(Reuters) - Joe Biden's announcement of his nominees to lead the Justice Department Jan. 7 was expectedly eclipsed by a mob of white supremacists and pro-Donald Trump supporters forcefully occupying the U.S. Capitol for several hours the previous day, in a failed attempt to prevent Biden's presidency.

The group, some clad in white supremacist regalia, had fought with and overpowered police surrounding the building. Some carried zip ties, and there were loaded guns and pipe bombs. They paraded the seditionist, white supremacist and anti-American Confederate flag through the Capitol. They smashed windows, and stole a computer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, according to a Jan. 8 report by Reuters. One man urinated on the marble steps of the Capitol, a reporter who witnessed the scene wrote in The Nation magazine.

Five people were dead or fatally wounded before the government regained control of the Capitol, including a police officer who was struck with a fire extinguisher, according to a Jan. 8 New York Times article.

Numerous government officials have since decried law enforcement's lack of preparation; and the relatively lenient treatment the armed group of seditionists received compared to Black activists at peaceful protests against racist policing. Biden himself called out the differential treatment when announcing his DOJ nominations the day after the breach.

Monica Simpson, organizer and director of reproductive rights organization SisterSong, told me she "protested in many actions for racial justice and reproductive justice, including in D.C., and we've never even been able to get that close to the Capitol."

"Black people protesting police brutality were met by hundreds of officers and a barrage of rubber bullets, but people participating in an insurrection were able to just breach our Capitol," Simpson said.

The whole episode is a sort of culmination of the re-growth of white supremacist groups in the U.S., as noted by Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security officials in a Senate hearing last September.

At the time, acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf called white supremacist groups "the most persistent and lethal threat" of violent extremism in the country. As far back as 2012 – or as recently, if you'd like – the government was prosecuting militia groups for the same kind of actions we saw Wednesday: plotting the killing of police and "war against the United States."

It was also an inflection point in the phenomenon of "white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement," as the FBI reported in 2006. One D.C. police officer said off-duty law enforcement and military members among the insurrectionists "flashed their badges" as they attempted to overrun the Capitol, according to a Jan. 7 report by Politico.

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president said he understood the armed gang's "frustration" —referring to people who could face literal sedition and insurrection charges in D.C., per a Jan. 6 Reuters report.

"I really hope it was a series of miscalculations," Brian Frosh, attorney general of neighboring Maryland, said when I asked whether the episode is a manifestation of what the FBI reported in 2006. "I don't think there's a conspiracy of which law enforcement was a part, but I suspect they may have looked at it through a racial lens and said 'these guys aren't a problem, they're white,' when they're in fact among the most militant, dangerous people in the U.S."

One might anticipate the incoming administration and its chief law enforcement officers (and sitting lawmakers, who were in personal danger during the breach) to make a show of force, and unveil a campaign to eradicate this major criminal threat to public safety — not to mention American democracy.

But thus far, there's been nothing quite like the language or mobilization efforts we've seen at other times when a major national security event, or some new aspect of criminal behavior, threatens public safety.

The U.S. government has declared wars on crack cocaine, opioids, gangs and "terror." After lawmakers passed legislation to fight so-called super predators in the 1994, first lady Hillary Clinton said in a 1996 speech that we need an "organized effort" against kids involved in street gangs, just like "we had an organized effort against the mob."

But there's no parallel, major national security or public safety campaign with regard to the scourge of white supremacist violence, even as it intensifies.

When asked for comment, a Biden transition team representative pointed to a statement the president-elect made Jan. 8, shortly after the attack, in which he referred to the rioters as "white supremacists."

To be fair, Biden's rhetoric on white supremacy during his campaign is probably the strongest we've seen from a party-nominated candidate. During the DOJ nominations announcement Thursday, Biden noted that the 2018 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville – and Trump's subsequent refusal to condemn the racism on display – is "literally why" he ran.

After Biden announced Merrick Garland as his pick for attorney general, the judge noted that DOJ was "founded in the midst of Reconstruction" to enforce the anti-slavery Amendments. The DOJ forged "its identity in the battle to slay the first incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan and its offshoots," Garland said, adding that "the evolving threat of violent extremism" is a priority that echoes today.

Those are encouraging words, in light of Wednesday's events.

That said, the collective response from officials thus far still doesn't echo the "find them and bring them to justice" attitude and language we've seen after other attacks against Americans' public safety.

Numerous Republicans endorsed the would-be seditionists' unfounded election fraud claim – even after having to evacuate the Capitol to avoid being harmed by those same people.

And, by my count, just one DOJ nominee – Vanita Gupta, picked for associate AG – said the phrase "white supremacist violence" during Thursday's announcement.

"It baffles me that white people seem to have such a problem letting those words fall from their lips, especially those in the highest positions of power," Simpson, the activist and women's rights advocate, said. "What (the rioters) have given us is an opportunity to knock those barriers down – it's obvious what's behind this, and it's a slap in the face that elected officials are mincing words."

The government has named public enemies and threats throughout American history, and mounted heavily resourced, national campaigns to combat them. And while it is encouraging that the incoming DOJ is making passing references to the Klan and vague allusions to major crime-fighting campaigns in light of current events, the new administration and Congress should make explicit a mission to eradicate violent and antigovernment white supremacist groups.

(NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify the Biden team's comment.)