Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On White Supremacy In The Military 20200211

>> the hearing will come to order. the hearing is to discuss a very important issue and one that hopefully will get some important answers to. this issue could not be more urgent. a dangerous white supremacist group called the base was arrested. they aren't your parents neo nazis. they are paganistic, anarcic group. they hate jews and african-americans but they don't like president trump or the united states either. their goal is to use terrorism to start a race war and collapse the united states. it's claimed more lives than international terror since 9/11. last week fbi director wray told the sjudiciary committee he was elevated, rationally motivated, violent extremism to a national threat priority. the same ban with home grown violent extremism and isis. unkwoets. our enemy, especially russia exploit these racial tensions to divide and weaken american society. the head of the base lives in russia. russia likely supports white supreme assist groups in the united states and europe. their target are service members with disinformation. when our enemies take advantage of our vulnerabilities our national security is threatened and dependent on a sufficient response. they recruit to join and train members. second, there are several warning signs that individuals with white nationalists and supremacists tendencies are serving in our military. recent kpampexamples include a e attending the charlottesville ral rally. the number of troops who have witnessed evidence of white supremacists and rational ideologies in the military increased from 22 to 36% from 2018 to 2019. like in previous decades, marked by vents such as charlottesville have increased in recent years is likely increased in the military as well. supremacists put service members safety, recruitment and retention at risk. third, i'm concerned that it doesn't take the military -- i'm concerned that the military doesn't take this threat seriously enough. our vetting enterprise lumps white supremacists activity in with gang affiliation rather than treat it as a national security issue on par with foreign terror. t even if they are dealing with it, the military lacks statistics to prove it. in part because the absence of stand alone ucmj extremism article. this raises hard questions about whether military law enforcement needs additional authorities to combat this terror threat. today we'll be joined by two panels. the first will consist of organizations that study, track and educate on extremism. on the second we'll have dod officials responsible for the policy for the military counter intelligence and law enforcement security and the military criminal investigation agencies. i'd like to focus on three main concerns today. first, what is the scope and magnitude och this threat and what are it ts impacts. second, what is being done to prevent these individuals from entering the military and find, investigate and prosecute them. do military leaders take this issue seriously enough? some of the testimony will suggest many of them are just administratively discharged. nothing further is done about them. that is inconsistent with our need to make sure that the country is secure as well. third, what additional tools might we need to give the military to combat this threat? let me let ranking member kelly have his opening remarks. >> thank you. wish to welcome both of our panels to the hearing. i've dealt with white supremacy on the first line as an attorney. from murder, rape, assault, intimidation to officer shootings. i've dealt with all those things in my district in mississippi during my time as a prosecutor and a district attorney. i've also served in the military for 34 years. no group is more diverse or culturally integrated than our united states military. none, anywhere. we must keep it that way. it should be a cultural site where people can go to know what right looks like and we have to keep it that way. it's an important hearing to make sure we keep us at the basis we are. i think extremist activities of any kind are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in the military. they cut to the very core of what the military was founding on. good order and discipline. the thought of extremist activity is in direct contrast to the foundation of what the military stands. soldiers must and do chus each other with their lives regardless of their backgrounds or the color of their skin. service members are based on the ability to perform their job and the con tetent of their charact. any other distinction s have no place in the military or society. i'm interested in learning the true magnitude. i raelds ealized we don't have of reliable data on this. dod is tracking investigation sboos white supremacy as well as other extremist activities and sharing this information with fbi. this is a step in the right direction on the law enforcement side but i think data is a huge key to unpacking the issue. we needed to find the problem and get reliable data on how prevalent it is in the military. on panel one i'd like to understand the magnitude of white supremacy activity and what data is being tracked outside of the military. i'm also interested in your recommendations specifically as they pertain to training and data collection for the military. on panel two, i'd like to hear about the department skreepi is processes and ongoing monitoring of activities. there may be a gap in the reporting of the non-criminal cases that have been handled administratively that resulted in an administrative discharge. i'd like to understand dod's way forward on this issue and whether we need to have standardized training across the services. i want to thank our witnesses and our chairwoman. thank you for being here and i yields back. >> thank you ranking member kelly. thank you witnesses for joining us today. you'll have five minutes to present your testimony. our first panel started with dr. heidi co-founder and chief strategy founder of hate and extremism. we'll take a