WASHINGTON — Lawmakers called domestic extremism "a growing cancer" following disturbing testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Members of the House Oversight Committee heard chilling tales of horrifying acts, all regarding the rise of white supremacy, domestic extremism and hate crimes and the ongoing threat to democracy.
"Our work shows that domestic extremism remains a clear and present danger to our democracy," Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, said. "Extremists embrace and promote a wide range of hatreds: Islamophobia, misogyny and anti-democrat conspiracies."
"I've been threatened by anonymous online accounts that have stated they want to tie me to an F-ing post and set me on fire," Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, said.
She continued: "Others have targeted me with violent imagery of trans people being hanged. I've received physical letters that have glorified genocide and openly fantasized about being able to legally murder people like me."
The committee laid out numbers from the Southern Poverty Law Center: 733 hate groups operating in the United States today, including 98 white nationalist groups, 61 anti-Semitic groups, 50 anti-Muslim groups, 65 anti-LGBTQ groups, 16 neo-Confederate groups and 18 Ku Klux Klan groups.
"This is a horrifying amount of people in numbers, and hate is on the rise in our country," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D- New York) said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) added: "Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security identify white supremacy as the most lethally dangerous domestic terror threat our country faces."
The ranking Republican on the committee pointed out that it is not just right-wing groups causing trouble.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) noted "Antifa attacks" and "anarchist attacks," which she claimed that the FBI "doesn't truly track in terms of their metrics."