As Democrats worked to blame former President Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance for inciting hate crimes against Haitians, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice searched high and low for any evidence to support their accusations, emails obtained by The Daily Wire show.
On September 13, Jomaica Sherman, a Lead Conciliation Specialist at the DOJ’s Community Relations Service (CRS), wrote to Rachel Roberts-Pickett, an official with Catholic Charities Dallas, that “my colleagues and I were tasked with researching information regarding the Haitian Community.”
“Are you aware of any reports of hate crimes, hate incidents, or community conflicts surrounding the Haitian Community?” Sherman asked.
Roberts-Pickett forwarded Sherman’s emails to others to try to uncover examples of anti-Haitian incidents. Catholic Charities is paid by the federal government to resettle migrants.
During that time period, Vice President Kamala Harris was campaigning on the claim that Trump and Vance had inspired anti-Haitian hate crimes. On September 17, she blamed Trump and Vance for causing bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio — which has seen a massive influx of Haitians — saying they caused schoolchildren to have “to be evacuated,” and leaving “a whole community put in fear.”
Ohio law enforcement investigations concluded that the bomb threats were hoaxes perpetrated by actors overseas, potentially in an effort to meddle in the presidential election. Law enforcement’s findings cast doubt on the idea that Republicans bore any blame.
The Daily Wire asked the Justice Department CRS team who had requested it to investigate anti-Haitian incidents — whether a Justice Department official or the White House — and whether it had managed to find any. The office refused to answer either question.
“CRS has been working in Springfield over the past year to resolve conflicts and disputes related to community tensions,” a spokeswoman said. “Due to our statutory confidentiality mandate, we cannot confirm or discuss CRS’s involvement with specific groups.”
The timing of the Justice Department email suggests that the Biden-Harris administration could have been searching for ammunition that Harris could use in the campaign. The fact that Harris and her campaign have not highlighted any such incident suggests that the office did not uncover any.
An article in the Haitian Times quoted Haitians in Ohio saying, “We’re all victims …” and “They’re attacking us in every way,” but the article did not point to any specific incidents.
Roberts-Pickett, the Catholic Charities official, also did not respond to a Daily Wire inquiry asking what evidence of hate crimes against Haitians, if any, she managed to gather.
The Justice Department’s Community Relations Service previously listed the mainstream conservative parents’ group Moms for Liberty as a domestic terrorist group alongside the KKK and the Proud Boys. It also tried to intervene when a Virginia school board moved to implement a transgender policy.
The most prominent incident of purported physical abuse of Haitians — the claim that Border Patrol agents were whipping them — also turned out to be a hoax. Harris was one of several Democrats who pushed that hoax, comparing the alleged whippings to slavery.