short recess and switch out to our second panel at the end of the first panel. would you like to begin? >> yes, i'd like to thank the esteemed member offense the issue subcommittee. i have a phd in political science from purdue university. for the last two decades i have researched extremist activity in the united states and monitored white supremacists in the military forwarding that information to military investigators. i also argued, as i will today, for more individual lanvigilant policies to root it out. nothing should be taken to impugn the men and women who serve in the armed forces whose eftss i applauds. barring whiets iss inring white the utmost importance. many of us know former soldiers who have gone onto commit serious acts of terrorism. timothy mcvey in oklahoma city is the one people think of. this isn't an old problem. active duty troops have been involved in white supremacy gro groups, responsible for murders. white supremacy and the terror associated with it is on the rise. in fact, bucking the trend of declining rates of terror globally. we have growing white supre supremacist groups in the united states and abroad. this is significant tlets hreat our troops. the armed services know that white supremacy is a problem. it's already been cited. there's been a poll three years in a row that shows between one and four and one in three soldiers are aware -- have encountered white nationalism and racism in the armed forces. here are my to level recommendations to deal with white supremacy in the armed forces. it's very clear that screening measures need strengthening. the military doesn't have a tattoo database to show tattoos. it doesn't monitor social media accounts. it might be wise to see how the active duty troops online activity. a coast guard who has all this horrible stuff online tells us what this could lead to. they fill out questionnaires that ask if they were a member of an organization dedicated to terrorism but this relies on self-reporting and it's unclear how much that self-reporting is verified. there's need for more rigorous enforcement procedures and data. there's little data in the public domain to know how serious this problem is. all of these are serious issues as well as it being unclear how information on extremists in one branch or shared with other branches or the guard or the fbi. there was a house amendment that add questions about white nationalism to military climate surveys that was dropped out of the national defense authorization act. this should be looked at again. there are also loopholes in the rudy giulianilations for oth other regulations fp movement. these are people who believe in war against the federal government and are increasingly anti-immigrant and anti-muslim and some of these organizations have thousands of members and specifically try to recruit from the armed forces. so that's something i would suggest also needs to be looked at. the military needs to report hate crimes statistics to the fbi. frankly, all federal agencies need to but this is another piece of data that would be helpful four understanding these problems. and there also is evidence, the existence of extremists in the rank contributing to worldwide terrorism. members have recruited veterans from the wars in iraq and afghanistan as well as active duty service members and that military expertise is now being shared with white supremacists in other countries, something that merits examination. i also want to say it's very important that everybody in leadership speak out against white supremacy in the ranks. this is a bipartisan issue. it has been for a long time and it should really be a no-brainer this has to be done by everybody from the commander in chief on down. so in closing, i want to just say i agree with former joint chiefs chairman general joseph dunford who said there is no place for bigotry and racism in the u.s. military or united states as a whole. i hope the policies suggests i provided here and in writing can bring us closer to eradicating these ideas in the ranks. honor to speak here. >> thank you dr. beirich. next. >> chairwoman speier, ranking member kelly, distinguished members of the subcommittee. good afternoon. i'm mark pitvavage. it is an honor to appear to address the issue of white supremacy in the u.s. military. for decades they have fought against hate, anti-semitism by exposing extremist groups and individuals who spread hate and incite violence. today adl is the foremost governmental authority on domestic terrorism, extremist, hate groups and hate crimes. the issue of extremism in the military is one we have tracked for years. we alert the services about military members tied to extremism, provide assistance upon request to recruiters and investigators and offer training on extremism and related subjects, for example, adl provides handle training to the command staff of the army criminal investigation command and provost marshall general. in 2009 adl wrote secretary of defense robert m gates urging him to take measures to deal with it in the armed forces. the problem has only grown in urgency since then. in my testimony i would like to share important context about the nature of extremism in the armed forces. our active and reserve components are large enough, numbering over 2 million men and women to reflect broader american society in key ways including the presence of extremism. each time the white supremacist movement has surged that surge has been mir othered by a similar increase within the armed forces. it happened during surges in the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2008 to 2011. today it is happening again as the u.s. is experiencing a surge in white supremacy propelled by the rise of the alt-right which has brought many young newly radicalized white males into the white supremacy movement. this is aggravated by the spread of hate online. with each surge the military incurs not only an increase in extremists but also increases in crime and violence that accompany that. extremists in the military have planned terrorist