WASHINGTON, DC – Today, May 2, 2017, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Eric Treene, Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination, Office of the U.S. Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, about religious hate crimes, protecting religious freedom, and improving reporting of these crimes. 

“In Delaware, I've been alarmed to see our Jewish community targeted with multiple bomb threats and to see our Muslim-American neighbors and friends fearful as a result of the toxic rhetoric and instances of violence around the country,” said Senator Coons. “And you, sir, have testified that there has been a noticeable uptick in violent crimes, hate crimes against Muslims and those who are perceived to be Muslim. In my home state, we've had a period of positive rallies, promoting tolerance at our JCC, at our main mosque, at our General Assembly. But, citizens from my state are asking for a clear, unified message from federal law enforcement and our federal government.”

Full audio and video are available here. 

Senator Coons’ full Q&A, as delivered, is below:

Senator Coons: As you've heard from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we are deeply concerned about the rise in hate crimes targeting religious minority faiths in the United States and their steady rise.

In Delaware, I've been alarmed to see our Jewish community targeted with multiple bomb threats and to see our Muslim-American neighbors and friends fearful as a result of the toxic rhetoric and instances of violence around the country. And you, sir, have testified that there has been a noticeable uptick in violent crimes, hate crimes, against Muslims and those who are perceived to be Muslim.

In my home state, we've had a period of positive rallies, promoting tolerance at our JCC, at our main mosque, at our General Assembly. But, citizens from my state are asking for a clear, unified message from federal law enforcement and from our federal government. 

And you and the administration have gotten that message: 100 senators joined a letter back in March calling for DOJ, DHS, FBI to take swift response to widespread bomb threats against JCCs and, I'll just submit for the record, it's pretty rare that 100 of us agree on anything, and in April, Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein led a letter to Attorney General Sessions saying that the DOJ needs to directly address the steadily increasing number of religiously-motivated hate crimes. 

So, Mr. Treene, I have two questions for you. First would be, how do you establish priorities when there are so many different groups that are feeling unsafe, they feel threatened, they feel that the proportion of threats against them as a percentage of the population as you suggest in your testimony is steadily going up? And, how do we pursue prosecution, and how do we change the temperature? 

My second question, frankly, follows up on what Senator Franken asked. I am encouraged by your statement that you've gotten a consistent message from Attorney General Sessions to keep prosecuting hate crimes. But, this is in response to a significant deficit, created in the course of the campaign, where I'll suggest that then-candidate Trump in rally after rally and Senator Franken cited one that happened in Minnesota, made statements about a Muslim ban, about immigrants, about those of minority faiths, that I think led to an inflaming of passions in an unconstructive way. And I do think that the continued presence of Steve Bannon as one of his most senior advisers continues to send mixed messages. So, while I'm encouraged, sir, that you say the Attorney General has sent a consistent message--that's good--I am concerned that there is a mixed message being sent to our country; that President Trump last week at the Yom HaShoah event made positive appropriate statements about combatting religiously-motivated hatred and violence. But, there is a lot of work to do to overcome an accumulated deficit, a message that was spread far and wide during the campaign, and that Steve Bannon's presence in the White House continues to reinforce, that is a mixed message.

How do you set priorities, sir, and how do you set those priorities that deals with this deficit in confidence among some religious minorities in this country who feel that they were targeted in the course of the campaign? 

Mr. Treene: We want to be able to ensure that every hate crime that occurs in the United States is punished with a just punishment. And that's something that the federal government alone cannot do, but we have 94 US Attorneys working with state and local law enforcement, and it's a very complex, our system of government is very complex. But, it's a complex system of working with state and locals, finding cases, if maybe we don't think they're pursuing it strongly enough and then stepping in and having a tough discussion, or more often, having a give and take about where and who should be prosecuting this case. It's complex, but we're a country with 50 different states, a web of Federalist laws, so that's how we do it. But it's something that I think we can do better and that's part of the purpose of this task force and the summit we're having in June. On the question of messaging, one of the things we're always trying to do is we send a message in our actions when we are prosecuting a case, Tom Wheeler has been very strong in his press statements, and the US Attorney's press statements in these hate crimes, especially the Muslim gate crimes, saying that an attack on one faith is an attack on our fundamental principles, and that we as Americans, cannot stand as one group is attacked. And I think that messaging is very important coming from the Civil Rights Division coming from the Attorney General and the whole Justice Department. 

Senator Coons: Thank you, sir, I suspect at some point this administration will advance a nominee to head the Civil Rights Division, and I am hopeful that this Committee will send a unified message that we expect the prosecution of hate crimes particularly against religious minorities, particularly against those when there has been a steady uptick in both hate speech and hate crimes against them, will be high in his or her priorities. 

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