaking Afghan government” was comprised of Gitmo alumni and claiming, “This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working,” Graham was done. He bolted up, grabbed his drink, and took his toys home — or he ran up to reporters to tell them it was “fair to say” he saw some red flags over Jackson’s nomination.
Throughout Graham’s outburst, Jackson remained quiet.
You can watch Graham lose it in the video above.
(Via The Daily Beast)