acts. they've engaged in murders and hate crimes and stolen weapons and military equipment. and they provided information to other extremists. the current surge of white supremacy is no exception. less than two weeks ago coast guard lieutenant christopher hassan was sentenced in federal court to 13 years in prison in connection with the plot to commit domestic terrorism. prosecutors described him as a man inspired by racist murders who intended to exact retribution on minorities and those he considered traitors. had law enforcement not caught him, they noted we would now be counting the bodies of the defendant's victims. internet searches he made included where do congressmen and senators live when they are in d.c. how to rid the u.s. of jews and most liberal federal judges among others. he wrote, i can't strike just a wound. i must find a way to deliver a blow that cannot be shaken off. other extremists in the military in recent years have distributed information related to explosives and wmds, assaulted people during white supremacist rallies and acquired bombs and explosives and used a firearm to threaten members of a morph. even more have been exposed attending whitie supremacist events and posting to white supremacist chat forums online. the presence of them in the armed forces is dangerous to service members, their families and others and harmful to the good order, discipline, morale and effectiveness of our troops. it is a problem that the military cannot afford to ignore. adl's experiences working with the services have caused up concern that policies and regulations are not always widely or uniformly implemented. nor are key personnel always trained in systemic fashion. we encourage you to work with the department and the services to ensure uniformity and clarity of regulations to provide proper training for those involved in recruitment, discipline and military justice on how to respond to evidence of extremism. we offer our expertise and experience to help the services tackle this issue including developing curricula or train the trainer event, most importantly, we encourage all d.o.t. and military leaders as well as you to speak out against hate. setting an example from the top is essential. we must protect the men and women who protect our nation. thank you. >> thank you. next is miss brooks. >> thank you, chairwoman speier, ranking member kelly, my name is lisa brooks, a daughter of the veteran of the kane war, mother of a son who proudly served the u.s. army for two tours. this issue is deeply personal to me. the white nationalist movement in the united states is surging and presents a serious danger to our country and its institutions. including the u.s. armed forces. recent investigations have revealed dozens of veterans and active duty service member as fill yachted with white nationalist activity. far from a new problem. in fact, the southern poverty law center has been documents white nationalists and white supremacists infiltration of the military and urging officials to take action since 1986. in that year, we wrote defense secretary weinberger and exposed the fact that active duty marines at camp lejeune were participating in paramilitary ku klux klan activities and even stealing military weaponry for klan use. in december 2019, as was mentioned, it was reported that the national defense authorization act was altered in the u.s. senate to remove the mention of white nationalists in the screening process for military enlistee s. according to the 2019 poll that was referenced by the military times, 36% of active duty service members who were surveyed reported seeing signs of white national imor racist ideology in the u.s. armed forces. in the same survey more than half of the service members of color reported experiencing incidents of racism or racist ideology. a number of plots by white nationalists have been thwarted. the arrest of lieutenant christopher paul hassan, a 49-year-old serving in the coast guard provides a recent example. hasten who spent time in the marine corps and army national guard was recently sentenced to more than 13 years in prison. he explicitly identified as white nationalist and advocated for the establishment of a white ethno state. they have identified them among the most dangerous groups. those groups include the autumn waffen division responsible for five murders since 2017. brandon russell who launched it in 2015 served in the florida army national guard. after his roommate devin arthurs killed two other roommates also member of autumn waffen police found explosive materials. a framed photo of army veteran and oklahoma city bomber timothy mcveigh was found in his bedroom. he also possessed flyers that read, don't prepare for exams, prepare for race war. it appears russell joined the national guard in order to receive the kind of skills he would need to prepare for that potential race war. altogether investigators have found seven members of autumn waffen who served in the military. because of their sophisticated weapons and explosives training those members significantly increase the group's pe toengs it carry out deadly attacks. russell has witness sentenced to five years in prison on charges related to the explosive materials found in the apartment. from prison he has attempted to send instructions for building explosives to another member of the neo-nazi group. the recent arrest of two trained soldiers one from the united states and one from canada who belonged to a terroristic white nationalist group called the base heightened fears they are forming paramilitary cells. in 200 of the splc released a report highlighting the presence of them in the military and once again reached out to ask the department of defense to implement a zero tolerance policy on them. and, again in 2008 and 2009. we wrote letters to the d.o.d. urging investigations. today the splc offers the following recommendations. one, adopt and rig oreo lust enforce a policy on anything against that and two require an annual report from military leadership that includes an audit of all