Domestic Terrorism

Morgan Chalfant at The Hill:

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the agency has made about 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests since October, and the majority were tied to white supremacy.

”I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well,” Wray said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, referring to cases in fiscal 2019, which began Oct. 1.

The FBI is “aggressively” investigating domestic terrorism and hate crimes, Wray said, noting that the bureau is focused on investigating the violence, not the ideology motivating the attacks.

From his testimony:

Preventing terrorist attacks remains the FBI’s top priority. However, the threat posed
by terrorism — both international terrorism (“IT”) and domestic terrorism (“DT”) — has
evolved significantly since 9/11.

The most persistent threats to the Nation and to U.S. interests abroad are homegrown
violent extremists (“HVEs”), domestic terrorists, and foreign terrorist organizations (“FTOs”). The IT threat to the U.S. has expanded from sophisticated, externally directed FTO plots toi nclude individual attacks carried out by HVEs who are inspired by designated terrorist organizations. We remain concerned that groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and ashSham (“ISIS”) and al Qaeda have the intent to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S. The FBI assesses HVEs are the greatest terrorism threat to the homeland. These individuals are FTO-inspired individuals who are in the U.S., have been radicalized primarily in the U.S., and are not receiving individualized direction from FTOs. We, along with our law enforcement partners, face significant challenges in identifying and disrupting HVEs. This is due, in part, to their lack of a direct connection with an FTO, an ability to rapidly mobilize, and the use of encrypted communications