Transcripts For CSPAN2 FBI Director Wray Testifies On National Security Threats 20240712

I represent the committee is on and will come to order. [inaudible] the committee of Homeland Security will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. Good morning. Again i want to say our thoughts with those americans dealing with devastating natural disasters including the wildfires in the west and hurricane is in itself. As the churning, i remain committed to ensuring they receive the federal health needed to respond, recover and deal back stronger. Today the committee on Homeland Security is meeting for its annual hearing on worldwide threats to the homeland. Our nation recently observed the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001. Nearly two decades later, we continue to mourn the nearly 3,000 lives lost that terrible day and keep their loved ones in our prayers. This committee and the department of Homeland Security were established in the wake of 9 11 to help prevent future attacks on our soil regardless, we held hearings examining worldwide threats with leaders from the department of Homeland Security, the fbi and the National Counterterrorism center. Regardless of who was occupied at the white house, whether democrat or republican, we received for publication in that effort. Today we are supposed to be no different. Unfortunately, as we see from the empty chair in front of us, mr. Wolf isnt here to represent the department of Homeland Security. Let me be clear about how they got here. The committee began engaging with the department of her three months ago on june 10, 2020, to secure the participation in this hearing alongside his colleagues from the fbi and National Counterterrorism center. To having the dhs, fbi and in ctc testify before the committee is a worldwide threat hearing in july is false. Dhs also offered a couple of dates but then could not agree with its counterparts on the date of the hearing in june or july. In fact, it was the department of Homeland Security that conveyed to the committee that september 17 was the earliest mr. Wolf would be available to testify at this hearing. In the instance of receiving the testimony, the committee agreed to the date. It wasnt until last week that the department informed the committee that mr. Wolf would be reneging on the commitment to testify in anticipation of being nominated for secretary of Homeland Security. I would note that despite his refusal to testify today, mr. Wolf has spoken to the media on multiple occasions since President Trump announced he intended to nominate mr. Wolf to be secretary of Homeland Security, including no fewer than four appearances on fox news. Hes run the department of Homeland Security for the last ten months and has been responsible for numerous decisions directly relevant to the subjects the committee intends to export. With that in mind, last week i wrote him to make clear there is no legal prohibition barring a nominees testimony and to urge him to honor his commitments. In response, the department again declined to provide mr. Wolf to testify at this hearing. Faced with continuous refusal on friday i issued a subpoena for his appearance in accordance with house and committee rules. Regrettably, hes chosen to defy the subpoena, that he would refuse to come before the committee after committing to do so should uphold every minut mef this committee. Insisting mr. Wolf keep his commitment to testify before congress isnt playing politics, its doing our job. Congress has the authority and obligation to execute as constitutional oversight responsible for these regarding the decision and the departments action during his tenure. As chairman, it is my responsibility to ensure the committee fulfills its constitutional responsibilities. 19 years after the attack from 9 11, we continue to face grave threats to the homeland including the rights of domestic tourism, ongoing foreign interference and the 2020 elections into the corona virus pandemic that has claimed nearly 200,000 american lives. As a person running the department of Homeland Security, mr. Wolf should be here to testify as the secretary of Homeland Security have done before. Instead, they have an empty chair, and the appropriate metaphor for the chandigarh administrations dereliction on so many of these critical Homeland Security issues. Mr. Wolf may attempt to evade oversight and the department may try different stunts to distract from the hearing, but we will not waver. The stakes are too high. Indeed the former department officials, the administrations political appointees are coming forward to sound the alarm that the nations security is being compromised in favor of the president s political interest. Americans who care about securing the homeland and upholding our most sacred values expect the representatives to hold the department of Homeland Security and this administration accountable. The issue under my chairmanship i would not waver in my commitment to doing so today or in the future. To that end, i am pleased that the director ray and miller are here today. I look forward to their testimony and the members questions. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from alabama, for an Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i get started, i want to acknowledge our newest member of the committee, mr. Garcia who i know is going to be a great addition to the work in the future. We have made Great Strides towards Global Operations and to stop threats before they reach our shores. However, today, global jihad is so joined by hackers, nationstates and transnational criminal organizations. Together they present new risks to the economy, safety and way of life. Make no mistake, the first to the homeland has never been more real than they are today. Thats why it is important that we as members of the committee understands those threats. Its our job to ensure dhs, fbi and other Intelligence Community have the resources and authorities they need to dismantle the organizations and to protect the homeland. I look forward to hearing more about the administration and how they are countering the threats from al qaeda, china, and iran and others who seek to do us harm. I am also disappointed dhs isnt here today but i want to record to be clear on why dhs isnt represented. It isnt the fault of the department of this administration. Acting secretary wolf offered to testify before the committee in both july and august. Unfortunately, the majority refused to make either of those dates work. No he is prohibited from testifying under a policy that has been in place under both republican and democratic administrations for decades. Nevertheless, theyve offered to have the secondhighest ranking official at the dhs and perfectly qualified and informed on this subject matter. And i would ask unanimous consent to conclude his testimony foinclude thistestimo. Without objection. Thank you. They should be here today providing fo the departments perspective on those threats we face in front dhs is doing to counter them. Instead of having productive hearings, the chairman chose to subpoena. This is a political stunt and its a disservice to the committee and to the public. This is the single most important hearing beholden this committee but unfortunately, as with most things, the majority has chosen to play politics. As a result, the public is being deprived of critical information from dhs. Perhaps that is the real reason why this majority didnt want him here. Having the public hear about all the good things they are doing to protect them might undermine the radical left is the latest rallying cry, dismantling dhs. Unfortunately, the director, im sorry, fortunately director ray and director miller are here to provide valuable perspectives. I look forward to hearing from both of you about the threats we are facing and i will yield ba back. Thank you very much. The committee doesnt want to hear testimony from the department. Therefore, after mr. Wolfs decline on the invitation, we issued a subpoena to obtain his testimony. The socalled Standard Practice by which the Department Says mr. Wolf cannot testify is the administrations own selfimposed limitation. I also note that this is an administration whose respect for socalled precedence and law is highly situational. If the minority wanted to hear testimony, they had every right to invite him to appear as the witness at this hearing today. Iem not aware of the minorities oppressing this testimony. Other members of the committee are reminded that under committee rules, Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Members are also reminded that the subcommittees will operate according to the guidelines laid out by myself and thinking members in our july 8 they debate could colloquy. First this is the director of the federal bureau of investigation, director ray began his lawenforcement career in 1997 serving in numerous positions at the Justice Department before assuming his present role in 2017. Next, we have the director of the National Counterterrorism center. Director miller served in the United States military from 1983 to 2014 and in numerous civilian National Security roles before assuming his current position. Without objection, this full statement will be inserted in the record and i now ask each witness to summarize his statement in five minutes with the best you can do within that time. Good morning chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers and members of the committee i am honored to be here today on behalf of the men and women at the fbi to discuss the nations top threats from the fbis perspective and what they are doing to counter those threats. I know we all share a love of the same concerns about topics ranging from international and domestic terrorism, cybersecurity to the violence in our streets and particularly this year to the threat of foreign influence in the elections and that is just to name a few and i look forward to updating you on these and other important topics this morning i would like to begin by covering a few items that have been particularly top of mind over the past few weeks. First, terrorism remains the fbis top priority although the nature is evil to significantly. We are ever vigilant in our efforts to prevent wa those likl qaeda and by this. Those groups pose a threat not just to americans overseas but also here at home, most notably by those called homegrown violent extremists inspired by Foreign Terrorists self radicalized online and motivated to attack soft targets with readily available weapons. We are also working aroundtheclock to prevent attacks by domestic terrorists inspired by one or more extremist ideologies to commit violent acts and in recent years weve been laser focused on threats by racially or ethnically motivated extremistss that they are also radicalized online and mobilized quickly to carry out their land. While he was planning to blow up a synagogue in colorado with any terrorism case we are focused on disruption. On making arrests before a criminal can act. Just this year alone for the hard work and dedication of countless men and women with the fbi and across our partner agencies, we have successfully ported to have thwarted the attacks in kansas city, tampa, cleveland, oklahoma city, boston, phoenix and other locations. In recent months we have witnessed protests and many members of congress have raised questions about the process. Although the majority of them have been peaceful, we have opened investigations on individuals involved in criminal activity some of whom would extremist agendas and discord. To be clear we do not investigate groups or individuals based on ideology or the exercise of the First Amendment protect activity alone. But when it leads someone to criminal acts and to pursue violence, the fbi will not hesitate to take appropriate action. Thats why we have been working closclose with federal, state ad local partners to ensure the safety of all of our citizens including i should say the safety of those trying to exercise the First Amendment rights peacefully. In Law Enforcement we must keep our communities safe and secure while safeguarding our citizens Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties and as ive said before, one of those need not and must not come at the expense of the other. We also remain focused on other threads. In less than two months of course americans will exercise one of their most cherished rights to vote in a free and fair election. Americans must have come since in the Voting System in the election infrastructure. Thats why the security is and will continue to be one of the highest priority us. We will not tolerate foreign interference and we are working closely with our federal, state and local partners as well as the private sector to share information, bolster security and identify and disrupt any threats. Just recently for example, we shared threat indicators for facebook and twitter allowed to take down fake accounts created as a part of the Russian Disinformation Campaign before those accounts could develop a broad following. Turning to the cyber arena, we are focused on an increasingly diverse array of threats from the adversaries from statesponsored cyber intrusions and nationstates with china, russia, iran and north korea, sophisticated cyber criminals seeking to exploi exploit the tl vulnerabilities primarily for personal profit. Just yesterday, the newspaper strategy leveraging the unique expertise and authority is to impose risk and consequences on our cyber adversaries. We are focusing on results and that means we are working to enable our part as operations as well as our own. To take one example, the fbi and nsa trying to expose highly sophisticated Russian Military intelligence malware providing the private sector and other government partners the indicators they need to disrupt the tool. They also faced increasingly blended threats of statesponsored economic espionage facilitated by cyber intrusions. In july that doj indicted to chinese hackers working with the ministry of state security for carrying out a Global Computer Intrusion Campaign that targeted hundreds of victims including i should note Companies Developing covid19 vaccines, Testing Technology and treatment. With that kind of behavior, china continues to undercut their claims of being a trusted and effective partner in the international community. Just yesterday five hackers were targeting victims around the world from their safe haven in china. With our partners we have now arrested two of their coconspirators and russia and took down hundreds of the hackers accounts, servers and domains. With the complexity and agility we are relying on our deep expertise, intelligence and partnerships. Im committed to ensure that you does great work while adhering to the tenets of the fidelity, bravery and integrity. In these challenging times, i tell my folks that weve got to keep home and tackle hard. Remaining faithful to our core values and traditions and making sure we always doing the right thing in the right way. Thank you and i am happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your testimony i know recognize Victor Miller to summarize his statement for five minutes. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the global counterterrorism environment and to highlight the tireless work of the professionals of your National Counterterrorism center. I am truly honored and humbled to meet such an Extraordinary Group of patriots. As my statement for the record reflects, this threat to the United States and our allies is less acute the more ideologically diffuse emanating from groups and other places than it did in 2001. Isis and al qaeda operate in more than two dozen countries worldwide. Iran and the allies increasingly threatened the centrist overseas include actors inspired by the range of ideologies imposed in the threat on u. S. Soil. Our focus remains defeating al qaeda. Its affiliates and other terrorist doctors while defending the shores from diverse countries. We believe this will only grow more complex over the coming year as technological advances, changing dynamics and the instability resulting from global pandemics create more opportunities for terrorists benefits. However, the u. S. And rct partners worldwide can exploit some of the same dynamics to our advantage. The complex landscape requires thoughtful responses that evolve along with our adversaries, and we apply the lessons we have learned over the last 19 years to adapt for the future. At the National Counterterrorism center, we are innovating new ways of gettin doing business te we are best outlined to connect the dots in the flood of everchanging information. Through technological innovation and organizational realignment, we are positioning ourselves to mitigate the threats of today and preempt the threat of tomorrow this will require greater resources to the analysis and enhance the ability to detect and prevent terrorist travel to the United States. We also need to invest in new data science and Information Technology solutions to optimize how we harvest the Information Available from our interagency partners. In addition to adaptability and evolving threats require vigilance especially as other interNational Security priorities because counterterrorism and prominence and the u. S. Physical footprint shrinks. We believe the changing National Security framework and priorities reinforce the mandate to serv service the government y for counterterrorism threat information and analysis. As the partners worked gently to allocate resources to address the full scope of National Security challenges for pressure on terrorist networks and to preclude them from creating sanctuaries from which they comply into project combat power. That is the central Lesson Learned from our 19 years of experience in this global war on terror. Nearly two decades after 9 11 it is now more important than ever to lead the fight against terrorism by building on its legacy of the collections and adaptation to prepare for the future im confident that our integrated and agile model has revolutionized the address and transNational Threats and approach to the no sail mission this one that remains worthy of the federal government and perhaps most importantly its allowed us to uphold our sacred commitment to protect and serve the American People. In closing, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to your questions. I would think the witnesses for their testimony. I would remind each member he or she will have five minutes to question the panel and table now recognize myself for questions. Can you do the sake of the committee identify what organization proposed the greatest threat to the homeland, is that rightwing extremists or is it left wing or what does your report reflect . We assessed that the greatest threat to the homeland, to us here domestically isnt just one organization or one ideology but rather loan actors largely self radicalized pursing soft targets using readily accessible weapons and those include Domestic Violence extremists of a variety of sports as well as homegrown violent extremists who are motivated by a foreign geologist type sources and those groups g, these two categories as a whole provided the greatest challenge and threat to us here at home partly because then youve often heard the expression the importance of connecting the dots. If you compare the threat that i just described to the sword of al qaeda sleeper cells combat group has a good of people colluding, conspiring, fundraising, planning, communicating a lot of thoughts out there to connect with Law Enforcement and its usually over a long period of time. These people com, both categorio Domestic Violence extremists they dont have a lot of people they are working with and they dont take a lot of planning and preparation they can go from radicalization, mobilization so the challenge working is that much greater. Its that much more daunting and that is why it is a challenge to us here in the homeland. Everything from racially motivated extremists which weve talked about here in this cavity before a antiauthority violent extremists say that that includes people ranging from anarchists violent extremists and people that subscribe to other ideologies as well as militia types. What i am trying to reflect on is we hear from time to time that this organization from time to time we need to investigate. If the secretary were here, he would get asked this question, but hes not. He asked with investigation because they were the greatest threat to the homeland. If im hearing you correctly its really not organization so much as it is ideology and i dont want to put words in your mouth look at it as more of a movement to ban an organization. To be clear we have quite a number of properly predicated domestic terrorism investigations into the violent anarchists extremists any number of whom self identify with the movement and that is part of this broad group of Domestic Violence extremists im talking about that is just one part of it. We also have the racially motivated extremists and militia types and others. Do you have information that shows that russia i think the Intelligence Communitys consensus is that russia continues to try to influence the election primarily through the influence of. We have certainly seen very active efforts by the russians to influence our election in 2020 through what i would call more of a malign foreign influence side of the. Social media, use of proxies, state media, online journals etc. In the effort of discord and i think the Intelligence Community has said this publicly conerly to denigrate Vice President joe biden and what the russians see as a kind of antirussian establishment. That is essentially what we are seeing in 2020. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the Ranking Member for questions. The fbi, sorry to the department of justice recently announced many fbi investigations led to the arrest of nationals conducting highly Sensitive Research in the United States that have been found to be connected to the chinese military. The growing number of pieces of cases raised bills for me. The legislation this week to address the efforts to circumvent the existing bidding procedures and take advantage of our open worldrenowned Education Research institutions particularly those funded through government grants. Where is the significance in this thread . Im sorry. I couldnt hear the very end of your question. The chinese nationals who are using our educational facilities for their research into stealing our intellectual property, what is the threat, the significance of that in your view . The chinese view themselves as an International Talent war and recognize that American Innovation and research is the envy of the world and frankly the india china. When they cannot innovate and research themselves, they send people over here. In some cases legitimately but in many cases not, who engage in intellectual property theft, taking information from the American Research and bringing it back to china to advance the National Security goals that have the perverse effect since about its research is taxpayerfunded and having american taxpayers funding chinas advancement. What can they do to help prevent thread . Certainly we appreciate the congress as allocation of resources to the counterintelligence efforts. That is an important part of it. Weve publicly acknowledged the fbi has over 2,000 counterterrorist investigations related to china. Probably the biggest chunk of the portfolio and we are opening a new chinese counterintelligence investigation said the scope and scale is breathtaking and we need as many to help everybody chocolate. I will tell you im very encouraged by the response weve gotten a and people are starting to wake up to the threat and voluntarily undertaking an appropriate measure to. And communicating affect back to the chinese that this is a issue with bipartisan all Americans Care about but we are not going to tolerate any more. It varies significantly from university to university about how sensitive and cooperative with us the event, but i think this is frankly one of the bright spots over the last couple of years. We have had quite a few universities. Ive been to all 56 and i will tell you im struck by the number of offices where the universities three or four years ago wouldnt have wanted an fbi agent anywhere near campus. Rather its recognition that the information thats being stolen is there information. I think the more that we can have, the better off we will be the intelligence bulletin on antigovernment identity based on the conspiracies very likely motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal sometimes violent activities. The focus they made you ask more towards the ideology or you dont investigate ideology. You determine to assess the threat to the United States. Im interested on the activity its resulted in based on the web forms into social media that form the beliefs. How do you characterize that organization . A how do you assess that act . We view it as less an organization and more of a complex set of conspiracy theories and weve had cases where properly predicated violence where people have been motivated by some of those conspiracy theories. But they dont investigate the ideology itself. I dont think we have seen lethal attacks involving that kind of motivation. They will be based upon any violent act. No matter what ideology or belief is a the violent extremism we look at the threat of violence through a federal crime and the motivation to. The fight for justice and most recently of course george floyd in the states in this country did you see the basis of organizing them as an Extremist Group in turn to turn america into a socialist nation or destroyed america we dont express the view of the sort of political organizations those that follow the group or hear the ideology of if you are no longer pointing to the black identity groups in 2017 there was a product or category the fbi came up with a. The point im trying to make is the existence of the black wives matter and advocacy for justice doesnt determine them to be disruptive socialist groups to destroy the nation of using excessive violence that can be attributed as opposed to any other groups that may be involved in violence . I cant think of one sitting here right now. And whether any of the cases involve a reference to black wives matter sitting here right now in particular the one in oakland california, the individuals were known to have been the culprit in the shootings. Those individuals were not involved in protests to your knowledge as Vice President s mike pence indicated they were involved in protests. These were white individuals to shot officers. Are you familiar with that . The gentle ladys time has expired. On the case i dont think thats my recollection is there was no evidence that he was participating in the protest himself a pecan commit the tragic attack on the fbis office of the. For the record i would like to thank the department of Homeland Security and secretary walt for the recovery supervision in my district after secretary wolf was on the ground. I do appreciate his direction hes given. Director, thank you for being here today china, russia and iran to interfere. You also mentioned in your written testimony the foreign adversaries and preferences and perspectives to shift u. S. Policies and increase discord for the social media platform is primary a. How is the fbi working with the social media platforms to ensure our Election Security and minimize the profiles and influence and attitudes and perspectives of the American