investigations and resolutions of white nationalists and white supremacist activity. three, blunt the reach and impact of white nationalists and supremacists' ideology by offering support services that work to deradicalize service members exposed to hateful and violent messages. we urge this committee and this congress to purge from is rank those who would mar the reputation and courageous work of our u.s. service members. thank you. >> thank you, miss brookses. thank you for your testimony. it's jarring to say the very least and is a very important wake-up call for all of us. you have offered a number of recommendations. i'd like to maybe use lieutenant hassan to the extent that we can -- there's public information. what -- was there social media, maybe i should ask this of the next panel actually. let me ask you this, we've got the dark web so individuals can gravitate toward the dark web to engage in their social media if they're so inclined. how would you recommend that the military do the kind of monitor that's necessary? doctor? >> well, honestly oftentimes to find social media accounts you don't have to go into super secret areas to find them. it's material that tends to be oftentimes on everything from facebook accounts, twitter, or fortran. that's not to say there aren't parts hidden bur people are shockingly open about their extremist views. and it's the kind of material that should be easy for investigators or people talking to potential recruits to verify, especially if they're self-reporting that they're not involved in terrorist organizations or extremist organizations. you can find a lot of this material without too much difficulty. and i would advise that that seems like the first screening mechanism that should be done, workplace would do the same with employee, right? this is the military. you can find a lot. it doesn't mean it's all there. >> all right, anyone else? doctor? >> thank you. i agree with what my colleague dr. beirich said. there is extremist material on the dark web but the dark webl is dark to extremists as well and easier for them to find other extremists and other extremist material on the regular internet. and unfortunately there are many places an many platforms online from large mainstream social media platforms and other tech platforms to more ab secure ones where he can do that. and a lot of this is actually accessible to people who want to investigate this or what to monitor this. if they're educated on where to look and what to look for. and so this is not necessarily an insurmountable problem, this is something that can be tackled to a certain degree. >> you each identified service members in the ranks of extremist organizations. are you able to distinguish how many are active duty and how many are former? >> i don't have that listing. i could get that for you, chairwoman. >> that would be helpful, miss brooks. anyone else have any comments. >> i was going to respond in the same way. di provide some of that in the written testimony but i could provide it for the record. >> in your estimation, as you have sought to information the military investigators of information that you have uncovered, how have they responded? >> well, for the years that i was working at the southern poverty law center, i would say starting in some of the time period that ms. brooks pointed out in 2006, 2008 there was a reluctance on the part of the military to take these issues seriously. i remember at one point myself and some of my colleagues brought dozens and dozens of foreign pages of active duty service members and showed that these people were praising hitler, using racial slur, active duty and something needed to be done and the military was not responsive to our idea that prior regulations only required card carrying members of hate groups to be removed from the military but that changed in 2009. so the regulations were tightened up and strengthened. the question i think really at this point is things about loopholes like militia members in the service. anything that sort of is more blatantly racist as opposed to hard core white supremacist and how the regulations are enforced would be my suggestions. screening mechanism, enforcement and there's a lack of data for the public to know exactly what's happening. >> thank you. would any of you like to respond further? >> to dr. beirich's list i would add anonymous kind of reporting and continuous reporting, not just an investigatory manner but something that happens consistently. that there's some way to monitor it regularly. >> do you think there should be a bystander responsibility to report? >> i do. i mean, in the ranking member mentioned -- our military is our shining star. and we need to do everything that we can to ensure that it remains that way. i think that the oath they take when they join the military demands it. >> ranking member kelly. >> you can only swear a true allegiance to one cause. you either are the united states of america or whatever organization that it is and i think you're exactly right. i've been the direct target of an assassination attempt by an extremist, not of the same line but i've been a direct target. a guy tried to shoot me from here to you for though reason other than he didn't like my political views but he didn't know me. we have to stamp this out. one is too many. it's easy to look at it as a small issue unless you're the one who is the small issue is over and so every single person who violates the oath and allegiance to the united states of america and to the military of america should be rooted out because they can't have an allegiance to both. so that being said, i want to ask you what can we do in the current military to either train or change cultural ideas or issues to identify people who are violating that oath and allegiance to our united states of america? what can we do to train that better or change the culture better? >> thank you. so one of the axioms of fighting extremism or terrorism if you see something, say something. so first we need to encourage people to say something when they see something but the fact is we have to give people educated eyes. we have to give them the training, the ability to be able to recognize sign also they're on online or whether those signs are in the real world, manifestations that appear in the real world. of this sort of extremism, military recruiters need this, initial entry trainers need this, advanced trainers need this. company grade officers and noncommissioned officers need this training. eo folks need this training. so if you establish a foundation where people are educated what to look for, the signs and there are expectations, clear regulations as well as expectations on how to report, how to investigate, how to deal with problems that emerge, then you're allowing people to see things and say things and do things. >> you know, i joined the military in the '80s so i've seen a significant culture change from the '80s until today. 