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FBI
chief
warns
violent
'domestic
terrorism'
growing
in US
By
ERIC
TUCKER
and
MARY
CLARE
JALONICK
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- FBI
Director
Chris
Wray
bluntly
labeled
the
January
riot at
the U.S.
Capitol
as
“domestic
terrorism”
Tuesday
and
warned
of a
rapidly
growing
threat
of
homegrown
violent
extremism
that law
enforcement
is
scrambling
to
confront
through
thousands
of
investigations.
Wray
also
defended
to
lawmakers
his own
agency’s
handling
of an
intelligence
report
that
warned
of the
prospect
for
violence
on Jan.
6. And
he
firmly
rejected
false
claims
advanced
by some
Republicans
that
anti-Trump
groups
had
organized
the
deadly
riot
that
began
when a
violent
mob
stormed
the
building
as
Congress
was
gathering
to
certify
results
of the
presidential
election.
Wray’s
testimony
before
the
Senate
Judiciary
Committee,
his
first
before
Congress
since
the
insurrection,
was the
latest
in a
series
of
hearings
centered
on the
law
enforcement
response
to the
Capitol
insurrection.
Lawmakers
pressed
him not
only
about
possible
intelligence
and
communication
failures
ahead of
the riot
but also
about
the
threat
of
violence
from
white
supremacists,
militias
and
other
extremists
that the
FBI says
it is
prioritizing
with the
same
urgency
as the
menace
of
international
terrorism
organizations.
“Jan. 6
was not
an
isolated
event.
The
problem
of
domestic
terrorism
has been
metastasizing
across
the
country
for a
long
time now
and it’s
not
going
away
anytime
soon,”
Wray
told the
Senate
Judiciary
Committee.
“At the
FBI,
we’ve
been
sounding
the
alarm on
it for a
number
of years
now.”
The
violence
at the
Capitol
made
clear
that a
law
enforcement
agency
that
remade
itself
after
the
Sept.
11,
2001,
attacks
to deal
with
international
terrorism
is now
laboring
to
address
homegrown
violence
by white
Americans.
President
Joe
Biden’s
administration
has
tasked
his
national
intelligence
director
to work
with the
FBI and
Department
of
Homeland
Security
to
assess
the
threat.
And in
applying
the
domestic
terrorism
label to
conduct
inside
the
Capitol,
Wray
sought
to make
clear to
senators
that he
was
clear-eyed
about
the
scope
and
urgency
of the
threat.
Wray
said the
number
of
domestic
terrorism
investigations
has
increased
from
around
1,000
when he
became
FBI
director
in 2017
to about
2,000
now. The
number
of white
supremacist
arrests
has
almost
tripled,
he said.
Many
of the
senators’
questions
Tuesday
centered
on the
FBI’s
handling
of a
Jan. 5
report
from its
Norfolk,
Virginia,
field
office
that
warned
of
online
posts
foreshadowing
a “war”
in
Washington
the
following
day.
Capitol
Police
leaders
have
said
they
were
unaware
of that
report
and had
received
no
intelligence
from the
FBI that
would
have led
them to
expect
the sort
of
violence
that
besieged
them on
the 6th.
Five
people
died
that
day,
including
a
Capitol
Police
officer
and a
woman
who was
shot as
she
tried to
climb
through
a
smashed
window
into the
House
chamber
with
lawmakers
still
inside.
Wray
said the
report
was
disseminated
though
the
FBI’s
joint
terrorism
task
force,
discussed
at a
command
post in
Washington
and
posted
on an
internet
portal
available
to other
law
enforcement
agencies.
Though
the
information
was raw,
unverified
and
appeared
aspirational
in
nature,
Wray
said, it
was
specific
and
concerning
enough
that
“the
smartest
thing to
do, the
most
prudent
thing to
do, was
just
push it
to the
people
who
needed
to get
it.”
“We
did
communicate
that
information
in a
timely
fashion
to the
Capitol
Police
and
(Metropolitan
Police
Department)
in not
one, not
two, but
three
different
ways,”
Wray
said,
though
he added
that
since
the
violence
that
ensued
was “not
an
acceptable
result,”
the FBI
was
looking
into
what it
could
have
done
differently.
He
said he
was
“reluctant
to
armchair
quarterback
anyone
else in
their
jobs,”
but the
FBI was
determined
to
prevent
a repeat
of Jan.
6.
“We
find it
personally
infuriating
any time
we are
not
able, as
I said,
to bat
1,000.
And
we’re
going to
keep
working
to get
better,”
he said.
The
sprawling
Justice
Department
investigation
into the
riot has
already
produced
hundreds
of
charges,
including
against
members
of
militia
groups
and
far-right
organizations.
The
crowd in
Washington
that day
ranged
from
protesters
who did
not
break
any laws
to a
smaller
group
that
arrived
determined
to
commit
violence
against
police
and
disrupt
Congress
from its
duties,
Wray
said.
“Some of
those
people
clearly
came to
Washington,
we now
know,
with the
plans
and
intentions
to
engage
in the
worst
kind of
violence
we would
consider
domestic
terrorism,”
he said.
Asked
whether
there
was
evidence
that the
attack
was
planned
or
carried
out by
antifa —
an
umbrella
term for
leftist
militants
— or by
Trump
opponents
posing
as his
loyalists,
Wray
said
that
there
was not.
Some on
the
right
have
made
such
false
contentions.
Even
as the
FBI
prioritizes
its
efforts
to
counter
domestic
violent
extremism,
there
are
challenges
confronting
law
enforcement,
including
in
separating
mere
chatter
from
actual
threats
and in
First
Amendment
protections
that
give
ample
leeway
to
espouse
racist
or
otherwise
abhorrent
viewpoints.
“The
amount
of
angry,
hateful,
unspeakable,
combative,
violent
even,
rhetoric
on
social
media
exceeds
what
anybody
in their
worst
imagination
(thinks)
is out
there,”
Wray
said.
Wray
has kept
a
notably
low
profile
since
the
Capitol
attack.
Though
he has
briefed
lawmakers
privately
and
shared
information
with
local
law
enforcement,
Tuesday’s
oversight
hearing
marked
his
first
public
appearance
before
Congress
since
before
November’s
presidential
election.
____
Follow
Eric
Tucker
at
http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP.
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