Nearly 60 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the DOJ and FBI demanding a federal investigation into what they call "modern-day lynchings", even though law enforcement and medical examiners ruled most of the cited deaths suicides.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts organized the letter, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York co-signed it. On September 10, Ocasio-Cortez posted on X, claiming that "10 reported hangings of Black people in the U.S." had already occurred this year and declaring herself "proud to have signed onto @RepPressley's letter to address these widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror."

Community notes on the post pushed back. They stated that the majority of the cited cases had been ruled suicides by local police and medical examiners. Only one, the death of 29-year-old Tasia Fortune in Jackson, Mississippi, remains under active homicide investigation. And the man charged in that case, 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff, is himself Black, which undermines the racial-terror framing the lawmakers adopted.

Pressley's letter invokes lynching history, but the evidence points elsewhere

The Pressley letter told federal authorities that the lawmakers were "extremely alarmed by reports of Black people found hanging from trees in numerous states throughout our country," National Review reported. The letter added that the deaths "raise significant suspicion of foul play given the role of lynching in our nation's history."

Pressley went further in a statement cited by Breitbart:

"In this moment of anti-Blackness and emboldened white supremacy, we cannot stand idly by while the strange fruit of Black bodies hang from trees across the country."

That language treats the deaths as established hate crimes. But the official record tells a different story. Police investigations in Mississippi, Georgia, New York, and Wisconsin concluded the deaths were suicides. No suspect in any of the cases has been identified as a non-Black attacker. No evidence of racially motivated foul play has surfaced in any completed investigation.

Former Senate staffer Matt Whitlock captured the disconnect in a response Fox News highlighted:

"Every death is a tragedy, but what do you think widespread means if only one of these was actually a homicide. Not sure you've landed the point about racial terror with this."

Pressley, who has faced her own controversies, including a homicide investigation into a body found at a rental property owned by her husband, did not explain why the lawmakers relied on activist claims rather than completed law-enforcement findings before sending the letter.

Fortune's case is the exception, and it still doesn't fit the narrative

Fortune was found hanging from a tree outside an abandoned house in Jackson. Her death is the only one among the cited cases currently investigated as a homicide. Ratliff was charged in connection with her death and has pleaded not guilty.

CNN reported on Fortune's death on September 14, emphasizing her race. But as the Daily Caller noted, CNN omitted the race of the man charged. PBS covered the case and immediately connected it to lynching history "because the manner of Fortune's death recalled lynchings in the Southern state, which has a tumultuous civil rights history stained by episodes of racial violence." NBC News likewise named Fortune's race in the first paragraph and referenced the Democrats' letter but left out the fact that the suspect is Black.

The pattern is consistent: outlets and lawmakers framed the deaths as racial violence before the facts supported that conclusion. When the facts arrived, they did not match.

Two other cases show the gap between activist claims and official findings

The JULIAN nonprofit, a social justice and legal advocacy group founded in 2020 by civil rights attorney Jill Collen Jefferson, released a report claiming over 70 "recent lynchings" in the South. The report accuses law enforcement of intentionally mismanaging cases to cover up the real number of hate crimes. But the specific cases the report highlights tell a more complicated story.

Trey Reed, a Black college student, was found dead hanging from a tree on a Mississippi university campus roughly a year ago. Police investigated and ruled the death a suicide. Reed's family, unsatisfied with the ruling, hired prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump for a private investigation. But the Clarion Ledger reported that Crump's team "went silent on Reed's family," and the relatives say they still have not received the final independent autopsy report.

Ocasio-Cortez, no stranger to controversy, she drew bipartisan outrage for laughing during a 9/11 reading of the names, signed onto the letter without publicly addressing the suicide rulings or the gaps in the activist report she endorsed.

Willie Andrew Jones Jr., a 21-year-old Black man, was found hanging in front of his white girlfriend's house after reportedly getting into an argument with her. Law enforcement ruled the death a suicide. Jones's family believed he had been lynched and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Harold O'Bryant Jr., the girlfriend's stepfather, who had found Jones and called emergency responders.

O'Bryant never responded to the lawsuit. A judge awarded Jones's relatives more than $11 million. But a wrongful death suit is a civil action with a far lower evidentiary standard than a criminal prosecution, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. O'Bryant was never criminally charged. He told the Associated Press:

"If they had seen anything even a little wrong, I'd have been thrown in jail. They're trying to make it seem like I'm some big red white supremacist or something. I didn't touch him."

JULIAN's funding trail leads through major progressive donors

JULIAN's report is the foundation for the congressional letter. So who funds JULIAN? Tax filings for the fiscal year ending in 2024 show that Moore Impact Inc., a philanthropic organization dedicated to "funding leaders of color," was JULIAN's biggest donor at $300,000. Borealis Philanthropy contributed another $45,000.

Moore Impact's own donor list includes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at $1.4 million, the Blavatnik Family Foundation at nearly $12 million, and the Tides Foundation at $15,000. The Tides Foundation describes its mission as deploying "social justice-focused tools" to "shift resources to communities historically denied power."

Borealis Philanthropy, which aims to build a "truly inclusive, multiracial democracy," received $21.5 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, established by George Soros, in fiscal year 2024 alone. Soros has backed numerous social justice organizations and progressive officials across the country.

Meanwhile, questions about financial entanglements have followed several of the progressive figures involved in this push. The money flows from major progressive foundations through intermediary nonprofits to JULIAN, which produces reports that Democratic lawmakers then cite to demand federal action. The pipeline is efficient. Whether it is honest is another question.

Jefferson's own record raises credibility questions

JULIAN's founder, Jefferson, was arrested in 2023 while filming police officers. She was charged with failure to comply, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, driving while using a cellphone, and blocking a public roadway during a traffic stop. The current status of those charges is unclear.

Crump, the attorney who took on the Reed case and then went silent on the family, has built a career on high-profile civil rights cases, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. His legal team also represented the appeal of Karmelo Anthony, a 17-year-old sentenced to 35 years in prison for stabbing a white student named Austin Metcalf to death at a track meet in 2024. The Daily Caller reached out to Crump's firm for comment; no response was noted.

National Review's Rich Lowry put it bluntly: "The will to believe the worst about their own country is very strong among these people." The letter signed by Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez, and roughly 57 other Democrats declared that "inaction by the federal government is tantamount to complicity." But complicity in what? The cases they cited were investigated. The findings came back. The results did not support the narrative.

Ocasio-Cortez, who has a pattern of drawing criticism for her public conduct, offered no correction after the community notes flagged her post. Neither she nor Pressley has addressed the suicide rulings publicly.

A demand built on claims the evidence does not support

Every one of these deaths is a tragedy for the families involved. But tragedy does not become a hate crime because activists and lawmakers say so. The cases were investigated. Medical examiners and police reached conclusions. In every completed case, those conclusions pointed to suicide. The single active homicide investigation involves a Black suspect, not the white-supremacist violence the letter implies.

Fifty-nine members of Congress signed a letter accusing the federal government of complicity in "modern-day lynchings" based on a report from a nonprofit funded by major progressive donors, citing cases that official investigations had already resolved. They did not wait for the facts. They did not acknowledge the findings. They used the word "lynching", one of the most incendiary terms in American history, to describe deaths that law enforcement determined were self-inflicted.

When lawmakers treat activist talking points as established fact and demand federal action on that basis, they do not advance justice. They cheapen it.