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Disregarding FBI, White House to release Republican memo: official

The main headquarters of the FBI, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, is seen in Washington on March 4, 2012.

By Steve Holland and Warren Strobel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A secret Republican memo alleging FBI bias against President Donald Trump likely will be released on Thursday, a Trump administration official said, a move that would put the White House in direct confrontation with the top U.S. law enforcement agency.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a rare rebuke on Wednesday to the president and his fellow Republicans in Congress who are pushing to release the four-page document crafted by Republican members of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

“The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the FBI said in a statement. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Justice Department officials have also said releasing the memo could jeopardize classified information.

The administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity on Wednesday night, did not elaborate on the expected release.

The fight over the memo reflects a wider battle over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to help him win the 2016 presidential election. Russia and Trump have both denied the allegations. Mueller’s investigation and the FBI probe that preceded it have hung over Trump’s year-old presidency.

Democrats say the four-page memo is misleading, based on a selective use of highly classified data and intended to discredit Mueller’s investigation.

Representative Devin Nunes, the intelligence committee’s Republican chairman who commissioned the document, dismissed the objections to its release as “spurious.”

In a bid to block its release, Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee’s top Democrat, said late on Wednesday he had discovered that Nunes had sent the White House a version of the memo that was “materially altered” and not what the committee voted to release on Monday. It was not clear if the panel’s Republicans would hold a new vote on the altered document.

The memo accuses the FBI and Justice Department of misleading a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge in March as they sought to extend an eavesdropping warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, four sources familiar with it have said.

They said memo contends that the FBI and Justice Department failed to tell the judge that some of the information used to justify the warrant included portions of a dossier of Trump-Russia contacts that was opposition research paid for by Democrats.

However, the sources said the memo does not mention that the request to extend surveillance on Page, which began before Trump took office, also relied on other highly classified information and that U.S. agencies had confirmed excerpts from the dossier included in the request.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign using hacking and propaganda to attempt to tilt the race in favor of Trump. The president has called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt” and “hoax.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Warren Strobel, Jonathan Landay; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham)

Controversial Republican memo to be released quickly: White House official

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly listens as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2018.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House plans to release a classified House Intelligence Committee memo that Republicans say shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department, U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, said on Wednesday.

“It will be released here pretty quick, I think, and then the whole world can see it,” Kelly said in an interview on Fox News Radio, adding he had seen the four-page document and that White House lawyers were reviewing it.

Kelly’s comments follow Trump’s response to a Republican lawmaker after his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that suggested there was a “100 percent chance” the memo would be made public.

Justice Department officials have warned that releasing the memo would be reckless. On Monday, department officials advised Kelly against releasing the memo on the grounds it could jeopardize classified information, the Washington Post reported.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has told the White House the memo contains inaccurate information and offers a false picture, according to Bloomberg News.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told CNN on Wednesday the memo was still being reviewed and “there’s always a chance” that it would not be released.

The memo has become a lightning rod in a bitter partisan fight over the FBI amid ongoing investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and any possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, something both Russia and Trump have denied.

Republicans, who blocked an effort to release a counterpoint memo by Democrats on the panel, have said it shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department in seeking a warrant to conduct an intelligence eavesdropping operation.

Democrats have said the memo selectively uses highly classified materials in a misleading effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Justice Department’s Russia probe, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired him.

The House panel this week voted along partisan lines to release the memo. Trump has until the weekend to decide whether to make it public.

“The priority here is not our national security, it’s not the country, it’s not the interest of justice. It’s just the naked, personal interest of the president,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the panel’s top Democrat, said at an event hosted by the Axios news outlet.

Sanders told CNN Trump had not seen the memo before his address on Tuesday night or immediately afterwards.

The document was commissioned by Representative Devin Nunes, the House committee’s Republican chairman who had recused himself from the panel’s Russia probe.

Sanders said she did not know if Nunes had worked with anyone at the White House on it: “I’m not aware of any conversations or coordination with Congressman Nunes.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Katanga Johnson and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Hay and Bernadette Baum)

House panel votes to release Republican memo alleging anti-Trump bias

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) arrives for closed meeting of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 16, 2018.

