Political Quotes

“I support the Bingaman second-degree amendment to the Graham detainee amendment. The Senator from South Carolina has been a leader on the issue of detention and interrogation policies. I share his goal of setting clear rules for the detention of enemy combatants. This amendment would do some positive things that I support. It would require the Defense Department to report to Congress on the procedures for determining the status of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. It would prohibit the Defense Department from determining the status of a detainee based on evidence obtained from torture. However, I am concerned that one section of the Graham amendment would have very dramatic unintended consequences. However, subsection (d) of the amendment would eliminate habeas corpus for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In so doing, it would overturn the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Rasul v. Bush. It would strip federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, of the right to hear any challenge to any practice at Guantanamo Bay, other than a one-time appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court on the limited question of whether the Defense Department is complying with its own rules for classifying detainees. It applies retroactively, and therefore would also likely prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the merits of the Hamdan case, a pending challenge to the legality of the administration's military commissions. For these reasons, I am opposed to Senator Graham's amendment.…”