People. Congressman, thank you for the question. You are correct that we are working increasingly close and have been building over the last few years in our working with the social media sector in particular but also other kinds of Technology Companies to thwart the foreign influence threat. But the best way to describe how that works the greatest way this has occurred in the collective defense over the last few years we will take a dont need the lead that we have some of the key social Media Companies and feed them information and they are able to take action on their platforms using their terms of service or terms of use to shut down and kick off fake accounts. Then in turn what will happen and this is happening more and more which is great, they are sending back new accounts that theyve identified that allow us more leads to pursue more investigative activity. So, i mentioned one example in my Opening Statement that recently occurred where we were able to pass information to facebook and twitter and if they were able to shut down the russian influence accounts right before they could ever build a following. And the faster that he can do that come with a more agile way we can do that, the better and the reason for that is i think its important for people to understand misinformation or disinformation is only effective if it seems credible and its only credible if it built up a reservoir which means that these efforts acquire a certain amount of time to build up kind of a reservoir of credibility so that when they are active, people care what they have to say and if we are able to shut them down and knock them back quickly before they can build up that credibility, but its not going to stop it, but it means that its much less effective so we need more of that and we are having more of that. Thank you for those encouraging words. Can we conclude based upon your perspective that the fbi does have an ongoing functional relationship with the platforms to detour and dismantle individual efforts by coordination space this way the perspectives of the American People are you comfortable with the kind of relationship you are having with the social media giants . Best way i can answer that is to say that i tend to be ambitious for the organization, for the country, so i think theres always room for improvement and i am always been from our progress and improvement but certainly destroyed that we have made it the fbi working with some of those companies over the last few years has been very encouraging. And i think we are making great progress. I would like to see more progress including from them, but we are moving in the right direction for sure. My time is expired and i will yield back. The gentleman from rhode island for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to begin by thanking the director hearing from the Security Officials on the enforcement is a paramount and i would also like to note my profound disappointment that he has declined to participate. Director, let me begin with you. As a Deputy Director of the Commission Im proud of the work we did developing recommendations in which im optimistic but come up by the end of the year. What are your observations on the findings and which recommendations do you consider . I appreciate the opportunity to serve on the commission and i commend my fellow commissioners especially you and senator king and others are pushing this topic before hopefully we have some truly apocalyptic cyber crisis in the country and for not shying away from some hard issue. I think there are several recommendations in the report that we would think would benefit our cyber investigative and Intelligence Missions and i think the commission was on the right track including in particular, really highlighting and encouraging the government to double down on our National Cyber Investigative Task force that sort of brings a whole of government approach to the importance of attribution which is key. You also highlighted in for a statutory gaps and inconsistencies. Theres references to the need to update the trade statute with reference to the Administrative Subpoena Authority to those are a few things that jumped out at me. I also want to highlight the joint collaborative environment for private sector Work Together so thats another important one that would be turned elections. We have about 70 stick out and early voting begins early monday. Misinformation and disinformation to put it bluntly who is in charge and i also want to know who is responsible to combat the misinformation and disinformation . The fbi takes the lead on the maligned foreign influence domestically. We work closely with our foreign task force and have people from nsa for example on the task force. We work very closely as i mentioned a few minutes ago with the social Media Companies and vets really almost a daily engagement. Who is in charge . Just as we do against the terrorist threat is an interagency process and we take the lead on the influence threat and on the election infrastructure hardening odni takes the lead on coordinating the intelligence analysis that comes out of it. Who is best prepared for the misinformation and disinformation . I think the fbi takes the lead in combating. I appreciate your answer and i know that my time has run out but i will say this for the National Cyber director of the cross response we have some but have identified a daily support the collaborative environment and i know my time is expired and i will yield back at this point. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from arizona. Thank you, mr. Chair and both of you and your employees for the work that you do protecting the nation. When do you plan to declassify those produced regarding the interference in the 2016 election im happy to see if theres information we can provide back to the office identified numerous major errors in the fisa Court Application process under the Obama Administration what status are we at in cleaning up that whole process clacks i appreciate the question. Let me say first that report describes the conduct that i consider unacceptable and unrepresented who i know them to be and cannot be allowed to happen again. There is an entirely new leadership team. I put in place on the same day the report came out and implemented over 40 corrective actions but accepted every recommendation in the ig report and then went above and beyond. The senior most people involved in the investigation are all gone, either terminated during my tenure or resigned or retired and we are moving forward with changes to processes, training, oversight and creating a new office of internal audit. You may have seen an announcement from the attorney general on that which will provide the sort of backend check for the verified part coming through to. So im very encouraged by the progress we are making but its going to take hard work. Im glad you appreciate it because to the average american person including if the fbi can spy on an incoming president of the United States, every person in america is concerned that they will spy on them and so i am glad that its being cleaned up. I do have a question about googlboogaloo ways that were ard for partnering with hamas due to their similar goals and mission. Have there been any arrests, how have these arrests modified dhs and fbi approach to investigating and handling rioters and domestic terrorists . Is their main focus is to tear down government and they are less clear what they think they will replace government with and thats why this case in minneapolis you highlighted is a revealing because these two individuals decided they were on board with providing Material Support to hamas which is not something they went previously associate. There have been statements by top people that chairman nadler has said on the floor that basically it is a fantasy made up by the radical right for fox news or to that effect would you agree with that . Is nt for a total fantasy or is a real . Antifa is an ideology and we have quite a number and i have said this consistently we have any number of properly predicated investigated into what we would have as violent anarchist extremist and some of those self identify with antifungal antifa. [silence] mr. Chairman let me express how disappointed i am that dhs is not here although there are real things we need to know we have wildfires and hurricanes and if they have the funds to help american citizens to turn upside down like st. Charles louisiana that is in shelters and surrounding cities we need to know that dhs has the funds to build a wall. Fortunately for new orleans we would escape from need major damage after Hurricane Katrina and we continue to pay it forward and even though my colleagues may not want to criticize dhs i will do it we have people who are very vulnerable now and we need to know what the federal governments plan is any amount of money they have and for dhs not to be said. Really quick, you talked about movement and ideology but it is more of a principal and organization and what i would like to go into very quickly do you identify as an Extremist Organization . Repeat the question. As a principal and an organization do you identify with black lives matter as the Extremist Organization . We have not identified black lives matter. Do you identify the organization as violent . We have not identify the organization in any way unlike in the International Terrorism cider foreign terrorism side there is no mechanism in the us law for us for domestic organizations as any. I know that you hear all the time so what im trying to do is to get you to give some clarification because things could be silly that posting on social media a comment that if if people come to my city i will drop them that is dangerous rhetoric especially when we see people exercising their rights to carry arms that are white and black and for people to assume that they are a threat and can publicly say i will drop ten of you is concerning and i know that you as our top one law and order officials have concerned about the rising level of rhetoric and agitation. We are very concerned about violence of any kind including those that deprive citizens of their Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties and certainly one of the concerns that we have admits the current unrest is a growing trend a protest against counter protest one side against the other there is an increasing phenomenon of individuals and thats not good for anybody a lot of mayors have called me from around the country the chaos and destruction of property people are assigning to black lives matter what you agree with that statement. I think i would characterize at the way you are hearing. Who is committing violence and destruction of property and in general what were seeing across the country maybe there are three categories. Peaceful protesters, second is what i will call criminal opportunist engaged in state and local level vandalism criminal activity that needs to be addressed and then there is a third category injury engaged in our sins a Police Vehicles a small top cocktails and those kinds of things that is what we are most focused on and concerned about and they are motivated by a wide variety of ideologies and agendas. I yelled back thank you for this important update for the robust threats are using a coordinated effort from leftwing organizations for Law Enforcement officers . The varies widely. It doesnt to be attributed to any movement it doesnt make it any less serious to see regionally organized those that coalescing and often coordinating on the ground in the middle of protest in terms of tactics or things like that and particularly concerning to me with on enforcement and federal Law Enforcement officials in particular but not exclusively. People are setting fire to march Police Vehicles. It takes a very special person to put his or her life on the line for complete strangers every day which is what Law Enforcement does. And even before this latest activity it was alarming and then on top of that the covid death for Law Enforcement continues it doesnt have the ability to sit it out and then we see a significant uptick in violence against Law Enforcement it is up markedly and the reason i know that is i made it a practice after becoming an fbi director if there is an officer shot and killed to personally call the chief or sheriff personally responsible to give my condolences on behalf of the fbi we had a stretch just recently late august, Early September where over a 15 day stretch i made seven of those phone calls and officer killed every other day. The have an average age of mid thirties and it breaks my heart. I applied you for collecting with local Law Enforcement we realize these men and women bravely every day but on the uniform to protect us along this line has there been any assistance from social media to help weed out potential threats when these organizations are using their platforms . And with the election influence context or threat we do have relationships with the social Media Companies in which may detect activity on their platforms and to work jointly with us with the terms of service to kickoff those accounts so any assistance i would say yes. It varies from company to company they did for my to vote that supports Law Enforcement but we do have a number of engagements and partnerships with those companies. Finally do you see any foreign governments attempting to communicate with these organizations or assist any Political Party within them . Which organizations are we talking about now . It is behind of the attacks on Law Enforcement. I guess i would answer that in two parts. We have seen some efforts by foreign adversaries i would mention china and russia and specifically but not exclusively to piggyback on the unrest activity occurring as part of the effort either so divisive