34 years and it's gotten better every year. now, that doesn't mean there haven't been bleeps where it's gotten worse and better but we're better today than we were in 1985 when i joined. but i think what can we do like when someone makes sexist jokes that can lead to sexual harassment which can lead to sexual assault because it creates a culture where that's okay and the same thing with when someone makes a racist joke or racist comment it can lead to racism which leads to the extremists where you take that out in violent acts and all those things so my question is, is how do we better screen potential politics a potential applicants and identify them before they become to the extremist level? >> well, i just wanted to add the social media issue is important, training as dr. pitcavage is important setting standards when they come into the military about what is expected and what's not. in addition to everything that dr. pitcavage, how big or dedicated the investigate gaty requirements are. especially when they he can late. training can be dealt with with a sexist or racist remark. you want to stop it immediately but to find hard-core extremists, it's going to be a little more difficult. they may try to hide whatter they up to. it's hard to know. and some of the press reports i've been reading about all of this in the last few weeks indicate that perhaps there aren't the investigatory recommendnisms and sharing of information at the level of the criminal investigative services across the agencies that needs to be there and i would suggest that be beefed up. >> and finally i just have a few more seconds left but i think it's incumbent and talking not to you guys at the table today but all of d.o.d. across and every leader from the team level at the e-5 level to the four stars in command of large organizations, we must not allow any of these things to take place and when we see it wrong, we've got to correct it on the spot and we've got to let people know we won't tolerate any type of racism, sexism or anything throughout the military and thank you guys for being here today and testifying on this very important matter. i yield back. >> thank you, miss holland, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair and thank you for being here this afternoon. to talk on this important topic. i come from a district of a large hispanic population that makes it 40% of my constituents. this diversity is what makes our communities rich and i'll continue to fight for all groups to have equal access to opportunities and right to serve in an inclusive and dignified environment. let me be clear, hateful ideologies of they kind have no place in our military. miss brooks this, past august media outlets reported that a master sergeant in the air force was an active member of identity europa, one of the most visible neo-nazi white supremaci supremacistist organizes in colorado. the air force said racism, bigotry and discrimination have no place in the air force but the sergeant remained in the air force. only recently after facing intense pressure did the air force decide to begin the process of removing him from the military. and that's a concern to me. wouldn't you agree this undermines diverse initiatives as well as morale and unit cohesion and could you aelaborate? >> thank you very much for the question. you're absolutely right. it goes against all of what the u.s. armed forces are about. i would just say a bit about identity our rope pa they're a noxious group of white nationalists who spread disinformation that chairwoman speier was mentioning earlier and it's important as far as the education campaign and the things we need to do to address them is challenge the misinformation or disinformation. white nationalists advocate for a white ethnic state. they have -- they put forth conspiracy theories with respect to white genocide and the great replace. nothing to be played with. if we allow this kind of noxious belief to continue as our diversity continues across the country this is what we're dealing with. you poke to the diversity in your area, in your district. and the u.s. is experiencining great demographic shifts not playing well with a lot of white folks and so they're putting forward this false narrative that there's a white genocide afoot so if it is important, it is extremely important we address this head on. because it does undermine everything that the natural is all about. >> thank you. thank you. based on your expertise, i think i know the answer to this, would you say that the services should adopt a zero tolerance policy for personnel that are involved in these -- >> yes, ma'am. the southern poverty law organization was to adopt it and apply a zero tolerance position. you can't on the one hand say that we don't stand for racism, you know, we couldn't stand for race imof any kind and then allow members to remain in the armed force. >> thank you. thank you. and madam chair, i yield back. >> thank police haaland. miss davis. >> madam chair, thank you all for being here. miss brooks, i wanted to turn to you first for a second and i know that the southern poverty law center does a tremendous amount of