By Patricia Zengerle and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines on Monday to release a classified memo that Republicans say shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department in seeking a warrant to conduct an intelligence eavesdropping operation.

In approving the release under a rule never before invoked, the Republican majority ignored a warning from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd that making the document public would be “extraordinarily reckless” without submitting it to a security review.

The move added new fuel to bitter partisan wrangling over investigations by congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Calling it a “sad day” for the intelligence committee, top Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said the panel also voted against releasing a Democratic memo that countered the Republican report and rejected his call for a briefing by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray.

“Today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interest, perhaps their own political interests, above the national interest,” Schiff said.

The memo was commissioned by Representative Devin Nunes, the committee’s Republican chairman. A Nunes spokesman did not immediately respond for a request for a statement.

The Department of Justice declined comment.

Two sources familiar with the memo said it accuses the FBI and the Justice Department of abusing their authority in asking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to approve a request to extend an eavesdropping operation on Carter Page, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The memo charges that the FBI and the Justice Department based the request on a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired to dig up negative information on Trump by a research firm partially financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the sources said.

The dossier, however, was only part of the material on which the request was based, and any portion of the dossier used as evidence first would have been independently confirmed by U.S. or allied intelligence or law enforcement agencies, one of the sources said.

“There is no way any court would approve a warrant – any warrant, let alone one for surveillance on an American citizen – based on uncorroborated information,” said this source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The second source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the memo accuses Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe, who on Monday announced his resignation as deputy FBI director, of allowing pro-Democratic sentiments to color Mueller’s investigation.

The New York Times first reported the contents of the memo.

Democrats have criticized the document as “highly misleading,” based on a selective use of highly classified materials and intended to discredit Mueller, who was appointed by Rosenstein.

Russia denies interfering in the 2016 election, and Trump repeatedly has denied there was any collusion.

The House vote gave Trump up to five days to decide whether to release the classified document under a rule that has never before been used.

But Hogan Gidley, the White House deputy press secretary, told CNN that the vote has no bearing for Trump because if he takes no action, the memo will become public.

Representative Mike Conaway, a senior committee Republican, said Republicans voted against releasing the Democrats’ memo because the House of Representatives had not had a chance to read it. He said the committee agreed to let House members read it and would consider making it public after that.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Jonathan Landay and Eric Beech; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

FBI chief calls unbreakable encryption ‘urgent public safety issue’

FILE PHOTO: FBI Director Christopher Wray delivers remarks to a graduation ceremony at the FBI Academy on the grounds of Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, U.S. December 15, 2017.

By Dustin Volz

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an “urgent public safety issue,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday as he sought to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with technical tools despite possessing proper legal authority to pry them open, a growing figure that impacts every area of the agency’s work, Wray said during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York.

The FBI has been unable to access data in more than half of the devices that it tried to unlock due to encryption, Wray added.

“This is an urgent public safety issue,” Wray added, while saying that a solution is “not so clear cut.”

Technology companies and many digital security experts have said that the FBI’s attempts to require that devices allow investigators a way to access a criminal suspect’s cellphone would harm internet security and empower malicious hackers. U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, have expressed little interest in pursuing legislation to require companies to create products whose contents are accessible to authorities who obtain a warrant.

Wray’s comments at the International Conference on Cyber Security were his most extensive yet as FBI director about the so-called Going Dark problem, which his agency and local law enforcement authorities for years have said bedevils countless investigations. Wray took over as FBI chief in August.

The FBI supports strong encryption and information security broadly, Wray said, but described the current status quo as untenable.

“We face an enormous and increasing number of cases that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on electronic evidence,” Wray told an audience of FBI agents, international law enforcement representatives and private sector cyber professionals. A solution requires “significant innovation,” Wray said, “but I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible.”

Wray’s remarks echoed those of his predecessor, James Comey, who before being fired by President Donald Trump in May frequently spoke about the dangers of unbreakable encryption.