in discord with the russians to advance their own narratives in the case of the chinese. There is that level of engagement and then the second piece is maybe not the organizations you talk about but we have seen some engagement with racially motivated violent extremist and likeminded individuals overseas on that front. Thank you for your insights and your update spent the chair recognizes the gentle man from new jersey for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Its an honor and a privilege to be here today with the committee. Let me first say to mr. Ray and mr. Miller that i appreciate that you understand your obligation to show up when the Committee Requests your appearance to the empty chair that is there so let me ask with antifa you say its more of an ideology than an organized group which people on the other side feel an organized group . Is it or more a notion of philosophy with respect with anti that can you like me . In response to the earlier question its real and not fiction but is not an organization or a structure we view it and understand it more of a movement and certainly we have said we have had a number of properly predicated investigated extremist to use of scream as to self i want identify and say im antifa and i mention this in response to the earlier question to identify with the anti for movement coalescing regionally to what you would describe as small groups or nodes as we actively investigate the potential violence from those regional nodes. Congressman unmute yourself we would advise we are having some issues right now we are trying to correct them and we will stand by. [silence] the gentle man from new jersey may continue. Thank you mr. Chairman. And your response . I finish but im not sure if you are online when i finished i would be happy to pick up where i left off. I think i got the gist of your response. I will move on. Mr. Miller the past four years has seen the unit United States scale back its presence and commitments around the world nato allies trust us to keep our commitments leaving the door open for other forces to step i in. And as we have seen time and again instability leading to violence is that planning for the effects of Global Leadership . I have been so impressed i have been doing this for a few years the most amazing thing is the partnerships we have internationally on counterterrorism front and i have seen the degradation in our commitment of partnerships in that regard as a matter of fact its almost one of those during the cold war was Foreign Policy ended at the waters edge is the same way with counterterrorism. Obviously concerned about drawing back from our commitments they receive and maintain a robust and significant counterterrorism presence and we have the ability to generate combat power if there is an enemy terrorist group in a position to threaten us. Do you believe the United States is acting as a Global Leader shed should . We are in a great position and from the counterterrorism aspect, i talk with all my partners regularly and i feel very confident we maintain a close relationship and partnership and leadership role. Your time is expired. I have a dog in the background. First from the department of Homeland Security testifying today it is the annual hearing on worldwide threats to the homeland and for one i cannot imagine setting aside that priority to engage with the department whether or not mr mr. Wolf appears and we have neither in light of that i will direct questions to you. All summer and early fall with numerous and ongoing riots and property destruction and serious injuries and killings in cities across the United States minneapolis, l. A. , charleston, n dc Seattle Lancaster and portland. We have seen some media characterize these events as mostly peaceful and politicians have dismissed them as a myth that americans have to seeing independent reports and they keep coming but i understand the thinking of lawmakers with this criminality to pointing to the existence of other ideology i would think all elected officials would condemn violence regardless of the ideology of the perpetrators especially for the ideologies closely to their position on the spectrum by indeed as pointed out earlier it is hard to pin down some of these reports early on have suggested there were pallets of brick pre positioned and riot areas to facilitate the coordination of activity you made reference to with interstate travel to multiple venues and all of these in turn suggests a Funding Source or multiple Funding Sources. You made references to numerous to rest being made are you investigating sources of funding and support of criminal activity . I appreciate the question and we have and are number of investigations and pursuing a number of leads that do things to identify network networks, travelers, supply sources we look at repeat offenders and as i mentioned in response one of the things that has been so challenging about this is one of the coordination or organization that occurs is happening on the ground, in the dark, on the streets at a tactical level as opposed to a more structure or coordinated National Level that makes it harder to investigate and disrupt. But its important for people to understand that although i do agree the majority of the people out there protesting in general across the country are Peaceful Protesters, no question the biggest number are Peaceful Protesters it should not diminish from the fact even though its a Smaller Group thats very dangerous activity that the group is engaged in and that is why the fbi is focused not the ideology left or right violence is wrong. We dont care what motivates. Those issues ought to be irrelevant to this committee or any Law Enforcement agency in the United States for what ideology someone has and to say much of that happening is frankly something we should take cognizance of but for those people engaging in violence and destruction and their health been many, the question becomes with the proliferation in so many places is the fbi examining the finances for those you are rest to see the event now account one and the fireworks they fire at Law Enforcement. Are you lose using civil forfeiture . Without referencing any specific investigation any number of investigations the source of funding or supply those that have a particular interest that at they are actively questioning or pursuing but the forfeiture peace i will consider it right here right now off the top of my head think of a situation that we can use that but we will use every tool in the toolbox if we think it fits. The gentle lady from new yor york. Late last month your boss said the office of the dni with c selection briefings to congress and just yesterday he reversed that decision and said he will continue to be the senate and House Intel Committee to secure the 2020 elections from foreign interference but will no longer connect briefings for all lawmakers citing the need to protect intelligence sources and methods its incredibly frustrating a nonpartisan issue like the security of our elections has been so politicized that members of congress are now considered untrustworthy of this critical information. Also particularly alarming it is being withheld for members of congress only weeks after dhs confirmed publicly that russia was working to boost President Trump again by discrediting Vice President bidens health. Will you commit dod and i will continue to keep our members of congress informed on Election Security threats and how do you plan on doing that quick. With all due respect it on to Election Security absolutely i will provide any information you require by congress on terrorism matters but that really is a decision being made at the dni level. We just do counterterrorism. Take the message back to your boss to say members of congress are not worthy to be trusted with this information when it is our job to have this information and a level of oversight is disturbing. Yes maam im happy to take the message back. Recently the department of justice and federal departments conducted the largest seizure of cryptocurrency accounts with 300 accounts allegedly used by foreign terrorist organizations like al qaeda and isys to find the tax out of this committee passing a bipartisan bill requiring dhs to have a threat assessment report on these the Virtual Currencies by terrorist organizations this version included signed into law the past december this case demonstrates the adaptability of terrorist groups who have traditionally used unlicensed Money Services or other moneylaundering operations to adopt terror finance activities to the cyberage. And in your opinion well cryptocurrencys be used on a wider basis i agree with you that cryptocurrency is proliferating and not just with makes it one of the key investigative tools that we have for that the strategies that we have and the ability to follow the money is critical across every threat and that cryptocurrency makes it harder. We have developed a lot of expertise but each time and part of the reason this is such a big deal is that it fits with other technological trends which have a similar effect of hiding and obstructing criminal activity from Law Enforcement if you think of any investigation you have the documents in the communications, the people, witnesses if cryptocurrency hides the money now the ways you grew up and makes us harder to protect humans sources. By protecting us from organized criminal threats and terrorist threats and others. Talk about it with the collaboration your agency has and the disinformation to talk more about that. People cannot trust the information they are getting. That goes to the heart of what i think all of us want to do it which is the ability to vote and base their decisions on facts not information or disinformation. This is a key challenge for the fbi and enter agency and for the country. Disinformation is not new but what is new is the ability through social media to amplify at scale in a much more challenging way thats why the partisanships with Silicon Valley and the Tech Companies is so critical to her efforts. There are things they can do with their resources to take responsibility and under their terms of flexibility we could do Law Enforcement. We cannot be the truth police that is not how the go about they take action but we dont have people on social media trying to find things that look false and wonder who did it we look at the actor and what they tried to spread. The social Media Companies can come out it added depending on the terms of service. They have resources that i envy sometimes that they are increasingly bringing to the fight. It is particularly of concern to us when americans make the mistake of getting information about election systems themselves but because of that kind of thing were trying to make sure americans now to get information where and when and how you vote you have to go to your local Election Officials website and dont take it from social media. Thank you for being here today. The gentle man from texas is recognized for five minutes. Thank you for moving us into a much cooler room. [laughter] thank you director for being here are they to ask you about a number of things china, iran, russia, the saying is politically theres not that much daylight between us on these issues we largely agree on the threats but there seems to be disagreement politically speaking the source of the domestic threats we are facing the vast amounts of looting and rioting that has occurred the last two months. I dont understand why we disagree but we do is been a lot of peaceful protest also 550 declared riots from blm and antifa reporting between one and 2 billion of insurance claims will be paid out thats not even close to the actual damage done to peoples lives. Not even close we have heard multiple reports some of these will never open up even if they did get insurance payments i have heard many members of this body question if antifa event exist. Earlier you confirmed it does exist but more of an ideology than a group. Correct . Yes. Or maybe a movement. That seems to downplay it its too blind federal officers and feed the rioters and bailout those who have been arrested ideology has trained but then to form the autonomous zone so it just seems to be more what do you mean by its not a group . By describing it as an ideology or movement and no means mean to minimize the seriousness of the violence or criminality going on across the country. Some of that is attributable to the people who is self identified. We are focused on that business and some of that is extremely serious. The criminality peaceful protesting spirit that purpose the want you and then to influence the policy of government by m policy inclusion by mass direction and within the jurisdictional representative not all managing mentioning the activities she said but with those other challenges against. But this seems pretty specific. It is a definition but ironically on the foreign terrorist side is crime that you can charge. Typically so we are looking at explosive charges, rioting churches to so these groups are clearly organized it seems strange we cannot call it a group. And then more questions. We could do Material Support to al qaeda or isys. The anti civil rates investigation and those that may or diversity of but with the attorney general and department of justice of that would apply. I yield my time. The gentle man from calendar on california. Thank you for being here today and all the good folks to keep their family as well also thank you think good and that is a central topic of Homeland Security which is keeping this country secure. But to assess and have about is the Election Security. Not only for lease 40 sweat 40 people but there is concerned about pansies this is been the hallmark and then will not relinquish power and try to stay in in the year 2000. I