Graham, DeMint agree on trials

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina's Republican U.S. senators differ on whether Guantanamo Bay detainees should be sent to the Navy brig in Hanahan, but said they will work together to keep the accused terrorists out of federal courts.

Sen. Jim DeMint backed Sen. Lindsey Graham's federal spending amendment that would bar putting taxpayer dollars into federal court trials for detainees, as Graham Thursday sent his senate peers a letter signed by family members of 9/11 victims calling for the military to decide the fate of detainees.

The amendment failed on a 54-45 vote Thursday night.

"Trying 9/11 terrorists, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in civilian court gives them the same constitutional rights American citizens enjoy," Graham said after the vote. "What awaits us when we bring a 9/11 conspirator like KSM into federal court? Chaos."

The Obama administration said the Justice Department should make the call on how Guantanamo detainees are handled. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote to Senate leaders saying they needed to block Graham's amendment because it "would set a dangerous precedent" and intrude on executive branch authority.

"We must be in a position to use every lawful instrument of national power, including courts and military commissions, to ensure that terrorists are brought to justice and can no longer threaten American lives," they wrote.

"We need to make sure that when people are tried who take up arms against the United States that they're given fair trials, but that our military conduct those trials like we have for 200 years," Graham said Wednesday. He noted that the military handled trials of captive Japanese and German soldiers in World War II.

DeMint said in a statement Thursday that military trials are a minimum, but not nearly enough.

"While I strongly support efforts to prevent detainees from being tried in civilian courts, that step alone is not enough to protect Americans from terrorists being brought to their communities," DeMint said.

"Congress must act now to stop the Obama administration from transferring these violent terrorists to American soil."

Graham said he is open to the idea of trying Guantanamo detainees at the Charleston Naval Consolidated Brig if it's part of a comprehensive plan to try them in military courts and move them to other states for incarceration.