Congress urges Donald Trump to condemn Charlottseville violence, White supremacy

In a resolution sent to the White House on 12 September, the Congress urged the United States President Donald Trump to take a stand in condemning White supremacy and racist hate groups.

The House on 12 September unanimously approved a bipartisan joint resolution from Virginia lawmakers, and presented the resolution for Trump's signature, in an effort to secure a firmer denunciation of racist extremist, by the President.

The resolution also called the death of Heather Heyer in the rally protesting the White nationalist rally a "domestic terrorist attack", and denounced "White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups", reported Washington Post.

A car driven by a White Supremacist ran over Heather Heyer during the counter-protest rally, which led to her death.

Trump was widely criticized after he attributed the fault for violence to "both sides", and suggested that some "very fine people" were among the white-nationalist marchers.

The Washington Post report further said that the resolution calls on Trump to "speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy" and also "use all resources available to the President and the President's Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States."

It also calls on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "investigate thoroughly all acts of violence, intimidation, and domestic terrorism by White supremacists, White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and associated groups" and to "improve the reporting of hate crimes" to the FBI.

"The first thing it's going to do is give some real comfort for these families," Kaine said,referring to the deaths of Heyer and two Virginia State Police troopers who had been patrolling the rally in a helicopter that later crashed.

"No. 2, I think it's great for [ Democrats and Republicans] to be able to make a moral call that white supremacy's not acceptable, and I want the president to have to sign it," he added. "We wouldn't have had to add in that point had he not demonstrated this moral equivocation at the time, but I think it would be a really good thing." 

-ANI