am saddened that mr. Wolf is not here today but what i really wanted was to learn him and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff made and i will pull him in general nelly said i believe deeply in the principle of a political us military in the event of a dispute of the election with us courts in congress to resolve any disputes and i see no role for the Us Armed Forces in this process also i hope you take that pledge mr. Wolf. Since he is not here i would like to submit for the record that these questions and writing and hopefully you can get them to him and he will respond without objection. I have a question for both of you. Sometime mid august the Senate Intelligence committee release the fifth and final version or volume regarding russian interference in the 2016 election. That central report found that manafort pass sensitive Campaign Information to russian intelligence officers. Are you monitoring to make sure not only foreign interference into our elections but rather the campaign here in the us are not trying to ask or solicit foreign support by Foreign Countries of domestic campaigns. So certainly with foreign influence investigations with respect to interference in the sense but also in terms of political corruption or illegal of counterintelligence investigation in certain scenarios. Certainly we have a number of people working on those kinds of matters but as part of the overall effort not just our elections but democracy from foreign interference. At the National Counterterrorism center and then to have im not familiar with all the ins and outs. So under the definition of terrorism how does the concept of foreign interference of the election and foreign interference fit into the concept of terrorism . We focus on acts of violence against americans citizens to effect political change from the International Context only when we talk about influence its a different category. Amount of time. I yield. Thank you chairman. Very briefly i want to go back to the ent for the organization that can communicate among different counties, states, areas , cities, to organize when black lives matter, advertises for people to help them and they will pay them as so eloquently was said befor before, to me that is more than a loosely knit group of people. In my mind there is antifa a group of individuals that control antifa and have some authority and to some degree without question organized. Would you agree with that . What i would say is we have seen folks who have subscribed to the Antifa Movement who coalesce regionally into what we refer to as small groups. And i understand that people self identify as a communist but there is a communist organization at the same time. So to clarify a little bit more just because some self identify its more of an it is if they deserve a very thorough investigation. We are thoroughly investigating and we have a number of properly predicated investigations being conducted by the joint Terrorism Task force around the country to violent anarchist extremism. And any number of those involved people that are tied by their own admission to the ent for movement. And in some cases they see those individuals working together in a tactical and organized way it may be the enterprise investigation. Black lives matter. Black babies, black parents, mothers and grandfathers and fathers and human beings and human souls. Theres nothing wrong with those words. But it is emblematic of an organization it is a Marxist Organization and also an organization that believes in some degree of an overthrow with the change of the country and it also believes the nuclear or traditional family as we know it has a place no more. Is there any examples or interaction with that we always happen to be at the same place at the same time . I dont think theres anything i can share in this setting and its important to understand this we investigate the violence we are agnostic but when the ideology inspires violence that is aggressively and when i make comments about movements and ideologies i want to be very clear i am in no way minimizing the seriousness of the criminal conduct to what we are investigating to downplay the aggressiveness to investigate those fully to pursue. Because that ideology is on the United States of america. That is something we have to admit to strap them on to say this is what it is and what we have to deal with. We are seeing allied of emerging threats so i just want to ask a few questions. What role has communication play in the recent rise of domestic extremism . And are you getting the tools that you need to deal with this . I think it flows naturally at of the first conflict you raised the coordination and communication to drill into that is in part due to terrorist actors domestic or international to rely on increasingly encrypted messaging platforms we are getting to a point where the Technology Companies where there are devices doesnt matter how awful the conducts or how bulletproof legally the court order to get into it would be blinded to it. That is a dangerous world for us to be in and is directly relevant with the loss of other threats. I will take for example the Sutherland Springs shooting one of the deadliest shootings in america down in texas the phone that shooter had a have been trying for three years to get into it not just the fbi problem or federal Law Enforcement he talked to state and local Law Enforcement leaders like i do every day you hear about this issue more and more we have to figure out a way to deal with that are we will create a world where Law Enforcement is blind and the ability to protect communities. The gentle lady from new mexico to transnational kernel organizations has a continuing threat to border communities and to curtail efforts and was hoping to continue that work today. Working with the department in the future to strengthen and Border Security. If we understand the threads and the capability of the southwest border any day mile by mile analysis while i introduce legislation to develop a plan to meet those gaps identified in the analysis so to conduct a Border Security plan and i requested to that committee as soon as possible. Moving on to cybersecurity chinese and russian official hackers to have biomedical one Biomedical Research and they have also expressed concern about the possibility of chinese and Russian Hackers to develop a vaccine what is the department doing to work with pharmaceutical and academic institutions to strengthen cyberdefense capabilities . You are correct you are seeing efforts by foreign adversaries to engage in cybertargeting of Covid Vaccine research, testing , Technology Treatment for the National Response to the pandemic and to recently publicly attributed that conduct to the most prolific cyberactors. The uk counterparts have publicly attributed some activity on the same kind of front to russian actors as well. We try to be for the meaning with universities and Research Centers when we see targeting adversaries to take appropriate steps from cybersecurity perspective too hard and their systems and prevent exfiltration of the information. So far we have been pretty successful to get there before valuable information has been lost. Make no mistake it is a very real cyberthreat we are dealing with daily. Discussing information related to elections another way russia is seeking to undermine is with covid19 to spread that information on future vaccines with distrust in the public. Are there any distinct challenges to disrupt the information with covid19 and Vaccination Efforts . We share your concerns about misinformation about covid whether misinformation of the infectiousness of the disease itself for treatments and cures and vaccines and in some instances to pursue cases with those scams and schemes fraudulent tests and cures to claim to have the vaccine so that is fraught engage to use Law Enforcement but as i said in the election context and you are right to draw the analogy especially with Something Like medical issues and and this context from the medical professionals and not just social media. The state on russia you mentioned that key strategy to disrupt those voices is stopping them before they gained credibility. In the covid19 space there is a challenge if this information gains credibility through outside actors . As we discussed the essence of this information is to do it through voices that are viewed as credible and if i can take a specific example but if there was a credible voice that people paid attention to as a medical expert under the guise of being a medical expert badly flawed and dangerous information that is of particular concern. My time is expired. Thank you mr. Chairman, director, we are here to talk about threats to the homeland i specifically want to discuss recent attacks on Law Enforcement officials we just saw in california the headlines went to l. A. County sheriffs deputies fighting for their lives goes on to say the manhunt is underway after two l. A. County Sheriff Deputies were shot in their patrol car who opened fire without warning or provocation the deputies were both in Critical Condition along with a 34 yearold man and 31 yearold woman as they went surgery which up to the hospital a local leader came to the hospital to pray told reporters said somewhere shouting slogans like death to the police. And with the hospital emergency room saying we hope they die. In june 2020 the ap reported they shot the ambush attack at police stations and then was shot and that had been ambushed by a gun man abc news and those with 28 percent this year with that civil unrest to exploit a trooper who was run or shuttered aid broken pelvis and leg. An officer with saved by a helmet when the bullets struck the protective covering. Chicago Police Reports 132 of its officers had been injured during violent riots. Davenport iowa an Undercover Police officer in an unmarked vehicle was stopped twice by gunfire. Las vegas Police Officer was on life support after being shot in the head during a protest may 28, a Second Police precinct in the city was set ablaze as violent protests surged. New york Police Officers were seen being struck by a vehicle in what appeared to be a deliberate hit and run. Also shot and killed friday night we see story after story after story of violence against our First Responders. The very men and women who put their safety in jeopardy to protect us are under attack. So i ask you at this time but intelligence, what information can you share. What can we do to better protect our First Responders . First let me say although i am familiar with every one of the instances you described, just hearing you go through them is yet another reminder to me about how tragic this is, and i think its important for americans to take a deep breath and think about what it means for somebody to put his or her life on the line for a complete stranger. Is. You touched on for your commen comments. Thats not counting the officers that miraculously survived an attack but whose lives were forever altered the. As they are racing to the crime scene every time i call an officer through adversarial action is going to call myself, the chief, sheriff, and express my condolences on the half of the fbi i and each time i do tht i asked my staff to get a picture, a photograph of the officer. Having to call in your home state to brookhaven mississippi where they lost to officers and two officers ina single incidene department of i want to say less than 30 people. Every Single Person do those officers they were upset and hurt and i get that in it there is reasons to be they deserve a level of appreciation and i appreciate your comment. It is consistently been there and its only when the rules get changed in their concern. I might ask mr. Rose to talk about the rules after 9 11, congress did quite a bit of a job towards supporting a the men and women and their families that lost their lives and all of a sudden. With that i will yield to the gentleman from new york. Director, first of all we do not have a domestic terrorist station, we have an organization destination especially designating the terrorist Group Designations other than in our legislative purview something i support, something some republicans do not support, some democrats do not support do you need further resources to go after criminal organizations in the United States of america that are organizing to inflict violence on american citizens, Law Enforcement especially . I would put the resources in two categories. One is funding for data analytics, boots on the ground etc. Then i would say there are tools and i touched on one of the concerns earlier pitches this encryption issue. When we talk about organizations and people communicating with each other, if we move into a world in which bad guys have a choice between putting all of their information and communications in platform for devices that are utterly beyond the reach of the law no matter how rock solid legal case is, i dont think that is a judgment those companies should be making on behalf of the American People. Thats something to congress. Can you commit to giving us the tools you think you need to keep us safe in our Law Enforcement Officials Say the citizens safe from violent criminal organizations in the United States of america . Panic we would be happy to follow up. Then lets see that we can unite around something rather than what it appears they are doing. I want to move on to the threat of White Supremacists globally, domestically. Looking at the existing list, buput that aside which organizations are you concerned with particularly in the White Supremacist Organization front. Its nice to have an army veteran here. I thought it was a strong statement in a good way. They changed their name so fast these days to keep ahead of us, so if you look at any of those global groups do you see a connection between those groups are otherwise any connection between those groups and domestic organizations . Nothing monolithic. We are not picking up anything of a routine systemic connecti connection. I think what youll see is more ad hoc because they are all sitting online together but have been picked up anything deliberate. That you are seeing communications between them and physical movement of people at all . Other than asking now there have been westerners that have gone out to some of their training do we know who all those individuals or that have gone to partner with the Russian Imperial Movement and come back and . I cant say that we know all of them. Do you think that it is a problem flex but you say that we know everyone . Or we have a system in place for those that have gone to try to work with isis one al qaeda attacks like director ray noted with Communications Technology the way it is right now i would like to say we know that i cannot say that we know definitively everyone that has gone overseas to support a foreign terrorist organization. Would you support this administration looking at expanding the list so as to assist us in fighting this new terrorist threat . I think we have an extraordinarily robust and solid system for doing that and they look at that regularly to see if they are aligned correctly during the other organizations that had been designated. To include those that you referred to earlier . Correct. Think you. