I think it is an important issue. The Supreme Court has raised these issues.

If a mayor takes a series of bribes and, that is, bribery being a predicate act under RICO, the mayor can be charged with RICO.

I think Justice Ginsburg was correct in saying that if Congress were to take up the enterprise of criminalizing 'undisclosed self-dealing by a public official or private employee,' it 'would have to employ standards of sufficient…

I do think the Supreme Court has raised an important issue.

It would be better that they could be prosecuted locally.

I do believe a legitimate Federal role in prosecutions and a dramatic limitation on the ability of the Federal Government to prosecute clear criminal acts by State and local officials would be bad policy for the country.

The Supreme Court I do not think is trying to further illegal activity when they have rendered several cases that tell us that you have got to have criminal statutes that are clear and mean something and have real definitions.

There are limits on Federal reach historically and constitutionally.

I appreciate Senator Begich and Senator Warner working with Senator McCaskill and myself to try to enforce the President's spending levels.

I believe we have got to have more clarity and more commitment to go further than that.

there is no reason that instability stays out there.

As my granddaddy said, you can't borrow your way out of debt.

The FBI has no legal authority to proceed against a terrorism suspect who is arrested within the United States in any venue other than an Article III court.

So that is where the responsibility lies, with the President of the United States, and they are persisting in an unwise policy, in my view, that cannot be justified.

I am not comfortable with the decline in prosecutions, so I am going to look to find out more about that.

I am worried about this whole process. It is not working logically to me.

There is much more ability for the U.S. Government in dealing with an unlawful enemy combatant...

I do not think--that is not impressive to me. I am not worried about what has happened anecdotally in some individual case.

The Attorney General--I am quoting here from your answer--'has the lead responsibility for terrorism acts committed in the United States.'

I am really proud of the people, proud of the Coast Guard. They are giving their best effort.

Now, the maritime law has different rules than normal civil procedure.

Why has it been more difficult to gain punitive damages?

It just strikes me both economically and out of a sense of fairness that if you hurt people, you ought to pay for it.

I do think continual research analysis and prompt evaluation of the testing, which, you know, you hear that it takes 10 days to get a test result, you wonder: Can't we speed this up a little bit?

This is an important hearing, and it is not easy to deal with the losses of this kind of oil spill.