Members of the Congressional Black Caucus grilled Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday at a congressional hearing about the lack of racial diversity among his senior level staff and an FBI report on “Black extremists” groups, ABC News reported.
“Do you believe there is a movement of African Americans that identify themselves as black identity extremists, and what does that movement do?” Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) asked Sessions, protesting what appears to be unfair labeling of movements like Black Lives Matter.
The FBI produced a 12-page report in August about groups that the agency views as Black extremists. It claims that these organizations are targeting law enforcement agencies after police officers kill Black men. Sessions denied seeing the report, which prompted Bass to ask him whether the FBI produced a similar report on the Ku Klux Klan and other White supremacist groups. Sessions said he is unaware of a similar study about White hate groups.
Rep. Cedric Richond (D-La.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, raised the issue of a lack of diversity among Session’s top-level staff at the Department of Justice and nominations for federal judge. An analysis found that President Donald Trump’s nominees have been 91 percent White and 81 percent male.