FBI Director: Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism Is at Highest Threat Priority Level
January 6 insurrection accounts for much work, Wray told senators
Homegrown racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism is at the highest threat priority level, the director of the FBI told lawmakers Wednesday.
And arrests related to the deadly January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol Building account for much of that activity, Director Christopher Wray told a Senate hearing.
“So, I guess I would say a few things. First, starting back in June of 2019, I elevated racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism to a national threat priority, which is our highest threat priority level,” he said. “And I think that has already shown fruits in the fact that we have effectively doubled the number of domestic terrorism investigations and arrests since that time. We had about 180 domestic terrorism arrests last year.
“We’ve had over 600 now in connection with January 6 alone. I would say that we have also created a Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell to help increase the level of intelligence and information flow that goes out.”
The year 2020 marked a watershed, according to Wray.
“Certainly for a lethality perspective, as you noted, Mr. Chairman, we have seen those kinds of domestic violent extremists responsible for the most lethal activity over recent years, although I would add that in 2020, we saw a significant uptick in lethal action and violence by anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists to go along with the racially motivated violent extremists,” he said. “ And from the perspective of pushing out intelligence, as we did before January 6, we’ve been pushing out dozens of intelligence products to our federal, state, and local partners to highlight the threat.”
Do you find this post of value?
Please share it…