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Garcia. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you to the Ranking Member for the warm welcome. Appreciate that as a student of National Security and former front line operator developing security technology. It is an honor to be here. Thank you both for being here today and taking the time to help educate us and keep us a line and and both sides of the aisle informed. Really appreciate it. I think that your comments are the single biggest threat to the security right now, our politicians and government leaders especially at the state and local level do not get their collective programs together and support Law Enforcement. As my colleague from mississippi mentioned, it is getting ugly out there and as the leaders of government if we do not back lawenforcement and make it Crystal Clear that we support those that protect us as a nation, not just through policy but also funding, this will get worse, so i appreciate your comments and commitments to that and i also appreciate your condemnation of previous abuses of power by your organization and look forward to fixing those things of the past. Appreciate you both being here. I would like to put it to a slightly different conversation and topic. In my district that come from southern california. They were unfortunately the site of a mass casualty at a local high school where we lost two of our beloved team within a year r ago. Where i come from i was a former navy aviator and whenever there was a mishap or loss of life, they would convene what was called a Safety Investigation board or review. This team would go away for six months, nine months sometimes, look at everbut that every elemd to the mishap, with the pilot ate, what medications he was on, with his family life was like, what his emotion and Mental Health status was and they come back to the entire fleet to debrief us. The Lessons Learned, what went wrong or what went right in some cases and how could we have avoided that situation. In our country, we dont seem to have anything like that for five mass casualties. We have these fatalities in high schools and mass casualties in different venues and different types of weapons. We hear about it in the news and it makes frontline stories for a couple of the infinite goes away. Close friends and families and communities impacted they sometimes dont remember. I guess my question is why dont they have to. Why dont we have sort of a mass cache of the Lessons Learned report that becomes domain. We can redact things to protect anonymity and personal private information but within that we can get Lessons Learned about what he was going for and with his parents all, what telltale issues were prevalent, and i bet you that we do find common denominators, something that as parents we can read or as teachers we can read it as a nation we can all understand what led to some of this. Why dont we have that and what do we need to do to have it available. I appreciate the question. I think we do have some of that actually. He asked the fbi have done a number of studies not individual selfcontained mass casualty attacks that weve looked at them at the collection and universe of them over a long. Of time and then generated some reports about indicators that might have tipped people off if theyd known what to look for so we tried to get some of that information out. A member of the field offices, and mentioned they visited the amendment with partners, Law Enforcement communities and a number of offices are doing the fbi officers were doing outreach efforts with schools and neighborhoods in their area of responsibility to kind of better educate people what to look for this one of the things we have learned and frankly the same thing applies on a lot of the terrorism incidents is that if you look back there is almost always someone, a classmate, a family member, a neighbor, a coworker assaul this off with af hindsight saw the change in behavior, a transformation. You hear us say all the time if you see something Say Something. Most of us when we hear that, we picture the unintended backpack in the station and we want people to Say Something but we also need people if they see something about somebody, Say Something. The more we can educate people as to behavioral patterns to be concerned about, a lot of it is very individualized. So its the people who know the baseline and behavior of the person to know wait a minute, this has changed now. This is something i should be concerned about. I should go to the School Security officer and contact Law Enforcement. So thats part of it and theres also Lessons Learned in terms of hardening our schools and theres been a lot of work done with state and local partners, so theres a kind of infrastructure piece of it. Theres a lot of work to be done in this space and its going to take a kind of collaborative lawenforcement Education Community partnership. I think we need a concerted effort to make the documents and Lessons Learned to be truly accessible to every american out there so that we are actually benefiting. I think that is the path forward so again, gentlemen, thank you for your time. The gentle lady from michigan. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I know that there has been back and forth on whether acting secretary wolf should be here. Whatever the reason given that this is a hearing the secretary should have come here and this idea someone under Senate Confirmation cant appear is factually incorrect. Ive known that since i was under Senate Confirmation when i was called to testify many times. Let me ask about youve been helpful on being straight and clear about kind of the threats that are going on out there. Can you talk about the level of effort on extremist violence, domestic extremist violence. Utah about how you are seeing 2019 i think you said was one of the greatest levels of Domestic Violence we have seen for quite some time since oklahoma city. Can you tell me how many cases these will think and if you dont know the exact number, just approximately. Youve opened the groups that are white supremacist versus groups coming from the left. Just the level of effort the fbi is in playing right now im trying to think what i can say. I will say as a general rule, we had each year lately we have been having roughly a thousand domestic terrorism investigations a year. Its higher than that this year. A good north of thousand. I know weve had about a hundred and 20 arrests for domestic terrorism. That number is domestic terrorism across the board. Everything from racially motivated violent extremists to violent anarchists extremist militia types, you name it. Of domestic terrorism threats, we last year elevated racially motivated violent extremism to be a National Threat priority commensurate. What you are saying is the level of threat across the board regardless of ideology is at the same level as homegrown terrorists that have connection to a foreign terrorist organization. But i am assuming you are getting back because it asserts that attention because the threat is elevated from a time when 2005, 20 of seven its interesting that its elevated. I think the thing we are all struggling with his verities the these homegrown terrorists of every flavor and type but just in the number of cases or arrests, how many of them are White Supremacists if it isnt the exact number, is at the same as other types of domestic terrorism, is it higher, just give us a level of approximate numbers what i can tell you is within the domestic terrorism bucket it is the biggest within the larger group and within the racially motivated. They are the largest chunk of the racially motivated domestic service. I would also add to that that eventually motivated extremists over recent years have been responsible for the most lethal activity in the u. S. Now this year, the lethal attacks, domestic terrorism lethal attacks we have had all fit in the category of antigovernment, antiauthority which comes at a briefing from anarchists violent extremists to militia types. We dont really think in terms of left and right. I understand. Thats not the way we look at the world. I understand. I will be submitting questions for the record commensurate with the questions i submitted to chairman on the role of the department of Homeland Security in and around our elections and the peaceful transition of power. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. In line with the questions, you know Congress Passed a law that he that hath data acts referred to as a domestic and International Terrorism act that requires the production of a report identifying everything talked about. Are you familiar with that . I am familiar with that, yes mr. Chairman. Here three months late on the production of that report. I am certainly aware of the report and the requirement and i am aware that its delayed and behind schedule. I know that the first report of the ones that are called for as my understanding is complete in the interagency approval proce process. Unfortunately with covid, when it was passed, no one anticipated the impact of covid and of the people and infected would have on the workforce, so thats been a big part of the delay i understand the importance and i know we have been engaging with you and your staff in terms of providing briefings and the we will give o you as fast as they can. I think its important all members of congress have access and if they have some followups from it but congress has spoken. The gentleman recognizes, the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you both for being here today. I appreciate it very much. I spent a lot of my waking hours down here on antiterrorism matters and cybersecurity, so i could talk to all of you for hours but i do want to pause for a second to just commend the work of the efforts. For 20 years before i came to congress lif by the federal organized crime prosecutor and some of the best cases i ever did had involvement with fbi including police corruption, political corruption, homicides. So i just want to come and the agents who do all the great work and i convey my thank you to them. Theres plenty of ways i can go here but one that has been gnawing at me and i want to touch on it quickly if i can, that is when the new York City Police department was cut by 16 billion of the budget, noting that new york city is the primary target in the world for terrorists to attack, im just curious if either one of you have any sor had any sort of inn were concerns that have arisen because of a lack of funding that they now have. First let me say i appreciate your kind words about the hardworking men and women in the fbi. We have a tough job before this year and certainly covid didnt make it any easier. Im proud of the hard work that has gone on in terms of keeping people and their families safe but not letting up on the mission and the results are pretty extraordinary. I care deeply about the safety of the city in a very personal way and i dont think its appropriate for the fbi director to weigh in on political debates local or otherwise, but i think our Police Officers including the nypd police Police Officers are extraordinary servants that have a very tough job to have, to undertake and people ought to think carefully about the ramifications of making their job harder. Thank you. Mr. Miller. Thank you, congressman. Obviously last friday as we recognized the 19th anniversary, our hearts went out to new york city and we were disappointed we were not able to go up but of course with covid19 and whatnot, we were not able to do that. Im hopeful next year at the 20th anniversary will be at an entirely different place against this global war on terrorism and have some good news on al qaedas demise. I just want to highlight we have the most unbelievable partnership with the nypd. We have an analyst. Shes magical and embedded into the National Counterterrorism center and we talked to them probably three or four times a day. I am not familiar in total honesty. Ive look into that and if theres anything we can do to support, obviously we will because clean debate between bigger just remarkable partners and they want to help them in any way we can. I spent a lot of time on Election Security and its one of my greatest concerns. Everything from taking sure the machines dont get hacked into between the foreign actors such as russia and iran and china. It delays the results which believes individuals believe in the result and im concerned about that if i could ask this question i know youve testified on a lot of different aspects, what is your concern right about it Going Forward for this fall . I think in many ways what concerns me the most is this the steady drumbeat of misinformation and amplification of smaller cyber intrusions and i worry they will contribute overtime to a lack of confidence of American Voters and citizens. In the validity of their vote. I think that would be a perception, not a reality. I think americans should and can have confidence in the system and in our democracy but i worry people will take on a feeling of futility because of all of the noise and confusion thats generated and thats a very hard problem to combat. