A prominent Senator has suggested that the United States should boycott the 2014 Winter Olympic in Sochi, Russia, if National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is granted asylum by the Russian government, NBC News reports.
"I love the Olympics, but I hate what the Russian government is doing throughout the world," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News. "If they give asylum to a person who I believe has committed treason against the United States, that's taking it to a new level."
Graham told NBC News that offering asylum to Snowden would essentially be the last straw. Graham already has issue with the Russian government supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria and that he believes Russia is responsible for Iran's nuclear program. Graham even compared President Vladimir Putin's country to Nazi Germany.
"If you could go back in time, would you have allowed Adolf Hitler to host the Olympics in Germany? To have the propaganda coup of inviting the world into Nazi Germany and putting on a false front?" Graham said. "I'm not saying that Russia is Nazi Germany but I am saying that the Russian government is empowering some of the most evil, hateful people in the world."
The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games held in Moscow after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The U.S. was joined by 65 countries in that boycott; it is unlikely that any other nations would rush to join another, according to Politico.
The International Olympic Committee dismissed Graham's threat to boycott the game as "a purely hypothetical situation," the New York Daily News reports.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, doesn't think a boycott would accomplish much either.
"I love Sen. Graham, we've been close friends for 20 years," Boehner told Politico. "But I think he's dead wrong. Why would we want to punish U.S. athletes who have been training for three years to compete in the Olympics over a traitor who cannot find a place to call home?"
Sen. Chuck Schumer wasn't sure if the U.S. should boycott the games but he told MSNBC's Chuck Todd that he thinks something should be done if Russia grants asylum to Snowden.
"I don't know...whether we should go that far. I think give Putin a chance. But I will tell you this: On both sides of the aisle, myself included, there's total exasperation with Mr. Putin," Schumer said. "He seems to go out of his way to figure out ways to trip up the United States. If they could grant asylum or help Snowden, there ought to be repercussions."
If the U.S. were to follow Graham's lead and actually boycott the game that would be a decision that would have to be made by the U.S. Olympic Committee, not the U.S. government, according to NBC News.
"I don't know if putting the Olympics on the table is the right answer but I do know this: What we're doing is not working, and sitting on the sidelines and watching the Russians empower some of the most brutal people in the 21st century, and doing nothing about it is wrong," Graham said.
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