OpEd: Wyden Suppressing Accountability

Originally published on November 5, 2024 by the Albany Democrat-Herald and the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

Section 4712 of the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act, known as The Soldiers Amendment, created criminal enhancements for Americans targeting military families “on account of their service.”

But the Department of Justice has never enforced the Soldiers Amendment, enshrined in law at 18 U.S.C. § 1389, preferring to apply only domestic terrorism charges.

On Nov. 22, 2019, Rep. David Trone (MD-6) and five other House members sent a congressional inquiry asking then-Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray to explain why they were not enforcing military civil rights. Barr and Wray ignored the House Inquiry.

On July 13, I asked Oregon’s senior senator, Ron Wyden, to send a second letter, this time from the Senate, to hold the Justice Department accountable for failing to enforce military civil rights.

He and his staff have been very responsive; his veterans affairs constituent services representative even attended two hourlong training sessions I offer; one on hate crimes and another on employment discrimination.

But as the time passed and we moved closer to Veterans Day, I watched his office’s interest in military civil rights dwindle to almost nothing.