tracking and research. and have you all been -- how long has the relationship with the military been going on? and do you see it having changed over the last few years? i think that, you know, the comment is sometimes made that, well, the military just didn't take it seriously enough. on some issues. talk to us about that? how would you characterize. >> thank you for the question. the military, the department of defense in particular has been very receptive. as i mentioned in my oral testimony and it's documented in the written testimony goes back to 1986. and then secretary of defense weinberger was receptive and made a strong statement against white supremacist in the military and as dr. beirich mentioned it sometimes shifts over time. we recall secretary of defense chu who thought that our report was alarmist. so it depends on kind of who is in office but we won't give up sharing the information that we have, sharing the research because it's just that important. to us. >> and is that an ongoing like -- >> it's an ongoing relationship. we also have outgoing relationships with law enforcement. the research that we do with respect to hate and extremist we do it so we can share it with folks on the ground, law enforcement on the ground and military leaders and leadership of any kind. we want to put a top to this so we share it with people who can put a stop to this. that's why we're so grateful to the subcommittee for holding this hearing. and we implore you and the congress to do something with the research that we provide in addition to what dr. beirich provides and i'll just say that dr. beirich has driven the research for the last 20 years so the fact that i'm talking about her research now and dr. p pitc pitcavage, you can trust it implicitly. >> i'm not sure, miss brook, if you mentioned this or either one of you, just talking about blunting the ideology and it was mentioned that there are support services to do that. what are we looking at? >> i did mention that. there there are currently no support services because, because the spread of white supremacy or white supremacy ideology is so pernicious and people are so susceptible to these messages we want to not only kind of -- we want to support people through it, right? we want to offer a way for people to recover from the ha hateful messages and violent messages they might receive and may believe. oftentimes we're dealing with young recruits who are just susceptible so we don't want to just throw people out. we want to find ways to deradicalize them. people -- it takes a little bit of work to convince people of this ideology and it will take a little bit of work to convince them that it's not true. >> yeah, i guess i'm wondering about whether we have the capacity within the military in terms of having trained personnel who can deal with this on -- this an ongoing way. >> i think the resources are there and there are resources within the armed forces to find the people that can help the military carry out some of these support services. i know that. >> okay. thank you. i also wanted to just ask you a little about, you know, what you see from our military leaders. there was an exam of a young man supposedly who used gras feetty and turned out it wasn't quite what people thought, but the superintendent of the academy used some very strong words to say if you're going to do this, you know, get out of our military. and i remember a number of years ago around sexual assault, there happened to be an australian i believe it was australian general, you know, who made similar comments and at that time we felt that maybe our leaders aren't given sort of the go ahead to make strong statements like that. can you -- would you like to kind of assess that sense of whether you think that military leaders are able to say things that are pretty strong and tell people to get out of our military if this is the way you feel. doctor, uh-huh. >> i'd be happy to address that. and i think the example that you brought up is an example of a leader who exhibited leadership. and spoke out very forcefully on an issue that came up under his purview. and we have seen that over the years with the military on issues related to this leaders lead. one of the reasons why the integration of the armed forces that occurred after world war ii occurred far more smooth think than a lot expected because from the top down leaders led. they spoke out. they set expectations and no no uncertain terms let people know what was going to happen. now, some officers didn't like that. and they left the military and joined white supremacist groups and spoke out against desecond bring situation but didn't do it in the military and we've had examples of superlative leadership related to this issue as well too when the -- when chiefs of staff spoke out after charlottesville, the white supremacist event and death of the young activist spoke out forcefully against hate and white supremacy and extremism and those are voices that we need to encourage and the voices we need more of and our military leadership is certainly capable of being that voice. >> thank you, my time is up. thank you. >> miss luria, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thanks to the panel for being here to discuss this today. you mentioned in your testimony a recent military times poll that revealed that more than one-third of respondents and more than half of minority respondents say they've personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or racism within the ranks within the recent months from the time the poll was taken. we agree that the d.o.d. policies regarding white supremacists and extremist activities must be clear, transparent, and i've looked at this d.o.d. policy that dates to 2009 with a revision from 2012 and as we know there's rapidly evolving use of social media and different means for spreading information. are there specific things due to the policy being almost a decade old that you think merit, you know, updating or a vision by d.o.d. ors services to make this policy more enforceable and