US attorney general Loretta Lynch spoke at a mosque in Virginia on Monday in an attempt to calm fears about rising hate crimes in the wake of the election, and the future of the Department of Justice under the Trump administration.

Lynch spoke at an interfaith event held at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center. She highlighted the post-election spike in hate crimes that have targeted a variety of groups.

“There is a pernicious thread that connects the act of violence against a woman wearing a hijab to the assault on a transgender man to the tragic deaths of nine innocent African-Americans during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina,” she said. “There is a thread that links all of those and when one of us is threatened all of us are threatened.”

Lynch’s visit comes on the heels of the FBI’s release of hate crime statistics for 2015, which found that hate crimes overall had risen by 6% since 2014 and there was a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans specifically – the highest spike since 9/11.

Furthermore, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking incidents reported directly to them or published in the media. In the ten days following the election the advocacy group counted 867 hate incidents. SPLC’s president also directly tied these incidents to the election of Donald Trump and the rhetoric he used during the campaign.

Lynch did not name the Trump administration but she acknowledged fears that some have expressed about the future.

“I know that many Americans are feeling uncertainty and anxiety as we witness the recent eruption of divisive rhetoric and hateful deeds,” she said. “I know that many Americans are wondering if they are in danger simply because of what they look like or where they pray. I know that some are wondering whether the progress we have made at such great cost, and over so many years, is in danger of sliding backwards.”

Trump will nominate Jeff Sessions, US senator from Alabama, to take over from Lynch as attorney general. The senator’s checkered history, including allegedly using the N-word and referring to a black assistant US attorney as “boy”, combined with his anti-immigrant stance, has left many fearing the impact he will have on the department’s civil rights division.

In addition to her visit to the mosque, Lynch is expected to further discuss hate crimes with a group of LGBTQ students at the Harvey Milk high school in New York on Tuesday, where she will also visit the Stonewall Inn and Stonewall National Monument.