Trump and Republicans have refused to take on white supremacist terrorists. The Democrats leading Congress are taking them to task.
Congress will soon begin investigating the rise of white supremacists within the United States, a topic that Trump has steered government attention away from.
The Daily Beast on Monday reported that the House Judiciary Committee will be leading the probe: "The committee expects to bring in officials from within the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for questioning on the rise of white nationalism in the U.S and the efforts the agencies are currently adopting to combat it."
The inquiry is especially relevant in the wake of the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that has claimed at least 50 lives.
The Trump administration, taking their cues from Trump's bigoted approach, has de-emphasized programs to combat these elements. The Daily Beast reports that focus on domestic terror within the Department of Homeland Security has "waned" since the end of the Obama administration.
Yet the recent data on the internal terror threat led DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to admit on Monday that the danger has grown.
Even as New Zealand continued to deal with the fallout of the massacre, Trump appeared to be in denial still. He claimed on Friday that right-wing terror is "a small group of people that have very, very serious problems," even as the threat increases.
Trump's allies in Washington have also had their heads stuck in the sand.
When they had control over the House, Republicans refused to hold hearings on right-wing extremism. That reticence, in concert with a lackadaisical approach to investigating Trump corruption, helped Democrats take over leadership after voters nationwide supported them in the 2018 election.
And now, even without help from Trump and his party, Democrats will be doing what they can to keep Americans safe.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
