Lawmakers Consider Domestic Terrorism Statute After Jan. 6 Attack

The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was on lawmakers' minds Thursday as they discussed the possibility of enacting a domestic terrorism statute, The Hill reported.

Civil rights groups have warned that such a law could be used to target groups of Americans, but lawmakers seemed to be leaning toward such a statute in light of the attack that left five people dead right in the seat of power of one of the three branches of federal government, just one month ago.

"This act of terrorism was not an isolated incident," House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson D-Miss., said during a hearing on the incident. He pointed out there had been multiple warnings from the FBI on the rising strength of domestic terrorism groups.

"We will begin to shed light on why these warnings were not heeded," Thompson said. "The irrefutable fact is that the threat of right-wing and more specifically, white nationalist terrorism has been growing for years. The previous administration failed to address this threat appropriately, and on January 6th we saw the result right here."

Civil rights groups fear that such a statute could be used to target Black Lives Matter and other such groups in the future.

But Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who supports the measure, said, "it sends a strong message about where Congress is that we're going treat domestic terrorism on an equal plane as international terrorism."

Testifying before the committee, Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention at the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, said: "It doesn't make sense to me why if you commit a crime in the name of white supremacy or you commit a crime in the name of an ISIS ideology that you get more jail time for ISIS versus a violent white supremacist act."

"What we have to do in our zeal to go after the violent component is not accidentally brand as enemies of the state, a broader section of our population," said Brian Michael Jenkins, a RAND Corporation terrorism expert. "That's one of the reasons actually why I want so much of our efforts against the violent extremists to be done within the ordinary criminal code. Put aside the political pretensions; don't give them that. These are crimes — murder assault willful destruction of property — deal with it on that basis."

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