I guess, once Rahm Emanuel designated him the Acting Attorney General, Lindsey Graham realized he could demand even more from the Administration. Because now he is saying he will only support closing Gitmo if he can also pass a law authorizing indefinite detention.
“I’ve been talking to the administration for the last couple of days. I’m encouraged that we’re going to sit down and do some of the hard things we haven’t done as a nation after September 11.”“I think we need to change our laws to give our judges better guidance— rules of the road,” Graham said. “We need a statute to deal with that.”
[snip]
While Graham has long favored closing Guantanamo, he said Monday that his support for doing so is contingent on a new law to govern the detention of those the government wants to keep in custody outside the criminal justice system. He also said that, with such a statute in place, he could support Obama’s plan to convert a state prison in Illinois to a federal facility for former Guantanamo inmates.
“I think Thomson, Ill., in the hands of the military, could become a secure location,” he said. “My view is we can start to close Guantanamo only after we reform our laws.” [my emphasis]
I mean, if a person as all-powerful as Rahm Emanuel gives you unlimited powers to rewrite our Constitution, why not up the ante and eliminate habeas corpus while you’re at it?