Trump blasts hate groups days after white supremacist attack
We are pursuing it in the Department of Justice in every way that we can make a case, says Attorney-General Jeff Sessions
CHARLOTTESVILLE/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump denounced white supremacists including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on Monday, and said racism, hatred and bigotry had no place in America following a violent whitenationalist rally in Virginia.
Trump had been assailed by Republicans and Democrats alike for failing to respond more forcefully to Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville, in which a woman was killed when a man crashed his car into a group of counter-protesters.
“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Trump said in a statement to reporters at the White House.
Critics said Trump had waited too long to address the bloodshed, and slammed him for stating initially that “many sides” were involved, rather than explicitly condemning white supremacists widely seen as sparking the melee.
A 20-year-old man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies as a teenager was facing charges he plowed his car into protesters opposing the white nationalists, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 people. The accused, James Alex Fields, was denied bail at an initial court hearing on Monday.
In a strong rebuke to the president, the chief executive of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Merck & Co Inc, resigned from a business panel led by Trump, citing a need for leadership countering bigotry.
CEO Kenneth Frazier, who is black, did not name Trump or criticise him directly in a statement posted on the drug company’s Twitter account, but the rebuke was implicit. “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy,” said Frazier.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who was to meet Trump on Monday along with new FBI Director Christopher Wray — said the car attack “does meet the definition of domestic terrorism.”
“We are pursuing it in the Department of Justice in every way that we can make a case,” Sessions said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” programme.
“You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable, evil attack,” he told ABC. The Justice Department has launched a civil rights inquiry in connection with the incident, and the driver, a 20-year-old Ohio man who was said to have had a history of neoNazi beliefs, has been charged with second-degree murder.
On Monday, a judge denied bail for the suspected attacker, James Fields.
Already on Sunday, the White House and top administration officials strove to defend the president.
“The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred,” the White House said in a statement. “Of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.”
“These dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life and in the American debate, and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms,” Vice President Mike Pence said at a news conference in Cartagena, Colombia.
But Pence also defended Trump, saying the president “clearly and unambiguously condemned the bigotry, violence and hatred” on display in Charlottesville.