On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to commit to using federal resources to investigate Monday’s shooting in Nashville as a hate crime, despite the perpetrator’s clear motivations against the Christian victims.
The Daily Caller reports that the Nashville Police Department discovered “writings” in Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s home after the shooting, which suggested a “calculated and planned” attack. Addressing these reports, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) noted during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that the 28-year-old Hale “could have had collaborators.”
Kennedy then asked Garland if he planned on letting the FBI launch a hate crime investigation, as Hale’s identity as a “transgender man” clearly played a role in her decision to target the Presbyterian school where she used to be a student.
“As of now motive hasn’t been identified,” Garland said in response, while claiming that the FBI and ATF were working with local police. “We are certainly working full-time with them to try to determine what the motive is, and of course motive is what determines if it is a hate crime or not.”
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has denounced the shooting as a hate crime “that according to Nashville police, specifically targeted… the members of this Christian community, community, the members of this religious institution, its students, its educators, [and] its employees.”
A Nashville PD spokesman has said that they will not be releasing Hale’s manifesto while the investigation is ongoing. Far-left pro-LGBTQ groups have actively demanded that the manifesto not be released, as its release could allegedly cause backlash against the “transgender community” in Nashville.