Tech companies and many cyber security experts have said that any measure ensuring that law enforcement authorities are able to access data from encrypted products would weaken cyber security for everyone.

U.S. officials have said that default encryption settings on cellphones and other devices hinder their ability to collect evidence needed to pursue criminals.

The matter came to a head in 2016 when the Justice Department tried unsuccessfully to force Apple Inc to break into an iPhone used by a gunman during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

The Trump administration at times has taken a tougher stance on the issue than former President Barack Obama’s administration. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in October chastised technology companies for building strongly encrypted products, suggesting Silicon Valley is more willing to comply with foreign government demands for data than those made by their home country.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Will Dunham)

Justice Dept. launches new Clinton Foundation probe: The Hill

: A Clinton Foundation souvenir is seen for sale at the Clinton Museum Store in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States April 27, 2015.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether the Clinton Foundation conducted “pay-to-play” politics or other illegal activities during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, The Hill reported on Thursday, citing law enforcement officials and a witness.

The newspaper said FBI agents from Little Rock, Arkansas, where the foundation began, had taken the lead in the investigation and interviewed at least one witness in the past month. Law enforcement officials told The Hill that additional activities were expected in coming weeks.

In response to a request for confirmation, a Justice Department spokeswoman said the agency did not comment on ongoing investigations.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment by officials at the Clinton Foundation. The organization previously said there was never any trade in policy decisions for contributions.

Democrats have accused Republicans of launching a spurious investigation of Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, to divert attention from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia.

The Hill reported that the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the probe was examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for contributions to their charitable efforts or whether donors promised to make donations in hopes of government outcomes.

The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the foundation complied with tax laws, the newspaper cited the officials as saying.

A witness recently interviewed by the FBI told The Hill the agents’ questions focused on government decisions and discussions of donations to Clinton entities during the time Hillary Clinton led President Barack Obama’s State Department.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked Justice Department prosecutors to decide if a special counsel should be appointed to investigate certain Republican concerns, including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the sale of a uranium company to Russia, according to media reports in November.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

FBI officials said Clinton ‘has to win’ race to White House: NYT

(Reuters) – Senior FBI officials who helped probe Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign told a colleague that Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had to win the race to the White House, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent, said Clinton “just has to win” in a text sent to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, the Times reported.

The messages showed concern from Strzok and Page that a Trump presidency could politicize the FBI, the report said, citing texts turned over to Congress and obtained by the newspaper. http://nyti.ms/2AOHylP

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating the texts in a probe into FBI’s handling of its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server for official correspondence when she was Secretary of State under former President Barack Obama, the report added.

Strzok was removed from working on the Russia probe after media reports earlier this month suggested he had exchanged text messages that disparaged Trump and supported Clinton.

Strzok was involved in both the Clinton email and Russia investigations.

Republicans, including Trump, have in recent weeks ramped up their attacks on the FBI and questioned its integrity.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees are investigating possible links between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Russia denies meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The FBI, the Democratic National Committee and the White House did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

Reuters was unable to contact Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for comment.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)

Flynn pleads guilty to lying on Russia, cooperates with U.S. probe

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, and he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors delving into the actions of President Donald Trump’s inner circle before he took office.

The dramatic turn of events also raised new questions about whether Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had a role in those Russia contacts.

Flynn was the first member of Trump’s administration to plead guilty to a crime uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election and potential collusion by Trump aides.

Under a plea bargain deal, Flynn admitted in a Washington court that he lied when asked by FBI investigators about his conversations last December with Russia’s then-ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, just weeks before Trump took office.

Prosecutors said the two men discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia and that Flynn also asked Kislyak to help delay a U.N. vote seen as damaging to Israel. On both occasions, he appeared to be undermining the policies of outgoing President Barack Obama.

They also said a “very senior member” of Trump’s transition team had told Flynn to contact Russia and other foreign governments to try to influence them ahead of the U.N. vote.

Sources told Reuters that the “very senior” official was Kushner, a key member of Trump’s transition team and now the president’s senior adviser.

Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He has previously said Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and would continue to do so.

