Patrick Leahy: “I very proudly cosponsored the amendment of the Senator from New York. Senator Schumer's amendment on debts incurred…”

“I very proudly cosponsored the amendment of the Senator from New York. Senator Schumer's amendment on debts incurred through the commission of violence to health service clinics is a good one. It closes a real-life loophole in our bankruptcy code because some people are using the bankruptcy laws to avoid paying debts arising from clinic violence. That is a dangerous precedent that Congress should stop. It would be the same if somebody was doing this using the bankruptcy laws to escape paying bills for violence against anybody, whether groups with which I agree or groups with which I disagree. We should not use the bankruptcy laws for this. It is wrong to allow court judgments under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to be discharged under our bankruptcy laws. In fact, 12 individuals who created the Nuremberg Files web site filed bankruptcy to avoid their debts under the law. If I could make a personal note on this, at a time when a doctor was murdered in New York because his name was on the Nuremberg Files, within days they determined that the chief suspect was a man from Vermont. I went to the Nuremberg Files. My name was listed among those to be shot.”