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the gentleman from missouri. You need to amuse yourself. [audio difficulties] we will go to mr. Green for five minutes. Can you hear me . Yes, we have you. Thank you mr. Chairman. I think the witnesses for appearing, and im especially interested in a topic related to violent activity. I have in my hand a story from the Washington Post dated september 14, 2020 and its trump held capito [inaudible] speed to a relevant portion of the story that is quoted reads donald trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin, he warned in video. The thrills that you have seen are nothing. If you carry guns, i. E. Ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because its going to be hard to get. Mr. Director of the fbi, you pride yourself on your independent, do you not . Im sorry i had a little bit of a hard time do you pride yourself on your independent . I do. You will investigate anybody or any opportunity to prevent a crime, thats correct . We will follow the facts of the law and nothing else and aggressively pursue any criminal activity. Can you explain to me why you have not pursued the wall as it relates to mr. Capito and if these statements that appear to be warning of some sort of impending crisis relating to violence . I dont want to engage in whether or not theres any particular investigative activity going on that might be related to that. What i would say is we dont investigate rhetoric. We will investigate when we have proper provocation of a federal criminal violation. You can be assured that if we have a situation where we have facts and the law and the evidence we will pursue it without regard to any other consideration. Mr. Capito is part of the administration that seems to be on leave right now. He has indicated that theres going to be violence. It would seem to me at least an interview with the bee in order. Why have you not interview him . Congressman, im not particularly familiar with the Public Comments of your referring to, but as i said, if we see credible evidence of violent criminal activity, that is a federal crime and we will pursue that activity. Mamay i kindly insert the Washington Post article in the record without objection . Without objection. Thank you. Back to you, again, mr. Director of the fbi, my hope is that my calling this to your attention today will give you sufficient reason. You have a member of the United States congress who is bringing to you intelligence that has been reported publicly that a member of the administration has made comments that there will be violence if theres a refusal to stand down. My hope is that its sufficient for you to at least interview someone. But they move to the director of National Counterterrorism. With this intelligence not seem to indicate that there may be some sort of activity that would fall under your umbrella if this is credible information . My focus is on any homegrown violent extremists. I have to ask now reportedly what does it take to investigate someone associated with this administration who makes these kind of comments . This seems to be fairly serious to me. I likely will be at the inauguration and we have a person indicating a bullets are going to fly into shooting will begin. It would seem to me this should be sufficient. Im going to ask as a member of congress that the fbi performed this duty as an independent agent hearing none and having favor for non investigate this and please report it to me if the committee doesnt desire to know, to the extent that you can. Thank you mr. Chairman. I apologize for the technological failure earlier. But they also first of all say i would like to thank you for your leadership measuring things and how they function during a crisis i think you handled magnificently. But they say things that are in a polarization speed to his helping to create a new and growing and dangerous [inaudible] on becoming a nation where people live in neighborhoods where people have similar ideologies and we condemn lying in the little circle we might function but we accept it when its down to achiev done to achg political. Now let me just say i appreciate you and the way you handled the department. We have seen many of our institutions damaged over the last few years and people in positions of significance allow them to bend to the will of politicians and i dont [inaudible] [audio difficulties] i would like you to address if you can wear the fbi stands in terms of the morale and whether they are now in a situation we depend on it for the central objectivity and i would also end by saying [inaudible] but its something i want to express appreciation for. There is the fbi right now in doing the work that we need [inaudible] congressman, i want to tell you i very much up to get your kind words to our folks and the question. I will say i could not be more proud of our people and whenever you ask questions about Something Like morale, it is a hard thing sometimes to measure but i will give you a few pieces of information that i think are extremely good news. One is that last year, and this has been a trend over the a few years of my tenure as fbi director, the attrition rate is down to 0. 45. 6 to less than 1 . And there are very few organizations that have an attrition rate of flow that an even better piece of news is on the recruiting side. Last year, we had tripled the number of people in the country applying and these are qualified applicants to be special agents of the fbi. The highest number in about a decade into this year we are on track to be even higher costs i think that is a very positive signal about the brand of the fbi and the currency of the fbi out all across the country and among the public. Our folks have opened up Something Like 750 fraud investigations into 600 plus violent gang members in the course of a single month i mentioned the terrorist attacks i think in disclosure 20 we recovered Something Like 500 plus they were victims of human trafficking. I could go on and on but they are doing all of that despite the challenges of the current environment. I say that im honored that really i am humbled to be working with them. Thank you. It would have been great if secretary wolf had been here. His absence continues to do damage. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from illinois. Thank you mr. Chairman. Your agencies have identified Domestic Violence extremism particularly White Supremacy as a leading threat to homeland. Last month a teenager in my district in illinois [inaudible] allegedly killed two people [inaudible] [audio difficulties] the example of this kind of deadly violence being fueled by online extremism and now its none combating requires a thoughtful approach in order to save fight on their american civil liberty. In explaining the fbis approach to the domestic extremism, you said, quote, the fbi is only concerned when [inaudible] in the days before the shootings, the Atlanta Council Digital Forensics research lab found militia were publicly organizing on social media for armed individuals to travel there. The militia leader rose Law Enforcement is outnumbered, shakeup the city tonight. Another user wrote, quote, im on the way with 75 people from green bay. We have lots of guns and lots of pipe bombs to cleanse the streets of rioters. A third one wrote attention all [inaudible] you have until sundown to pick up your belongings and leave the area. After that, anything that happens to you or your children will be your fault and shoot to kill. Are these ideas or threats of violence . Im sorry, the very last part, the question itself i couldnt quite hear. Im not sure if it was your audio are these ideas or threats of violence . Without reference to any specific case, certainly language about violence can insert an instance of the threat. We pursue threats to commit violence not just the actual commission of violence. To your knowledge did facebook at anythin any point pe any of these specific threats to federal lawenforcement . I cant sitting here right now speak to any specific tips or threats. I will say that we get lots of leads and tips from this book and work closely with them on a lot of terrorism issues. In light of the violence that occurred this year i think we can all agree statements like these are concerning and thats why its so important to share this information as soon as possible with local officials so they can make the best plans to keep the kennedy space. And i am speaking of statements posted online often under users real name not about private communication. What steps if any did the fbi take to alert state and local officials in wisconsin about these specific threats of the violent activity in their area . Well, congresswoman, theres a few things i would say on this topic. First, to be clear, we dont have the resources or the authority to just sit on social media and troll for threatening i kno notice youre not suggesting that by making sure the people out there understand [inaudible] we have limited time if you could answer the question. That, so what they do, we have in addition to the relationships we have with social Media Companies, we have something called the National Threat Operations Center that has both called lines and then an email version i ask if you took steps to alert the local officials . What im getting to is the National Threat Operations Center, when it gets threats and tips of the sort they were describing, we have a mechanism by which we view that information as quickly as possible to state and local Law Enforcement so they can take appropriate action. Of reclaiming my time, he isnt answering whether the fbi alerted state and local officials and i would like the noted for the record. But aftethe day after the shooti heard from a mother and the alleged shooter in the district that wrote its becoming more and more emboldened to take the lives into their own hands and im fearful to send my children to the same school as white supremacist militia members. Domestic extremism and White Supremacy [inaudible] to stop deadly extremist violence hospital Law Enforcement and partners must seize the opportunities to intervene before the violence begins and im looking forward to working together with you, director, on improving our ability to prevent violent threats from becoming violent actions. Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Fulfilling the duty to this committee and to the American People understand the threats to National Security and i yield back. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from new york for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and i think the Ranking Member. As the nation faces and measurable threats from these terrorist groups to the risk of Cyber Attacks crippling our critical infrastructure. This committee has an obligation to conduct oversight and ensure the executive branch is doing its job. But you can only fulfill our constitutional role if the executive branch follows the law and appears before us when subpoenaed. Id like to thank director ray and director miller from appearing before us today and also i would like to com condemn the strongest possible terms mr. Wolf to not appear for us and comply with the lawfully issued subpoena. His refusal to testify is yet another example of lawlessness that has infected the department of Homeland Security. Mr. Wolf may not want to answer for his Department Actions by removing detainees to manipulating intelligence to minimize russian meddling in our election but when a Congressional Committee subpoenas you, the law says you must show us and with that, i turn to my questions. My first question is actually for you, director ray and exhibit for upscal parochial int of my district. Yesterday i joined a letter to commissioner shea of the new York City Police department signed by two new york state legislators, two members of congress and members of the new York City Council regarding alleged cooperation between the fbi and the nypd and the community in my district. Specifically, it alleged that in light of the new statelevel law the investigations that have previously been handled by local officials, the nypd are now being turned into federal cases. Are you aware of any arrangement between the bureau and the nypd . Im not familiar with a specific issue you are referring to. Would you look into it and get back to me on that . Id be happy to take a look. You said that there was a letter that you have written. This was sent to the local police commissioner, but there was a Public Statement made that they are working with the fbi and so i would like to get some clarity around with this arrangement is if it exists at all. I will have my staff followup with your staff to see if there is any information we can provide that would be helpful. I would appreciate that and id like to ask a question about the resurgence of White Supremacists again african americans, jewish americans, latinos and so many others. Recently we obtained a draft 2020 homeland threat assessment which describes White Supremacists as the deadly domestic terrorist threat currently facing the nation but subsequent drafts diminished this morning. What is your assessment of the deadliest threat currently facing the nation and have you ever faced political pressure were received a request from any other element of the u. S. Government to alter the assessment . First with the same mike method extends not just to the investigations but to the intelligence assessment. Thats been my commitment and it continues and it will continue as long as i am sitting in this role. Weve continued to pick that approach to all of the assessment on my watch. As far as the issue about danger and domestic terrorism threat to, what i would say is that we assess that the most dangerous threat to the homeland encompasses more than actors, radicalized often online with easily accessible weapons against soft targets that includes homegrown violent extremists that are jihad is the smallest domestic violent extremists of all sorts. In the domestic violent extremists, we have assessed racially motivated, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists have been responsible for the most lethal activities over the last several years i cant give you a percentage of the biggest chunk of that or individuals are motivated by some form of white supremacist ideology and the group has been responsible the last few years. I will say the lethal attacks we have seen have been happening from antigovernment or antiauthority types but if you go back over the last few years its been racially motivated that have been the most lethal attacks in the homeland. