“Domestic Terrorism”: AG Sessions Takes Hard Line on Charlottesville

While the media stays relentlessly focused on whether or not President Trump was forceful enough in his condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend, Trump’s attorney general is not mincing words. Jeff Sessions said Monday that there was no excuse for the actions of James Alex Fields, the young man who intentionally drove his car into a crowd of left-wing protesters at the conclusion of what had already been a chaotic day of brawling. In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, he said the Justice Department was investigating the case with an eye towards federal prosecution.

“It does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute,” Sessions said of the vehicle attack that left one woman dead and 19 others injured. “You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable evil attack.”

While Sessions is being heralded as a more direct administration voice against the white supremacist ideology that allegedly inspired the perpetrator, he hedged when asked to criticize Trump’s response to the violence. Asked to explain why the president did not specifically call out white supremacy by name in his speech, Sessions said, “He said that yesterday – his spokesman did.”

When the hosts pressed him on what the president himself said, Sessions waved it away. “I think we’re making too much of this,” he said on CBS.

Well, of course “we” are, if Sessions means “we” as the media. It’s yet ANOTHER way for them to torpedo Trump and lump his supporters in with the lunatic behind the wheel on Saturday. And whenever they see an opportunity to resurrect the tired meme about Trump = Hitler, they’re going to do it, and they’re going to do it hard.

Now perhaps Trump could have saved himself a headache or two by being more direct in his denouncement of the neo-Nazis in attendance at Saturday’s rally, but that’s not the president’s style. He sees what the media refuses to see, which is that it takes two to tango. There’s clearly no defending the white supremacists in Charlottesville, nor the driver of the car. But there’s also no defending those Antifa scum who came out deliberately to make trouble, start fights, punch reporters, and use makeshift flamethrowers to intimidate the other side. Neither side deserves a pass, even if one individual psycho happened to go WAY too far.