Flynn’s decision to cooperate with Mueller’s team marked a major escalation in a probe that has dogged the president since he took office in January.

There was nothing in the court hearing that pointed to any evidence against Trump, and the White House said Flynn’s guilty plea implicated him alone.

“Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn,” said Ty Cobb, a White House attorney.

Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general, only served as Trump’s national security adviser for 24 days. He was forced to resign after he was found to have misled Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions with Kislyak.

But Flynn had been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s election campaign and the president continued to praise him even after he left the administration, saying Flynn had been treated “very, very unfairly” by the news media.

A small group of protesters yelled “Lock him up!” as Flynn left the courthouse on Friday, echoing the “Lock her up!” chant that Flynn himself led against Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in vitriolic appearances on the campaign trail.

SANCTIONS

Mueller’s team is also looking at whether members of Trump’s campaign may have sought to ease sanctions on Russia in return for financial gain or because Russian officials held some leverage over them, people familiar with the probe say.

Prosecutors said Flynn and Kislyak last December discussed economic sanctions that Obama’s administration had just imposed on Moscow for allegedly interfering in the election.

Flynn asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating a diplomatic dispute with Washington over the sanctions, and later falsely told FBI officials that he did not make that request, court documents showed.

Prosecutors said Flynn had earlier consulted with a senior member of Trump’s presidential transition team about what to communicate to the Russian ambassador.

“Flynn called the Russian ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. sanctions in a reciprocal manner,” the prosecutors said in court documents, adding that Flynn then called the Trump official again to recount the conversation with Kislyak.

They did not name the senior official in the Trump team but U.S. media reports identified former adviser K.T. McFarland as the person. Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

On Dec. 28, 2016, the day before prosecutors say the call between the Trump aides took place, Trump had publicly played down the need to sanction Russia for allegedly hacking U.S. Democratic operatives.

“I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort.

TESTIMONY

Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University Law School, said Flynn’s plea deal shows Mueller is scrutinizing the truthfulness of testimony given to his investigators. Kushner is potentially liable for making false statements if his testimony is contradicted by Flynn, Goodman said.

Earlier on Friday, ABC News cited a Flynn confidant as saying Flynn was ready to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with Russians before he became president, initially as a way to work together to fight the Islamic State group in Syria.

Reuters could not immediately verify the ABC News report.

U.S. stocks, the dollar and Treasury yields fell sharply after the ABC report, although they partially rebounded on optimism that a Republican bill to cut taxes will be approved in the U.S. Senate.

If Trump directed Flynn to contact Russian officials, that might not necessarily amount to a crime. It would be a crime if it were proven that Trump directed Flynn to lie to the FBI.

Moscow has denied what U.S. intelligence agencies say was meddling in the election campaign to try to sway the vote in Trump’s favor. Trump has called Mueller’s probe a witch hunt.

In May, the president fired FBI Director James Comey, who later accused Trump of trying to hinder his investigation into the Russia allegations. Comey also said he believed Trump had asked him to drop the FBI’s probe into Flynn.

Comey on Friday tweeted a cryptic message about justice.

“But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, ‘Amos 5:24’,” he wrote, quoting the Biblical book of Amos.

Paul Manafort, who ran Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, was charged in October with conspiring to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as a foreign agent of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

Manafort, who did not join Trump’s administration, and a business associate who was charged with him both pleaded not guilty.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Tim Ahmann, John Walcott, Mark Hosenball and Nathan Layne in Washington and Jan Wolfe in New York; Writing by Alistair Bell and Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Frances Kerry and Mary Milliken)

Flynn prepared to testify Trump directed him to contact Russians: ABC

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – ABC News reported on Friday that former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn is prepared to testify that President Donald Trump directed him to make contact with Russians when he was a presidential candidate.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report, which cited a Flynn confidant. The news sent U.S. stocks sharply lower. [nL3N1O14E8]

Flynn, a former top Trump campaign aide and a central figure in a federal investigation into Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI.

His plea agreement, and his decision to cooperate with the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, marked a major escalation in a probe that has dogged Trump’s administration since the Republican president took office in January.

