Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, spoke with JNS on Thursday near the Capital Jewish Museum—the site where two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed the prior night, as they left an American Jewish Committee event for young professionals.
“Unfortunately, this is something that you’re afraid that it’s going to happen, and it happened,” Terrell told JNS, as he stood in the rain. “It’s something that we have to address, and it just underscores the magnitude of antisemitism.”
The U.S. official thinks that the focus must be on Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who “lost their lives needlessly because of hate.”
“We’re trying to put a halt to it, and I recall the question that many people keep asking, ‘Are we too aggressive?” Terrell said of Jew-hatred. “Here’s an example where we’re not aggressive. Two young people lost their lives, and we got to make sure we do everything possible to stop the hate.”
All of the haters will be brought to justice, according to Terrell.
The Trump administration will then “magnify, multiply our efforts to end this hate,” and that’s why U.S. President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon and others, including Terrell, are “working together to end antisemitism,” he told JNS.
“First of all, you got to end the hate by focusing on the source of the hate,” he said. “This isn’t something overnight. This has been almost
a 10-, 15-, 20-year project of hating Jews.”
Terrell thinks that the Jew-hatred is being financed “from overseas.”
“You have these groups that have been developed on college campuses, and we have to put a halt to it. We have to eliminate it,” he told JNS. “You got to end every source that has led to the day, the problems that are existing today and the problem of antisemitism, not only in America but throughout the world.”
JNS asked Terrell to what extent Qatar, which has close ties to Hamas, is among the funders of Jew-hatred on U.S. campuses.
“Let’s follow the individual traces of money instead of branding the entire country,” he said. “Let’s look at the individuals within that country and then go after them and then make it a public notice, ‘These are the people we found. ‘These are the people who are in your country. These are the people we have to stop.'”
“So we have to publicly shame these people publicly. Find them first, and instead of just generically branding an entire country—if they exist
in Qatar, let’s find them. Let’s root them out. Let’s bring them to justice,” he said.
JNS asked Terrell about the U.S. attorney general saying that the death penalty is a possibility for the shooter.
“President Trump has made it clear we’re going to reinstate the death penalty. It was dismissed in the previous administration,” Terrell said. “You just saw two young people who had the whole future ahead of them. They lost their lives last night. This is a crime that was intended to kill, to harm, to murder.”
“The evidence seems to me overwhelming,” he said. “The jury will determine whether or not he’ll get the death penalty, but yes, this guy and the others, who may be involved, who may not—this case is death penalty eligible.”
On Thursday morning, Terrell stated that “this goes far beyond the murder of two individuals.”
“It reflects a systemic crisis of antisemitism—seen in the shooter’s hatred, the failure to enforce hate crime statutes, the institutions that helped shape him and the media narratives that normalize or excuse antisemitism,” he wrote. “This is not an isolated act. It is the result of a society that has allowed antisemitism to fester unchecked. This must stop now.”