Lindsey Graham: “Mr. Speaker, we can talk about this or you can read the law yourself. Here is what I am saying, unequivocally: this…”

“Mr. Speaker, we can talk about this or you can read the law yourself. Here is what I am saying, unequivocally: this proposal in the Senate does not expand the list of categories from which a hate crime can be prosecuted to include sexual orientation and disability. It fundamentally changes and does away with the Federal nexus that exists in the existing statute to give the Attorney General of the United States, whoever that person might be, at whatever time in our history, the ability to reach out and take over a case based on the attitude and the motivations of the perpetrator and the class or category of the victim. One thing is going to flow from this: because you cannot get the death penalty, there are people going to be manufacturing reasons, believe it or not, if you have ever been in criminal law, there are people who are mean and clever, and I have defended some and prosecuted a lot, who are going to say, well, this is a hate crime; this is a Federal hate crime. And they want to go to Federal Court because there is no death penalty, and it will be a headline. There will be a tremendous amount of political pressure to grab this case, and to show you how much I care as the Attorney General, I am going to take this heinous situation and I am going to do it, because I want to get the political benefit and I am going to be the person in the headline.”