Overview

• The DOJ plans to present the case to a federal grand jury this week to seek hate crime charges and special death penalty findings against Elias Rodriguez.
• Rodriguez is already charged with first-degree murder, murdering foreign officials and firearms violations for the May 21 attack outside the Capitol Jewish Museum.
• Investigators compiled evidence including a video of Rodriguez shouting “Free Palestine” and his admission “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza” to link the shooting to antisemitic bias.
• Under federal law, proving a hate crime requires evidence that violence targeted victims for their religious identity rather than political opposition to Israel.
• If the grand jury returns an indictment, the case would mark a rare effort to apply capital punishment in a domestic antisemitic attack.