House Judiciary witness compares U.S. Capitol rioters unfavorably with Civil War secessionists

Malcolm Nance, a Democratic witness before the House Judiciary Committee, said the attack by pro-Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol last month was in a certain respect more deplorable than when the South seceded from the Union. 

"A lot of people like to say what we’re seeing here in the white supremacist movement is really an act of patriotism or politics -- no, this is tribalism at its rawest form," the Founder and Executive Director of Terror Asymmetrics Project said during a hearing Wednesday on domestic terrorism.

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"One of the reasons why we have a lot of heartburn with what happened with the insurrection on the Capitol, and why it is not equivalent to the protests in Portland...was the fact that they came to overthrow the government and to install a president as a monarch, as a dictator," Nance continued. "That is the difference here, it has never happened in American history, even the South attempted to use tenants of the Constitution for secession."

Wednesday’s hearing was intended to address the rise in domestic terrorism in the U.S. and how to best handle it from a law enforcement and congressional perspective.

Republicans said the committee should also consider Antifa’s actions during the summer riots, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, where the group that stands for Anti-Fascist, held nightly violent riots in Portland and Seattle.

But the hearing became tense after Florida Republican Greg Steube grew frustrated with the witnesses who would not agree that the summer riots constituted domestic terrorism.

Steube prompted severe backlash from Missouri Democrat Rep. Cori Bush after he suggested the Black Lives Matter movement should also be considered domestic terrorism. 

Bush, who got her political start by participating in the Black Lives Matter movement following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, condemned the Florida Republican.

"I’m one of those Black Live Matter activists you’re talking about," she said following Steube’s time. "We cannot equate white nationalist violence with…a righteous movement for justice.

"But for white supremacy in which you benefit, we would not be in the streets demanding to be heard to save lives. And let me say this -- had you fixed it before now, we wouldn’t be here," she added.

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Former FBI agent Michael German said the reason that white supremacy is rarely categorized as domestic terrorism, is because federal officials often treat an incident as a "stand-alone" offense, or pass it off to local officials -- meaning the crime’s data are not properly collected.

Nance frustrated Republican committee witness, Andy Ngo -- a Portland-based journalist who has been physically assaulted by Antifa – after the Democrat said that the riots this summer equate to "civil disobedience" rather than actual domestic terrorism.

"For whatever you want to say about what happened in Portland or Seattle or Kenosha, those were not acts of terrorism...they were acts of civil disobedience and protests," Nance said during Wednesday’s hearing. "We’ve seen equal vigor at Super Bowl protests, where we’ve seen fire and fights."

Ngo -- who later pushed back on Nance’s comments on Twitter -- called on the congressional lawmakers to cool their rhetoric and consider investigating all forms of political extremism. 

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"Anybody who defends the institutions of this country [Antifa views] as fascistic in one way or another," Ngo said, adding that "they’re calling for the overthrow of the American government.

"I’m not here to say that there is no threat coming from the far right, that’s not my area of expertise," he told the committee. "At the beginning, we heard that 75 percent of deaths from domestic terrorist attacks come from the far right, does that mean that the other 25 percent doesn’t deserve attention – I don’t think so."

"It’s about keeping all Americans safe, and that includes investigating all extremist ideologies," Ngo added.