relevant to current technology or any of those other aspects? >> yes, doctor pitcavage. i think you referenced the same vur fry from the military times. >> i think you bring up -- i think you bring up a key issue. you know, extremism constantly evolves so the methods the military must take to deal with extremism evolve too and current relations actually parts of them date back to the 1960s. and they were appended in 1980s and when you mentioned it. but i think there are some specific things that we may want to look at so, for example, white supremacy today is less group dependent than it used to be in part because of the internet. you can be active in it without belonging to a specific group yet it you look at our regulations, a lot of them refer specifically to organized groups rather than a broader movement. that may be secret that needs to be addressed. but we may also want to take a look at those regulations more comprehensively and holistically to see from the top -- from the start to the finish maybe they need to be rewritten to deal with modern circumstances rather than just modifying or attending once more. >> thank you for the question. i would add that i will encourage military leaders to listen to your troops. this military times survey was about 1600 people and they interviewed, surveyed people in the military, they themselves said that they saw the whole scourge of white nationalism, white supremacy being more -- a greater threat to the homeland than, you know, foreign terrorism or anti-immigration combined. and i would also point out that you refer to the incidents where service members of color experienced racist incidents and i think it's important to point out they saw swastikas on military bases. they saw individuals saluting using the nazi salute with one another. there were, you know, kind of graffiti things that we find that we wouldn't expect to find in the military. i completely agree with my colleague that certainly the regulations need to be updated but the important thing is we take a serious stance. as was said after the desegregation of the armed forces, it was from the top to every single person in the military saying, you know, on the same page, saying from the sage pa same page and needs to happen again when we're talking about this. there can be no equivocation. >> thank you. i know dr. beirich, did you have anything further story add? >> just one addition. i agree what was said about taking a look at constantly appended regulations but the fact of the matter is if they're not applied it's pointless. and this case in colorado where a person who's an active military duty service and member of identity europa would be banned based on the 1985 regulations that weinberger put in place so he was demoted a rank not removed from the military service. so, you know, if you don't follow through with the whole process, it's a little pointless and so i suggest that be looked at very seriously. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, miss escobar, you are recognized for five minutes. >> i'm grateful we're having this discussion and to our panelists thank you for being here and for sharing this important information with us. to our secretary panel i hope that everyone is listening with an open mind. i represent el paso, texas, which was targeted last summer on august 3rd. we had a domestic terrorist who confessed to driving over 600 miles and ten hours because he said he wanted to essentially slaughter mexicans and immigrants and he lamented the quote/unquote humanitarian invasion. and these are words that he repeated that we have heard from some of the most powerful leaders in the land. the same language used to describe members of my community by some of our elected officials. and so this is i think a very important discussion and i think something that was mentioned earlier, we have to call this out. when we don't call it out, we essentially give it cover. when we give it cover, we give it life and we give it power. and there's no greater testament to that than what happened in el paso, texas, on august 3rd. i want to -- i'll open up this question to all three of our panelists, i want to first acknowledge that military leaders have taken steps to publicize their opposition to the hatred and extremism that's been on display at events like the 2017 unite the right rally in charlottesville, virginia. and i applaud our military leaders for saying unequivocally that those are not our values. however, i was deeply disappointed to see an individual nominated for the top personnel job at the department who has he spoused dangerous -- a dangerous and radical intolerance for multiculturalism in america which is essentially the foundation of who we are as a country. jay david patterson was a presidential appointment but previously served as a principal deputy undersecretary. should we be concerned that someone who obviously was a presidential nominee but he was within the department of defense for many years and rose through the ranks, what does it tell us that someone is able to ascend in this manner with these kinds of views about minorities and america? >> well, i'll just say i think it's completely unacceptable. you cannot have somebody working in the department of defense involved with the armed forces, the pentagon who doesn't believe the bedrock principles about equality. and that's been said from, you know, top generals and other officials for a very long time and stated in these regulations. so it should not be the case somebody who disagrees with that vision of our society and how it's reflected in the armed forces should be in any position of power. >> yes, sir. >> representative, first, i'd like just to say that i share the grief that you felt over el paso. i grew up in el paso. my family still lives in el paso and i used to -- excuse me. i used to ride my bike to the place where the shooting occurred. i think representative kelly made an excellent point when he talked about the military being one of the most diverse institutions in our country. the 40% of our military