House Republicans deny far-right links to Buffalo mass shooter and Paul Pelosi attacker despite evidence

GOP lawmakers downplayed far-right ideologies behind high-profile attacks in final hearing in years-long series on white supremacist and antidemocratic violence

The House Judiciary Committee has concluded a seven-part series of hearings on white supremacist violence and far-right antidemocratic threats in the US, with hours of testimony addressing the scope and scale of white nationalism, political violence, and threats to LGBT+ people.

A final hearing on 13 December – the committee’s last before Republican lawmakers take majority control of the House of Representatives next year – followed six other hearings on “confronting white supremacy” that started in early 2019, nearly two years before a mob stormed the US Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“It would be comforting to believe that the threat of violent white supremacy has subsided here in America in the wake of more than 900 criminal prosecutions being brought by the United States Department of Justice against January 6 insurrectionists and rioters,” committee chair Jamie Raskin said in his opening statement. “But the threats have not subsided at all and are very much still with us today.”

He pointed to the massacre of 10 Black people inside a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on 14 May, an attack perpetrated by an 18-year-old who espoused white nationalist, antisemitic and fascist views, shared in a manifesto influenced by far-right 4chan message board writings and the mass killings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But House Republicans on the committee falsely claimed that the gunman – Payton Gendron, who has pleaded guilty to one count of an act of domestic terrorism motivated by hate and 10 counts of first-degree murder, among other charges – was politically left and a “socialist”.

Republican US Rep Andy Biggs said Gendron is a “heinous, evil being, absolutely – there can be no excuse for it.”

“But we hear a lot about right-wing extremists. This guy was an admitted socialist,” he said.

Republican US Rep Byron Donalds claimed that Gendron “most definitely” cited “socialist theories” in his manifesto.

“If you combine all the issues with the Buffalo shooter, you had somebody who wanted to kill Black people, obviously that’s a white supremacist move. … But he also espoused ideals from the left-wing of politics. Both things can occur at the same time,” he said.

Mr Donalds claimed that Democratic officials have sought to use the hearings to inextricably link white supremacism to right-wing politics, though the hearings and federal law enforcement have discussed a range of extremist violence across the political spectrum.

“We should be clear that those targeted were targeted because they were Black … And we should understand that the killer identified himself as an enthno-nationalist, as an eco-fascist, and a national socialist, which is a reference to the Nazi party,” said expert witness Eric Ward, senior adviser with Western States Center.

“I think it’s important not to mislead in terms of the driving force of these killers, which was antisemitism,” he added. “They were attacking a Black population because they saw African Americans as a puppet of a Jewish cabal, a Jewish conspiracy, and that’s why they acted with violence.”

“Any sober look at the Buffalo shooter’s manifesto … and the symbols and names on his weapons … would recognise that attack as clearly a white supremacist attack,” said Oren Segal, vice president at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

Seventy-five per cent of extremist-related murders in the past 10 years have been carried out by right-wing extremists, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“That does not mean that extremist violence is the sole domain of any one extremist movement or group,” Mr Segal told the panel. “They frankly pale in comparison to the threats and violence from right-wing extremists.”

Mr Biggs also discussed the man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, a suspect who left behind a digital footprint immersed in toxic far-right conspiracy theories and memes.

David DePape, who has been charged by a federal grand jury on charges of assault and attempted kidnapping, trafficked in Holocaust denialism, false claims about the 2020 election and Covid-19, and

He allegedly told police he was on a “suicide mission”.

Mr Biggs, however, called him a “radical leftist”.

Their comments reflect an apparent consensus across right-wing media that denies far-right ideologies motivating high-profile white supremacist attacks, and a baseless assertion that fascism and Nazism are forms of liberal authoritarianism and not far-right ideologies.

Mr Ward said the past decade’s surge in politically oriented violence reflects a growing trend of “mission-driven” violence, meaning that “there is a political ideology, a goal of undermining democracy” behind the attacks.

“What we’re seeing in the country now … are planned acts of violence that are driven by a worldview that believes that Jews are somehow part of a racialised conspiracy to destroy the white race,” he said.

Mr Segal said a constellation of social media platforms and websites provide a tool to “reach, recruit and radicalise” domestic violent extremists that “has animated real-world activity.”

“Where is this propaganda created? It is created in online spaces, leveraged by people who share it, and it shows up on the ground,” he said. “There is a direct pipeline.”

Alejandro Caraballo, an outspoken LGBT+ advocate clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s Cyberlaw Clinic, told the panel that social media companies have failed to meaningfully intervene, “allowing the active spread of algorithmic amplification and monetisation of this hate content.”

Ms Caraballo, who is transgender, detailed to the panel the violent online threats and harassment she has faced by far-right users, including baseless “groomer” and “pedophile” smears, leaks of her personal information, threatening mail, and anonymous online messages to “tie her to a “f****** post and set [her] on fire”.

“No one should go through this for vocally defending their community,” she said. “But I will not be intimidated.”