Virginia lawmakers press DOJ for update on how agency is addressing hate groups

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Mark Warner, D-Va., are requesting the Justice Department provide an update on how the agency has executed a resolution denouncing white nationalists and supremacists, a request that comes as the anniversary of the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville approaches.

The August 12, 2017 Unite the Right rally, which was organized to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, resulted in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer, who died after a self-identified neo-Nazi drove a vehicle into a crowd. Virginia State Police Troopers Lt. H. Jay Cullen III and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates were also killed in a helicopter crash while policing the event.