Flynn acknowledged making false statements about contacts he had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, last year. The charges carry sentence of up to five years in prison.

Flynn was fired from his White House post in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the ambassador.

Moscow has denied a conclusion by U.S. intelligence agencies that it meddled in the election campaign to try to sway the vote in Trump’s favor. Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Tim Ahmann; Additional reporting by John Walcott and Nathan Layne; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Border Patrol attack leaves one agent dead, another seriously injured

picture of area in Culberson county, Texas

By Kami Klein

A U.S. Border Patrol agent and his partner were attacked in the Big Bend Sector of Culberson County in Texas. Agent Rogelio Martinez died this morning from his injuries sustained in the attack,while his partner,who has not been identified, is still hospitalized in serious condition. According to press releases, there was no gunfire involved in the incident. Both men sustained blunt force trauma to the head.

Agent Martinez, 36 had been a border patrol agent since August 2013. He and his partner were responding to activity while on patrol near interstate 10 in the Van Horn station area. The region’s mountains and the Rio Grande do not offer the best crossing opportunities for illegal immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico. The Border Patrol records show that the Big Bend area only accounted for only about 1 percent of the more than 61,000 apprehensions that have been made along the Southwest border from October 2016 to May 2016..

map of Culberson County Texas

After the attack, Agent Martinez’s partner was able to report that they were both injured and needed assistance. When discovered, the two were transported to a local hospital. Border Patrol agents and the Culberson county Sheriff’s Department secured the scene and are searching for witnesses or potential suspects. The investigation has since been turned over to the FBI.

According to a news report with NBC news, Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council labor union and a patrol agent, said the Martinez was hit several times in the head with a blunt object, possibly a large rock.

“We’ve had agents, a good friend of mine actually almost lost his eye. It happens quite a bit, unfortunately,” Cabrera said, adding that patrol vehicles, including helicopters, have been damaged by the throwing of rocks.

Cabrera said the type of rocks that agents are struck with are large in size, approximately as big as a grapefruit or softball. Border Patrol agents have also reported the use of Concrete blocks.

Fox news reported that although few details about the incident have been released, Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Fox News on Monday it appeared Martinez and the second agent were “ambushed” by a group of illegal immigrants.

“We don’t know exactly what happened because we weren’t there. However, just from agents that were working in the area, reports are saying it was an attack and it would appear to be an ambush,” Judd said.

As of Monday afternoon no suspects have been apprehended.

The attack compelled a tweet from President Trump saying,

“Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!”

Last year, Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan first revealed an increase of attacks in October and November of last year during testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, where there had been a total of 149 incidents of illegals assaulting guards, Acknowledging the more that 200 percent increase in assaults on agents this year, Morgan testified that Border Patrol agents are “the most assaulted federal law enforcement (agents) in the United States. More than 7,400 Border Patrol agents have been assaulted since 2006. That rose in 2016 by 20%, and year-to-date, we’re seeing an increase of assaults of 200% from the previous year-to-date. It’s a dangerous job.”

Sources: Fox news, NBC news, Briebart news, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

U.S. hate crimes rise for second straight year: FBI

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of hate crimes committed in the United States rose in 2016 for the second consecutive year, with African-Americans, Jews and Muslims targeted in many of the incidents, the FBI said on Monday in an annual report.

There were 6,121 hate crime incidents recorded last year, an almost 5 percent rise from 2015 and a 10 percent increase from 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Hate Crimes Statistics report said. It did not give a reason for the rise.

Black Americans were targeted in about half the 3,489 incidents based on race, ethnicity or ancestry, the report said, followed by whites who were targeted in 720.

About half the 1,273 incidents that involved religion were against Jews. Muslims were targeted in 307 religion-based crimes, up 19 percent from 2015 and double the number in 2014.

There were 1,076 incidents involving lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people, with almost two-thirds of those targeting gay men.

The hate crimes recorded last year included nine murders and 24 rapes, the report said. Of the 5,770 known offenders, 46 percent were white and 26 percent were African-American.

The report was based on data voluntarily submitted by about 15,000 law enforcement agencies.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Grant McCool)

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