Chairman Thompson:
Director Wray, can you, for the sake of the Committee, identify what organization proposed the greatest threat from a domestic standpoint here to the Homeland. Is it a right wing extremist, or is it a left wing, or what does your reports reflect?
Director Christopher Wray:
Mr. Chairman, we assessed that the greatest threat to the Homeland, to us here domestically, is not one organization, certainly not one ideology, but rather lone actors, largely self radicalized online, who pursue soft targets using readily accessible weapons. And those include both domestic violent extremists of a variety of sorts, as well as homegrown violent extremists who are motivated by foreign, jihadist type sources. Those two groups, those two categories as a whole provide the greatest challenge and threat to us here at home. Partly because, and you’ve often heard the expression in the past, the importance of connecting the dots. Well, if you compare the threat I just described to the sort of Al Qaeda sleeper cells of old, that group, the sleeper cells, you’ve got a group of people colluding, conspiring, fundraising planning, preparing, communicating. So there’s a lot of dots out there to connect if the intelligence community and law enforcement know where to connect, and it’s usually curves over a long period of time.
Wray:
These people, both categories, the domestic violent extremists and the homegrown violent extremists, they don’t have a lot of people that are working with, they don’t take a lot of planning and preparation. They can go from radicalization to mobilization in weeks if not days, and so the challenge of connecting the dots, working with NCTC and our other partners, is that much greater because there are that many fewer dots to connect and that much less time to do it. So that the time, as the experts say, from flash to bang is that much more daunting. So that’s why that’s the biggest challenge to us here in the Homeland.
Thompson:
So when we hear officials say Antifa is the biggest threat on the Left, are they being correct?
Wray:
Well, we don’t really think of threats in terms of Left and Right at the FBI. We’re focused on the violence, not the ideology. Our domestic violent extremists include everything from racially motivated violent extremists, which we’ve talked about here in this Committee before, I think when I testified last year, for example, all the way to antigovernment, anti-authority violent extremists, and that includes people ranging from anarchist violent extremists, people who subscribe to Antifa or other ideologies, as well as militia types, and those kinds of.
Ms. Lesko:
Yeah. It’s very interesting. I do have one last question, only 49 seconds left. There have been statements by top people here, in fact Chairman Nadler has said on the floor of the US House of Representatives that basically Antifa is a fantasy made up by the radical right or Fox News, or something to that effect. Would you agree with that? Is Antifa a total fantasy or is it real?
Wray:
So, Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a group or an organization, it’s a movement or an ideology, maybe one way of thinking of it, and we have quite a number and I’ve said this consistently since my first time appearing before this committee, we have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists. Some of those individuals self identify with Antifa.
Mr. Payne:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s an honor and privilege to be here today with a committee. And let me first say to Mr. Wray and Mr. Miller, that I appreciate you understanding your obligation to show up when the committee request your appearance, as opposed to the empty chair that is there. And let me ask Mr. Ray, so with Antifa, you’re saying it’s more of an ideology than an organized group, in which a lot of people on the other side feel is some organized group. Is it an organized group? Or is it more just a notion of thought and philosophy with respect to… Because when I hear, “Antifa is there, Antifa is doing this”, I’m still trying to figure out who or what Antifa is. Could you enlighten me?
Wray:
Well first let me say, as I think I said in response to an earlier question, Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction, but it’s not an organization, or a structure. We understand it to be more of a movement, or maybe you could call it an ideology. And we certainly have, as I’ve said, a number of, and we have had for some time, and we’ve opened quite a number of this year, of properly predicated investigations into violent anarchist extremists who subscribe to, self-identify with Antifa. They say, “I am Antifa”, things like that.
Wray:
And we have seen individuals, I think I’ve mentioned this in response to one of the earlier questions, identified with the Antifa movement, coalescing regionally into what you might describe as small groups, or nodes. And we are actively investigating the potential violence from those regional nodes, if you will.
