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Congressman Krishnamoorthi: "If the Trump Administration will not act to protect all Americans from hate-based attacks, Congress can and must act"

October 27, 2018

"It is past time for all of us to admit that this administration has been too accommodating of White Supremacy."

SCHAUMBURG, IL – Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of the Oversight Committee issued the following statement in response to the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood and the hate-motivated attacks which preceded it over the last two years:

"As our nation reels from the second domestic terror attack this week, millions of us are left wondering how domestic terror could gain such a foothold in the United States. How did two Americans self-radicalize and carry out these attacks? Who is feeding this hateful ideology? Are there more attacks coming? And how could law enforcement have stepped in to prevent these attacks?

It is past time for all of us to admit that this administration has been too accommodating of White Supremacy. It is an incontrovertible fact that hate-based violence has increased in the two years since President Trump took office. Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have all been the subject of hate-based violence. Minorities of all types, including African-American, Latino and Asian-American or others, have all been targeted.

Last summer, when America needed the President to clearly and unequivocally reject white supremacy, he instead insisted that there were ‘very fine people' on both sides of the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville that killer Heather Heyer. This type of rhetoric encourages the scourge of anti-Semitism and White Supremacist hatred.

If the Administration will not act to protect all Americans from hate-based attacks, Congress can and must act. Today I am calling for emergency hearings of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer the following questions:

· Have the statements, speeches, and tweets of government officials helped to radicalize hate groups and move them to act?

· Has the Department of Homeland Security been negligent in its tracking and interdiction of white supremacist groups?

· Is federal law enforcement prioritizing the very immediate threat of neo-Nazi attacks on the American people?

Although the current Congress has chosen to turn a blind eye to this administration's many wrongdoings, I am confident that a Democratic majority will not hesitate to investigate these issues and make public any administration officials who aided, abetted, or in any way turned a blind eye to white supremacism.

How many more must die before we have the courage to confront this problem? We have the ability to confront hatred today. All that is lacking is the will from our political leaders."