speaking at a justice department summit, jeff sessions vowed to prosecute federal hate crime against transgender people. a new report found half of all hate crimes are never reported to police. this ten minutes. rachel is a great addition to the department of justice and i can feel her strength and leadership within days and you can be sure you have a professional person of integrity and ability in that position. before my colleagues in the judiciary committee for the confirmation, i assured them

basically i've been a member of the bar of justice for 15 years and i know the responsibilities that we have and we have the responsibility to protect people's freedom, their religious rights, their integrity, their ability to express themselves and to push back against violence and hate crimes occur in our country so we are going to do that i will assure you in every way. i also want to say how much i appreciate tom wheeler and his leadership. i've already met with robert on a number of difficult cases and i have been so impressed with his integrity, his knowledge of the law and understanding of the challenges that we face in any case. we appreciate you and your 23 years in the department. we want to have that kind of professional department of justice that you can be proud

of. stephanie rosenstein has 27 years in the department, served on 12 years united states attorney and in the last tour of duty i believe you will find this team that we put together one that you will respect and appreciate as we go forward. i'm grateful for all of you that are here today and i appreciate the help that you will be providing in confronting the problems that we face. the chump administration at the department of justice are committed to reducing violent crime and hate crimes and making america safe. as you know, hate crimes are all often precursors to violent crimes or indeed are violent crimes. no person should have to fear being attacked because of who they are, what they believe or how they worship. so i pledge to you as long as i am the attorney general of the department of justice we will continue to protect the civil rights of all americans, and we

will not tolerate the targeting of any community in our country. in february, as we wrestle with how to organize the effort against crime we established a department of justice task for force. they worked through five subcommittees including one specifically set forth to address hate crimes. i asked tom to serve as the turninservice thetrimming of the crime subcommittee which includes representatives from our u.s. attorneys community, the department of justice community relations service, the fbi, the community oriented policing office, the office of justice programs, the office of victims of crimes into the criminal division. the subcommittee is seeking feedback and this is what you will be giving today from

communities through events like this we need to hear from you about what is happening in your communities and the concerns and problems you face. i've also asked the subcommittee to explore ways to expand and improve training for federal, state and local prosecutors and instigators on hate crimes and how we can work together better to help the affected communities in our state and local law enforcement part is and how we can improve data collection on hate crimes. the department of justice is taking action. the department has prosecuted in the number of high-profile cases this year and we seek to bring criminals to justice. in march thanks to the outstanding and extensive work of the fbi and our international partners a suspect was found and arrested in israel for allegedly

making threatening phone calls to jewish community centers. i met with individuals, people that work in those centers and understood just how disruptive it is to have a call when you have children and classes in your center and somebody says there is a bomb and you have to evacuate the school, call parents and this is happening all over the country and it is totally unacceptable. so this is the kind of thing that we cannot tolerate in our country. so, we've now identified or suspects. federal charges have been brought against him, and our investigation continues as to whether possible hate crimes are a statute violation that has occurred. the department will continue to lend its full support to local law enforcement communities so we can fight crimes like bees.

just last week we saw in the federal grand jury returned against burglary and arson on the islamic center. he now faces up to four years in prison. earlier a man in tennessee was sentenced to over 19 years in prison for trying to recruit people and help them burn down a mosque in a small town in new york. also this month, for shooting three men at a bar because they thought that they were of persian or order. he was just 32 years of age, a promising blithely ahead of him. so, we have and continue to enforce crime laws aggressively and appropriately where transgender individuals or victim. last month joshua brandon was sentenced to 49 years for

assaulting and murdering mercedes williamson. this is the first case prosecuted under the hate crimes prevention act. a lot of concerns and questions so i've directed the civil rights division to work with the united states attorney's office in federal bureau of investigation to identify ways the department can support state and local law enforcement authorities investigating these incidents and to determine whether the federal action would be appropriate. i specifically directed the files of these cases to be

reviewed to ensure there is no single person or group behind these attacks or to what extent in general they have been behind these attacks. i receive regular updates on the status. i understand many of the prosecutors who worked on these cases are here today. i want to thank you for your hard work and dedication. i know a number of you will be participating in panels later on today and your expertise and experience will help us as we go forward. all the cases i've talked about are critically important in buying power of the work the department is doing to fight and deter such crimes. last week our department also hosted a summit on crime reduction and public safety that included a breakout session over the country. several hundred and one was a

hate crimes breakout session. state and local law enforcement leaders at that session highlighted several areas where they thought we could improve hate crimes enforcement including having dedicated state prosecutors for hate crime and model training collection of evidence in these cases. the feedback we received last week as well as the thoughts you've shared today will inform the subcommittee's recommendations to the broad task force as they report in the next month and prepare their full report in january. finally, i've directed all our federal prosecutors to make violent crime prosecutions a top priority and you can be sure that this includes hate crime. we demand and expect results. under our constitution and law, this nation protects freedom of

conscience, religion, speech among others. thomathomas jefferson swore etel hostility over any domination of the mind of man. so let it be. let us choose and let me close eye thinking you will once again for coming to the summit and for your commitment. they are not only violent attacks on our fellow citizens they are an attack on the country's most fundamental and cherished principles so we have a duty to make sure all americans can live their lives without fear. i look forward to hearing about your feedback and i am proud to work with all of you to make the country safe. thank you all and i hope you have a great conference. [applause]

paul ryan was asked durin bryans weekly briefing to comment on the president's tweeting. i want to thank the leaders of the judiciary committee and secretary kelly for being with us today. the house will take actio housen two initiatives to keep america safe. first is case law. this is named