Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accused Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on Thursday evening of consigning American allies “to a terrible and cruel death” by objecting to an amendment to expand visas for Afghan interpreters.
“I can’t imagine how it must bother someone who is literally signing the death warrants of some people who in their innocence decided to help the United States of America,” McCain said.
McCain’s charge came at the end of a fight on the Senate floor between Lee, McCain and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham over which amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act should receive a vote. For years, Lee has sought a vote on the Due Process Act, a proposal to bar the government from arresting American citizens in the United States and detaining them indefinitely.
He tried to force that vote by objecting to the Afghan interpreters amendment — an objection he promised to drop if the Senate also voted on his proposal.
“Arresting U.S. citizens on American soil and then detaining them indefinitely without charge or trial is an obvious deviation from the constitutional right to due process of law,” Lee said during a floor speech Thursday.
Graham blocked Lee’s maneuver and cited the rise of the Islamic State as evidence that Lee’s amendment is a bad one.
“The last time we had a hearing about the issue of whether or not an American citizen can be held as an enemy combatant if they collaborate with al Qaeda was in 2012,” Graham said. “Since 2012, things have changed, all for the worse … I want to make sure that you have due process, consistent with being at war.”
Graham promised to hold a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing on Lee’s bill if he dropped the objection. And Graham and McCain both argued that it was inappropriate for Lee to hold one policy hostage to the fate of another.
“If every senator blocked every vote because his or her amendment is not being considered, obviously we would never do anything,” McCain said. “And now we’re talking about the lives of men who have put it on the line for the men and women who are serving. Don’t we have some sense of perspective and priority here?”
McCain then addressed Lee directly. “People are going to die, I tell the senator from Utah! They’re going to die if we don’t pass this amendment and take them out of harm’s way,” McCain said, raising his voice. “Don’t you understand the gravity of that? Can’t you understand that your issue on extended [detention] is an important one, but don’t you understand these people’s lives are in danger as we speak?”
Lee objected again, saying that he has pushed for a vote for years. McCain refused over the last year to hold a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the legislation and instead said he could raise it on the floor during the NDAA debate. He also said that Graham’s offer of a subcommittee hearing is insufficient.
“I’ve been told again and again to wait, to wait, to wait more,” he said. “When you say that you want to lock up American citizens detained on U.S. soil without charge, without trial, without access to a jury, indefinitely, for an unlimited period of time, you are implicating, at a minimum, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth and the Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
Lee compared the policy to the decision that led to the mass detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “If you allow government to exercise a certain power, even if it might not be being exercising at the moment, eventually, it will,” he said.
Earlier in the day, McCain and Graham pleaded with senators not to cut funding for the Defense Department, and argued that doing so would put U.S. military lives “at risk.”
