McMaster: Charlottesville Violence is Domestic Terrorism

What happened at Charlottesville this weekend was a tragedy. 19 were injured and one person was killed by the car that smashed into protesters. Then two state troopers died in a helicopter crash while monitoring the protest from above.

Although President Donald Trump made it clear that violence, bigotry, and hatred were not tolerable ­– the liberal media, Democrats and even some Republicans were quick to criticize his response, calling it “vague” and not forceful enough in denouncing some of the groups that marched Saturday.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time,” said Trump in response to Charlottesville.  

“This isn’t a time for innuendo or to allow room to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame,” said Sen. Cory Gardner to NBC Sunday in response to Trump’s statement.  

Since the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer didn’t see Trump’s initial comments as a “condemnation,” this also fueled the liberal media’s backlash.

“Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. … No condemnation at all,” wrote the website.

Then on Sunday, the White House issued another statement with more specifics to make it clear that ALL radical groups were condemned.

“The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups,” said a White House spokesperson. “He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.” 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended Trump’s stance.

“He condemned it,’ said Sessions to CBS This Morning. “He called on us to love one another. He was strong about that.” 

He also said that he sees the car incident as an act of domestic terrorism.

“This individual had no right to drive a car into people, killing her and seriously injuring others,” said Sessions to CBS. “This is absolutely unacceptable. The president has directed us to get after it. Our FBI people are working on it assiduously. Justice will be done. We’re coming after these people. It will not be tolerated. It cannot be tolerated in America.” 

H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser expressed similar sentiments.  

McMaster said on ABC’s This Week that “anytime that you commit an attack against people to incite fear, it is terrorism” and call Saturday’s incident “a criminal act against fellow Americans. A criminal act that may have been motivated — and we’ll see what’s turned up in this investigation — by this hatred and bigotry, which I mentioned we have to extinguish in our nation.” 

Although the protest in Charlottesville attracted unsavory groups from the alt-right, groups on the other side, like “Antifa” and supporters of the “Black Lives Matter” movement have also been known to intentionally incite violence to voice their viewpoints.

“Antifa has emerged as the militant fringe of #TheResistance against Donald Trump — who, they maintain, is a fascist, ushering into power a fascist regime. In Washington, D.C., Antifa spent the morning of Inauguration Day lighting trash cans on fire, throwing rocks and bottles at police officers, setting ablaze a limousine, and tossing chunks of pavement through the windows of several businesses,” writes the National Review.

“I’m still waiting for someone, anyone from the self-righteous perpetually outraged media to condemn #antifa or #blm violence,” tweeted Bill Mitchell, host of the YouTube YourVoice™ America show.

Author’s note: Trump’s first statement was broad for a reason. ALL groups responsible for being contributing to the violence on Saturday deserve to be called out. The left has also become more violent as of late. This is becoming a trend, starting with the violent protesters during the Trump campaign and now these groups are just getting more organized. 

Editor’s note: Calling this “domestic terrorism” invites legitimate investigation at a national level. Local police are not equipped to find out who has paid leftist agitators to cause violence. The FBI and Homeland Security might be able to track this back to the source (Watch out Soros!).