Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called the white supremacist rhetoric surrounding the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month “abhorrent to American values.”
“In Charlottesville this month, we saw and heard people openly advocate racism and bigotry. Our Department of Justice responded immediately,” Rosenstein told a Utah anti-terrorism conference Wednesday. “The First Amendment often protects hateful speech that is abhorrent to American values. But there can be no safe harbor for violence.”
His comments contrast with those made by President Donald Trump at a news conference the week after the rally, in which he blamed “both sides” — the white supremacists and those protesting them — for the violence that left one person dead and several injured.
Rosenstein is the second high-ranking Jewish member of Trump’s administration to firmly condemn the white supremacist groups at Charlottesville in the past week.
In a candid interview with the Financial Times conducted last week, Gary Cohn, the National Economic Council director, said Trump’s handling of the Charlottesville violence and protests caused him “distress.” He said the administration “can and must do better” to condemn hate groups.
“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. I believe this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities. As a Jewish-American, I will not allow neo-Nazis ranting ‘Jews will not replace us’ to cause this Jew to leave his job,” Cohn said.
During Wednesday’s conference, Rosenstein additionally warned of a real threat of domestic terrorism, saying “violent domestic extremists” have conducted killing sprees in the US, assassinated law enforcement officers and judges and have gotten a hold of not just illegal guns and explosives but also “biological and chemical weapons.