Ari Melber (22:05)
Elected officials facing attacks in the past few years, from President Trump to Speaker Pelosi's family to Governor Shapiro after the recent killing of Republican Charlie Kirk, there were swift, strong claims about this type of violence and what led to it and how to respond. Assessing this grave problem requires evidence, facts and detail while also patrolling against partisan bias, which can be very hard when some of the crimes here are political, designed to incite, plus the emotions running high. Understandably, our report now documents the actual motives in recent violence as determined by law enforcement. Now for anyone craving a simple binary story about only one side's blame, you're not going to find it here in the facts or the sometimes vague motives as reviewed by investigators. Across history, we know us political violence has ebbed and flowed over time. Spikes during periods of unrest. The trends have sometimes shown ideological bends. Political violence surged starting in the late 1960s. Reuters reports. By the early 70s that violence was perpetuated more often by radicals. On the left. The radical groups doing the largest number of political attacks were coming from the fringe left, thriving. Mostly left wing violence focused on destroying property like government buildings. And that era was upended by the assassinations of leaders across the spectrum, attempted or executed assassinations. That type of violence actually waned in the 80s, then came back with some right wing anti government violence in the 90s. The Oklahoma City bombing killing 168 people, the deadliest act of domestic terror perpetuated by two US born terrorists. The FBI finding they were motivated by anti government militia aligned views. Now in the decades since, right wing violence is increasing. And so here are the facts for the current and our recent era. Right wing and anti government violence is the most common political violence. It is also the most deadly. Over the past three decades, far right extremists led 20 I should say 220 attacks compared to far left extremists leading 42 attacks. That's roughly five times as by the far right. And if you look at the body count, as investigators do, those attacks resulting in far right extremist violence leading to about or over 520 deaths, left wing attacks resulting in the death of about the number you see there, 78. That's six times as many death. A federal government accounting shows the number of far right attacks outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. This was explained to Congress by the first person Trump appointed to permanently lead the FBI, Chris Wray. Testifying under oath in 2019 about far right and racist acts, he explained that Most of the FBI's domestic terror cases involved white supremacist motives. A majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we've investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence. Those are the facts on the motives. If it sounds different than some of what you've heard lately or ever, if it sounds different than what the government is saying now, that's because in part, the Trump administration has officials trying to disappear those facts literally. Under AG Bondi, the DOJ removed the factual study on far right extremists committing, quote, far more violence than the left in this current era. Investigative reporter Jason Palladino discovering that change just days after Charlie Kirk was killed. Now, the administration is also undercutting the work that tracks domestic terror and hate crimes, which is odd if you want to know the facts to deal with them. That's the current government's effort. But hiding that kind of report does not hide the facts. And as Trump's FBI director testified, a majority of this coming from white supremacist violence. Numbers showing more deadly right wing terror. There are also cases that do not fall neatly into one clear motive at all. We are going to show you a chart for the recent probes of major incidents of political violence. Right now you see it's blank. We're going to show you what authorities found about each motive. Two major extremist shootings in 15 and 16 where Islamic terror motivated those shooters. The killer of 49, a Pulse nightclub also had ties to Islamist groups. But authorities didn't find a determined motive. The killer of five Dallas officers had the motive of killing white officers. The FBI found the shooter of Republican lawmakers on a baseball field was motivated by domestic violent extremism and had posted anti Trump messages online. The DOJ found the Charlottesville killer was a white supremacist committing hate inspired act of domestic terror. Authorities also found terror and inciting fear. The motive of the person mailing bombs to Democrats and Trump critics. DOJ found a white supremacist had anti Semitic motives in killing 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue and a white supremacist who attacked that El Paso Walmart. It was anti government motives for the kidnapping plot against Governor Whitmer, a Democrat. Then I'm moving through this fairly swiftly. The most wide scale incident of political violence in a single day in decades was of course the people convicted of storming the Capitol after Trump summoned them to D.C. on 1-6-21. Mitch McConnell called it an insurrection that very night. DOJ determined the core motive was political violence, using force to oppose the lawful transfer of power. Trump freed the convicted on that day, those convicted for what they did that day. And I will return to that because it's relevant. But here in our chart I want to show you the white supremacist shooter and attacker that was seeking to punish Pelosi. That's one. And above it, the Buffalo supermarket attack was terror targeting black people. The attempted assassination of Trump last year came with a shooter with a mixed background. The FBI found that he searched for Trump and Biden before the attack. And while the effort the attempt is terrible, the FBI's probe has complicated the potential motive and thus authorities say it actually remains undetermined. This year, an arsonist targeted Democratic Governor Shapiro's house, citing Gaza. A shooter killed two Minnesota Democrats. And like the Trump shooter probe note, authorities have not determined a clear motive there. And that is the same status in the probe of Charlie Kirk's assassin. It's very early in that case. Politicians have spoken out, but law enforcement has not finalized a determined motive. The shooter's text said he had enough of what he viewed as Kirk's, quote, hate, unquote. Tracking these incidents shows how the violence varies and can be complicated. And as I showed you, remember, the motives for some attacks are undetermined by the authorities. That's what the people investigating are able to determine. A contrast to many rushing to assume or declare motives sometimes within hours of an incident. Some attacks on politicians may not be political violence at all. Now let me explain. By sourcing one of the US Government's terror experts, former CIA advisor Bruce Hoffman, who's written books on this and notes that criminals pursuing political violence or terror are quote, different from the lunatic assassin who may seek the same objective, the death of a political figure, a terrorist goal is political, to change a political system through the violence. While the Lunatic assassin's goal, he writes, is quote, more often egocentric and personal. Hinckley, who tried to kill Reagan in 81 to impress Jodie Foster, acted not from a political motivation, but to impress his screen idol. That is one well known and extreme example. Hoffman warning against simply misinterpreting the motive of some acts and also against allowing those would be violent extremists or terrorists to try to determine our choices or our priorities. And the data shows the recent attacks I would just walk through them with you also seem to reflect reinforce those trends. The FBI found the right wing and white supremacist violence is the top threat numerically. Those are the facts. I just walked you through it. In brief, we've done a lot of research and citations to get there. Now I want to turn to the second part and it's the one you may know pretty well from recent political discourse. I want to turn to the elected leaders reactions to this varied mix of violence. Sometimes top officials are united in condemning it. President Trump and many Republicans condemned the killing of those Minnesota Democrats I mentioned, as did Democratic leaders. National party leaders have rebuked the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump. A few local Democratic officials posted baseless questions about whether that shooting was staged or undercutting, quote, unquote, sympathy for Trump, which drew criticism for minimizing that terrible attempted assassination. Now, there were two assassination attempts made against Trump. National Democratic leaders were clear about condemning the violence at the time. I can show you that right now there is no, and I mean this from the bottom.
