One of the leading political campaign fact-checking organizations has weighed in on a top talking point in the 2016 U.S. Senate race in Colorado.
On Tuesday morning, Alan Gathright of Denver7 and PolitiFact’s Colorado bureau rated a claim from former House Rep. Jon Keyser regarding Sen. Michael Bennet as false.
Keyser, during a Feb. 11 Republican candidate forum at the University of Denver, said that Sen. Bennet wanted to bring terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay “right here to Colorado” as President Barack Obama works to close to facility.
Gathright, writing for PolitiFact, noted that Bennet has been on record in opposition to moving current Guantanamo detainees to any Colorado prison, including the ADX Florence “supermax” facility in Fremont County.
Gathright noted that “no one’s banged the drum louder against Bennet than Jon Keyser,” On Feb. 13, Keyser issued a statement saying that “if it were up to (Bennet), we would currently have Guantanamo Bay terrorists in Colorado prisons.”
Sen. Bennet released a statement Feb. 23 clarifying that while he believes Guantanamo Bay’s detention facility should be closed, he did not support relocating the remaining prisoners to Colorado or any non-military prison.
“I’ve voted to close the prison, but I believe military detainees should be held in military prisons. Colorado does not have that type of facility,” Bennet said in the statement. “This plan has done nothing to change my mind. These detainees should not be transferred to Colorado.”
The issue of relocating Guantanamo detainees has been a frequent point of political critique from numerous candidates and groups. In January, the America Rising PAC said that Bennet “has marched in lockstep with President Obama’s quest to bring Guantanamo terrorists to the homeland.”