Mr. Crenshaw:
There’s been a lot of peaceful protest. That is absolutely true. There’s also been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists in Antifa and the BLM organization. Recent report indicated between one and $2 billion of insurance claims will be paid out. That doesn’t even come close to measuring the actual and true damage done to people’s lives, not even close. That’s just insurance. We’ve heard multiple reports of small businesses without any insurance whatsoever. Some of these will never open up, even if they did get insurance payments. And I’ve heard many members of this body, of this committee, question whether Antifa even exists. Director Wray, earlier you confirmed Antifa does indeed exist, but you consider it more of an ideology than a group, correct?
Wray:
Yes. An ideology, or maybe a movement.
Crenshaw:
Okay. That seems to me to be downplaying it. And this is an ideology that organizes locally. It coordinates regionally and nationally. It wears a standardized uniform, it collects funds to buy high-powered lasers to blind federal officers, build homemade explosive devices, feed their riders, since they clearly aren’t working, and then bail out those who’ve been arrested. This is an ideology that is trained its members, makes shield wall phalanxes is to attack federal officers. It formed an autonomous zone in an American city and besieged a federal courthouse in another. So it just seems to be more than an ideology. Do you have a way to define what you mean by it’s not a group?
Wray:
So I want to be clear that by describing it as an ideology or movement, I by no means mean to minimize the seriousness of the violence and criminality that is going on across the country. Some of which is attributable to that people inspired by, or who self-identify with that ideology and movement. We’re focused on that violence on that criminality. And some of it is extremely serious.
Crenshaw:
And you mentioned before three categories, the criminality, the peaceful protesting, but then you didn’t use these words, but I will, ideological rioting. I think that matches that third category of what you said, the people who purposefully want to instigate it, Antifa being clearly one of them. So, I want to read you the definition of domestic terrorism. Section 2331, says, “Domestic terrorism has three components, A, involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any state. B, appear to be intended. First to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, two, to influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion, or three to effect the conduct of the government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. And C, occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” Does that at all match the activities of Antifa?
Wray:
Well, it certainly matches the activity of some of the individuals we’re investigating and have pursued other kinds of charges against. You put your finger on a little bit of a legal predicament, which is that there is not currently, in Title 18, a domestic terrorism offense, or crime as such. There’s a definition-
Crenshaw:
That seems pretty specific.
Wray:
Well, there’s a definition, but ironically, unlike on the international foreign terrorist side, there’s not a crime of domestic terrorism that you can charge. So typically, in domestic terrorism cases, including of the sort you’re describing, we’re pursuing explosive charges, firearms charges, rioting charges, you mentioned, or other
Mr. Van Drew:
Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. Just very briefly, I wanted to go back to the Antifa issues. So if we have an organization that is able to communicate among different counties, different states, different areas, different cities is able to organize when Black Lives Matter, also organize at the same time, advertises for people to help them and they will pay them, feeds them as was said so eloquently before and takes care of them, that to me would be more than just the loosely knit group of people. I mean, I guess we want to define this a little bit that there, in mind, there is Antifa. There is a group or individuals that control Antifa and have some authority over it. And it is to some degree without question organized. Would you agree with that?
Wray:
Well, I think what I would say is that we have seen folks who subscribe to or self identify with the Antifa movement who coalesce regionally into what we refer to or think of as more as small groups or nodes. And they’re certainly organized at that level, those individuals.
Van Drew:
What I’m saying to you, maybe to clarify a little bit more, is just because some people self identify doesn’t mean that there is more of an organizational aspect to this. That there’s something out there that deserves a very thorough investigation.
Wray:
Well, on the last part, I would say we are very thoroughly investigating. And as I mentioned, we have a number of, quite a number of properly predicated investigations being conducted by our joint terrorism task forces around the country into violent anarchist extremism. And any number of those involve people who are tied either by their own admission or otherwise to the Antifa movement. And in some cases, we see those individuals working together in a tactical, organized way. So the investigation in those instances might be more of what we might call an enterprise investigation.
Re: Death of George Floyd and Subsequent Riots.
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