There was a fascinating (and, ultimately, futile) hearing before the House Oversight subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties. The stated purpose of the hearing was "Confronting White Supremacy," which theoretically is a damn good thing. Various FBI officials appeared. Congressfolk asked questions. And everybody pretended not to notice that the whole thing was an outtake from a Joseph Heller novel. This was best illustrated by an exchange between FBI counterterrorism expert Michael McGarrity and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She was trying to get McGarrity to explain why certain mass shootings—e.g., the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando—were investigated by the FBI as terrorist acts but others, like the murders at Mother Emanuel in Charleston and at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, were not. McGarrity explained that the former crimes were connected to "foreign terrorism" and therefore fell under the applicable statutes. He and Ocasio-Cortez then got in a bit of a wrangle over whether or not McGarrity meant "Muslim" when he said "foreign terrorism," but they soon got down to the basic kernel of the problem.

AOC: IS WHITE SUPREMACY NOT A GLOBAL ISSUE?

MCGARRITY: IT IS A GLOBAL ISSUE.

AOC: SO WHY ARE THEY NOT CHARGED WITH FOREIGN --

MCGARRITY: BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS DOESN'T HAVE A STATUTE FOR US FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM LIKE WE DO IN A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION LIKE ISIS, AL QAEDA, AL SHABAAB.

And there is the incredible truth of it. At a time of rising white supremacist violence, arguably being encouraged at the highest level of our government, and spreading in any case from Mother Emanuel to mosques in New Zealand, the Department of Justice cannot label such acts as terrorism because there is no law under which they can do it.

(Remember, a federal judge released Christopher Hasson, the heavily armed lunatic who threatened Democratic politicians and a number of media types, because there was no statute under which he could be held as a potential terrorist, even though a number of federal law-enforcement officials called him that.)

Why there is no law defining white supremacist violence as terrorism is an interesting question to ask your elected representatives, especially if you live in Charleston or Pittsburgh.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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