Send Gitmo gang to Colorado, Feinstein says

Senate intelligence committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) isn't backing off her belief that some Gitmo terror detainees should be shipped to high-security federal prisons in the U.S. — suggesting the isolated, fortress-like "Supermax" facility in Florence, Colo., as one option.

It's not clear how that state's rookie Democratic senators — Mark Udall and Michael Bennet — feel about that. (I have calls into their offices.)

But former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, now President Obama's interior secretary, opposed relocating the detainees to U.S. prisons.

"We have the facilities to keep convicted terrorists behind bars indefinitely and keep them away from American citizens," Feinstein said on the Senate floor Wednesday, 24 hours after the Senate stripped $80 million from the defense supplemental that would have gone to close Gitmo.

“The Obama administration will determine which civilian and military facilities are best to accomplish these goals ... one example is the supermax facility in Florence, Colorado," she said, using a chart to illustrate its isolation from population centers.

"Here it is. It isn’t in a neighborhood. It isn’t in a community. It is an isolated supermax facility. It has 490 beds. They are reserved for the worst of the worst. This facility houses not only drug kingpins, serial murderers and gang leaders, but also terrorists who have already been convicted of crimes in this country.”

Feinstein's remarks came on a day when FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee about several potential pitfalls of docking detainees on American soil — including the use of their presence in propaganda and terrorist recruitment.

The hawkish California Democrat, who is mulling a gubernatorial run, sponsored a 2007 measure to shutter Guantanamo and reassign the 240 prisoners to facilities in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Florence prison is one of the toughest in the country — with nearly a quarter of its inmates convicted of killing other prisoners. Cells — and fixtures like bunks and tables — are made entirely of poured concrete and most prisoners are confined to them for 23 hours a day. Celebrity guests included New York crime boss John Gotti (who died there) and Atlanta Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph who described it as a venue designed to "inflict misery and pain."

Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer at Politico Magazine.