Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called on the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the political organizations that Elias Rodriguez, the suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum, claims to be an active member of. 

Cornyn made the call in a post on X on Thursday that federal authorities should investigate the organizations allegedly affiliated with Rodriguez and the funding networks that finance their operations. The Texas senator was responding to a post alleging Rodriguez has ties to groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, People’s Congress of Resistance and ANSWER Chicago. 

“Every single one of these groups and their funding should be investigated immediately. This attack goes beyond antisemitism. We must know if this is domestic terrorism,” Cornyn said, adding that he was confident Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel “will get to the bottom of this threat.”

Speaking to Newsmax on Thursday, Cornyn applauded the Trump administration for taking an aggressive approach to addressing the surge of domestic antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. “There’s been a course correction since the election of President Trump,” he told the network.

“We have a new sheriff in town. We have a new attorney general, a new FBI director that can aggressively do investigations and prosecute individuals who violate the rights of our Jewish citizens, and I think that will go a long way to correcting the direction that we have been on for the last four years,” Cornyn said.

“A lot of the woke programs and policies of universities across this country were a big surprise to a lot of people — the blatant antisemitism in particular, the targeting of Jewish students. This is unacceptable,” he continued.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation quickly disavowed  affiliation with Rodriguez after the attack, saying he “is not a member” of the organization and only had “a brief association” with the group in 2017.

The ANSWER Coalition has organized a series of anti-Israel protests in the United States, including the rally during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s congressional speech in July 2024 that ended in numerous arrests and the vandalism of D.C.’s Union Station. Scripps News published archive footage from 2018 when the news service interviewed Rodriguez at a protest in Chicago, where he identified himself as a member of the group.

Both organizations have been linked to Neville Roy Singham, a financier who has been accused of funding groups to advance Chinese talking points as well as a network of anti-Israel protest groups, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute. 

Separately, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) urged authorities to investigate the murders as a hate crime and a domestic terrorist attack, which Interim U.S. Attorney in Washington Jeanine Pirro said is currently being explored.

“In light of this horrific attack, I respectfully request you immediately launch an investigation into this hate crime and act of domestic terrorism,” Moreno said. “The city of Washington D.C. must also conduct a full review of the security failures that allowed this terrorist attack to happen.”

Moreno also called for full funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and that Department of Justice law enforcement grants be used to protect religious institutions. He asked local and federal officials to review how the shooting occurred.

Rodriguez was charged in Washington with two counts of first- degree murder, the murder of foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a violent crime. He is eligible for the death penalty, according to Pirro.