FBI, DHS warned of white supremacist threat in May

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in May warned of the threat posed by white supremacist groups in the United States.

In a joint intelligence bulletin issued May 10 and obtained by Foreign Policy, the DHS and the bureau said white supremacist groups had carried out more violent attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years — and were likely to commit more.

The white supremacist movement “likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year,” the bulletin said.

On Saturday, a driver plowed into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally protesting the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va., killing one and injuring others. A 20-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop at the scene of a fatal crash.

President Trump has declined to condemn the groups behind the rally by name, although the White House has issued an unattributed statement affirming that “of course” the president condemns violence by “white supremacists, KKK Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.”

{mosads}In the bulletin, the FBI reported that white supremacist groups were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016, “more than any other domestic extremist movement.”

White supremacist plots and attacks outnumbered Islamist incidents by an almost 2-to-1 margin, according to a database compiled by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has launched a civil rights investigation into the violence in Charlottesville, calling the attack an incident of “domestic terrorism.”

The bulletin, titled “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,” describes multiple grisly attacks in 2016, including an 18-year-old Chinese girl who was attacked with a hatchet while taking photos for a school project in Indiana. She suffered two-inch lacerations on her back from the attacker, who stated he wanted to kill her because of her race.

In February of last year, three “members of a local racist skinhead group” allegedly used knives to attack a group of Hispanic men in a Los Angeles County park.

In August 2016, “a self-identified [white supremacist]” allegedly stabbed an African-American man in Olympia, Wash., after seeing him kiss a white woman outside of a restaurant. The suspect told police that he was part of a white supremacist group and had come to fight “Black Lives Matters people,” according to the report.

Trump has drawn fierce criticism, even from Republicans, for his refusal to publicly condemn white supremacists, some of whom identify themselves as his supporters.

Many of those rallying in Charlottesville wore his signature “Make America Great Again” campaign hats, and his response to the rally’s violence drew support from the pro-Nazi website the Daily Stormer: “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us.”

The president has pushed aggressively for the use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism” in the past.

Shortly following the December 2015 Islamic State in Iraq and Syria attack in San Bernardino, Calif., he tweeted: “When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM? He can’t say it, and unless he will, the problem will not be solved!”