The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that he and his colleagues are initiating an investigation into a rise in hate crimes, and suggested President Trump’s pro-America rhetoric may be playing a role.

“He calls himself a nationalist. He falsely claims that ‘foreigners’ are the primary sources of domestic terror. He famously claimed that there were ‘some very fine people on both sides’ of the riot in Charlottesville — where a neo-Nazi demonstration ended in the death of one counter-protestor and two officers of the Virginia state police,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat.

His comments came in a letter to the FBI, Justice Department and Homeland Security Department demanding more data on the rise in reports of hate crimes, and on how the administration pursues investigations.

He set a Dec. 31 deadline for the information, saying Congress has been kept “largely in the dark” on homegrown violence, and particularly from white supremacists.

“There appears to be a politically driven effort to diminish programs that empower communities to counter the influence of extremist ideology,” he wrote.

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