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. Can you hear me . Yes we can. I wanted to ask about the limitation on the visas. I really dont think special ed teachers are were a threat to e homeland but nonetheless, despite her protest that the fbi isnt being politicized weve seen increasing politicization under attorney general barr and this has cost the longstanding line we dont usually expect or see or tolerate this sort of thing from the nations Law Enforcement. Just yesterday the attorney general told the nations prosecutors and this is virtually a quote, to be aggressive when charging certain demonstrators with crimes including the crime of sedition. As you know thats an act of the goal of destroying or overthrowing it. Now put that in the context of the fact that fbi officials earlier this year described perpetrators as some of the demonstrations largely opportunistic individuals taking advantage of the protests. Then we had a report by Armed Conflict that monitors political of people around the world. They looked at 7,750 protests from may 26 to august 22 and 24 different locations in all 50 states and in washington and found 93 of the protests were peaceful. Third, we have seen a statement by the federal prosecutor or attorney from eastern virginia that said if the Eastern District of virginia says if you have a sedition case then bring it, thats okay but if hes urging people to stretch to bring one, thats deeply dangerous to the constitution. I wonder if under these new directives from attorney general barr, who is apparently trying to shore up the president law and order image you are going to change your approach to dealing with some of the people who have been involved in these demonstrations, if you are going to look at building a case. Its difficult to prove that maybe you will set out to do that. You kind of describe how this might make a difference in the crimes that they pursue against some of these people . Im not familiar with the conversation thats been attributed to the attorney general. I cant really comment on that specifically. I will say my commitment from our commitment is to pursue justice in every investigation and follow the facts, follow the law and proper petition. We have a commitment to protecting the American People and uphold the constitution and we are going t to devote an enty investigation and that includes in this context. Could you talk a little bit about what it would take to prove it if you see any cases that might fit under this charge . I will confess im not a legal expert on the crime of sedition so i would have to brush up on that answer the question in an intelligent way that i think you would expect of me. It is dangerous and violent criminal activity that is occurring amidst some of the protests around the country and i think we have a responsibility to pursue that activity aggressively but appropriately even if numerically it may not be the lions share of the protesters by any stretch of the imagination. It doesnt take more than one person to engage and sometimes lethal activity against others and so we have the responsibility to pursue that you can be confident we will pursue that based on the facts in the waland the law and the ae evidence and not based on any kind of improper or partisan consideration. Do you think that the major or governor inslee are domestic terrorists because of whats happened in seattle as has been suggested perhaps by this administration . Im not familiar with the particular comments youre referring to, so i cant comment on that. Im just asking do you think they would fit the category of domestic terrorists based on whats been happening in seattle . Im sorry, did i think who is a domestic terrorist . Mayor duncan and senator inslee. I wouldnt describe them that way, but i dont tend to comment on people as labels of criminals or terrorist activity except when we are speaking to charges. Thats how i would communicate about that. I appreciate that and i wish some other members of the administration felt the same way. Thank you mr. Chair and i will yield. The gentle lady from new jersey. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and thank you to mrs. For the service that you render, the job that you do, and your willingness to be here and have an exchange of views. I have a series of followup questions. Congresswoman underwood ask you about investigations and you didnt answer whether or not you would be pursuing those investigations at her request. So is that a yes or no . I will confess that i was having an extremely hard time hearing congresswoman underwood. And the notion of violence that the scientist were that they were creating those conditions with their actions will you be investigating that . And i you said he didnt know the comments made but now that you know. As you may know we dont ever confirm or deny the existence of investigations. And this is what happens all the time we take that evidence submitted we will review the evidence and decide what to do. Do you feel that voting by mail as a result of the pandemic in anticipation of the largest turnout do you believe there is a widespread fraudulent abuse voting by mail . Yes or no. It doesnt easily lend itself to yes or no. That is including voter fraud. So it is a yes or no question is they are the experience of widespread abuse of voting by mail . We have not seen a coordinated National Voter fraud effort in a major election. We have investigated voter fraud committed by mail at the local level. And very isolated circumstances i suspect. If you would use your good graces and the respect to ask him to stop spreading misinformation of voting integrity. I want to ask you a couple of questions about white supremacist. First of all with black lives matter does that represent and organization . I do know that there is an Organization Called black lives matter. Is listed as a terrorist organization . No. You have any build on reason to believe it is a terrorist organization . We dont categorize domestic organizations as to terrorist under the law. Have you found any individual that has aligned themselves with black lives matter as the perpetrators that you have seen take place of Peaceful Demonstrations organized by black lives matter . Sitting here right now i cannot speak specifically. I know we had a wide range of Domestic Violence extremist amidst the current protest activity with destruction of property and if any one of those cases somebody may have aligned themselves are associated themselves sitting here right now i cannot think of one but i dont know for sure. You know whether or not they are lined with white supremacist or what ever right wing groups . We had a number of investigations involving some of the activity we are talking about with violent extremism that in some instances of people who are associating themselves with the anarchist and eight on ideology like antifur antifa i mentioned the case in my exchange with a congresswoman about minneapolis individuals who associate themselves and ultimately ensnared to support hamas and other cases involving activity i believe perhaps the individuals who killed the officer in oakland may have reference the boogaloo inspiration. Your time is expired the gentle lady from florida. Thank you mr. Chairman and to both witnesses for being with us today. I am disappointed assistant secretary wolf did not join us today and ignored a subpoena and prided that the department of justice Homeland Security and Intelligence Agency would asked above the fray and keep a safe for bad actors accountable and then to tell our own story for the men and women in the American People so director miller and director ray thank you for being with us today i can say im grateful for the work that men and women Law Enforcement do every day and i can say that and hold them accountable when they are engaged in wrongdoing all at the same time. Men and women of Law Enforcement do not deserve nor need to be used as a political pond as i believe they have heard and they are clear on who they work for and that they work on behalf of the American People. Before i get into my line of questioning, director ra ray, following up on my colleague line of questioning about the attorney generals agenda, were in a strange place right now hearing strange things all the time. What i did here recently and what concerned me, like what i say to the fbi agents. Whose agents do you thank you are . Think about Law Enforcement and the very nonpartisan role that Law Enforcement is engaged in or should be, to alleviate any confusion on behalf of your agents how do you respond to that comment from the attorney general . Im not familiar with that comment but i will say that we work for the American People. Thank you for clearing that up. Second, both of you have said the biggest threat the persons we would consider as lone wolf individuals homegrown extremist how much have they taken advantage looking at the number of protest around the country have taken advantage the number of protest to spread their own message and what can we anticipate as we get closer to the election . Certainly we have seen amidst some of the protest in certain cities dangerous violent extremism committed from a variety of ideology who are hijacking those protest as cover for their own ability to engage in violence and criminality. What it lends itself to is not just dangerous for Small Businesses or law enforcemen enforcement, but frankly to the other protesters as well. Those who are there peacefully find themselves in the line of fire. So its activity we need to pursue aggressively. One of the things we start to see more and more of i am concerned about, with people committing violence for Law Enforcement which is a real problem. People need to understand it is happening with real consequences. And now you see different violent Extremist Groups or individuals against each other. One group shows up to pick a fight with the other group who knows which is the chicken in which is the egg it is combustible violence instead of one hijacking another now you have both groups from the opposite side adding to the situation. We have seen that in a number of cities and that is a force multiplier in a bad way. One more question. Chairman acting and is director of National Intelligence with the National Counterterrorism center without Consulting Congress reportedly cutting resources and staff what is the impact of the operation . Thank you congresswoman we owe you a briefing on that. I have been there for five weeks and that the reorganization and we cleaned up. We had some seats not filled for a long time. Those went away. I have not seen any major issue and to tell you more about that. Thank you mr. Chairman i yield back. The gentle lady from texas. Thank you for the generosity. I want to put on the record to introduce elements the doj contemplating the investigation into domestic terrorism charge charges, i would like to have that on the record of black lives matter and what is the status . And those deployed in portland dont have proper training and with the unanimous consent. The Washington Post that transport agents with a huge coronavirus outbreak with abc news protest from kenosha to portland tell a different story and this indicates who is involved. Fbi names a domestic terrorist threat i ask unanimous consent the fbi after the interest of pizza gate is rising again and political divide conspiracy theories and the Pew Research Center 40 percent report as a major problem voting by mail i ask unanimous consent these be introduced into the record npr what is Conspiracy Theory asking unanimous consent these periodicals be submitted into the record. Without objection so ordered ask all ask unanimous consent a statement for the record from the director of the study of hate and Extremism California State University San Bernardino without objection so ordered. Thank you to the witnesses for their valuable testimony and members for their questions that members may have additional questions for the witnesses and we ask you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Hearing no further business the committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] its ordered liberty. If you take away the order, you