The Obama administration and Republican Senate hawks have fought tooth and nail over indefinite detention laws, but now they are joining forces to stop a lawsuit that argues military detention is unconstitutional.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) have taken the rare step of securing time at oral arguments alongside the administration’s attorneys to defend the law they helped write, which critics say allows U.S. citizens to be detained indefinitely.
Arguments are being heard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York Wednesday after a District Court judge ruled last year that some provisions allowing the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) were unconstitutional.
The senators themselves are not expected at the hearing. But they have been granted time during oral arguments in addition to the Justice Department attorneys defending the case by arguing they wanted to defend the merits of the law itself and not just win the lawsuit.