personnel active duty military personnel or racial or ethnic minority more than 50% of the women in the services are and our military recognizes over 200 religious faiths and we need leaders who, civilian and military leaders alike who appreciate, acknowledge and support that diversity which is a strength. >> absolutely. >> adding my condolences as well and to you. i think it shows us and reminds us that one person and i think the ranking member mentioned one person can do so much damage. that's why it's important for each of us to call it out each and every time. >> and with the very limited time i have, dr. beirich, you mentioned screening mechanisms. cow give us an exam of what we could do, something tangible? >> well, i think one of the most important things here is the way -- what happens with recruit whts they come in they self-report what their activities have been and so on. it's not very detailed. it says things have you been part of a domestic terrorism organization or something along those lines. i think the question should be deeper. there should be more about people's racial views, views about ethnicity, religion, and i also think that people that are coming into the military need to report basically what their social media accounts look like and then be verified. whether that's to intervene at that point to help someone move away from these views or it's to simply say this is an unacceptable situation. so those are the kinds of things that i would look at and military climate should include questions about these issues as proposed by the house in this last defense authorization act and they don't right now. so the military times poll is three years in a row which shows horrifying numbers of how many people have seen white nationalism in the military are a stand-in and the military should be collecting that information and let me just say with the 2017 military times poll, if the numbers are accurate to the full amount of active duty troops at that time which was 1.3 million it would mean 325,000 people in the armed forces had seen white national imor racism. that's a pretty extraordinary number. and giving the numbers as dr. pitcavage pointed out a whole lot of minority troops suffering under this situation and frankly it would be a hostile work environment if it was in the civilian world so i mean it's a serious matter and data is needed and then that data needs to be addressed. >> thank you all, thank you, dr. pitcavage. >> mr. cisneros, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair and thanks to our pam for being here today. how can the department better prepare service members for instance of white nationalist groups attempting to recruit them? could they benefit from something akin to counterintelligence training to counter that and i know dr. pitcavage, sorry if i mispronounced your name. a lot is done over the internet now, you mentioned. but how do we go out there and how do we train the troops? is there a way to train when they're being recruited to specific groups and how do we prevent that? >> well, i think that's a really interesting question. i think we warn -- we warn our military personnel about a number of different dangers, a number of different issues including those online, the services all have social media policies that warn them about scam, that warn them about all sorts of dangers they might be -- they might encounter online. it's possible, it's possible similarly to warn them to look for signs they may be targeted by an extreme group that's trying to provide them with false narratives that, what's trying to indoctrinate them, radicalize them and so i think there are steps we could do to make the troops more aware that this is one of the things out there that people might try to do. >> love to hear from the other two panelists as well. >> well, i think that what dr. pit of cavage said is write. it's not as though there aren't signs of white nationalism, the symbol, some of the main groups, all this was that can be shared that unit commanders could be trained on. you know, i found that there are just some missing issues that there's no extremist tattoo database to identify these things and as a result investigators aren't trained on what these symbols are in the case of this autumn waffen group that had an active duty guardsman he had a tattoo of his very scary neo-nazi organize on his arm and nobody knew what it was about. so i think there's a whole lot of education on the investigatory level, on the recruitment level and then for the troops in general on sort of signs to look out for for white supremacists trying to recruit them because they are absolutely trying to recruit them. >> and i completely agree. i would add that we really all need to talk about it. it needs to be okay to talk about it. i will imagine that that conversations happened again referencing the desegregation of the armed force, people talked about it and how to manage it and handle people's concerns and anxieties and we need to approach this i think in the same way. and once we do that and we've established some mechanisms to train and to educate folks, then we can demand a zero tolerance policy and offer support services to those who are not able to meet the mission. >> according to an article in propublica in 2018 the autumn waffen division, a violent neo-nazi group tied to five murders and a bomb plot, at least some of their members were servesi serving in the u.s. armed forces. how high a priority is the focus of military leadership is eliminating it from our ranks and i know you said there were regulations we've written but my other question too is why haven't we put these groups in the ucmj outlawing them in the ucmj? >> well, it's a very good question and it's hard to know how to answer what you're saying, but the only data i could find is that about 25 troops not all of them white supremacists were removed in a five-year period for extremist ties. those are ridiculously low. just in the testimonies that we have written for you all here, all of us we've documented more than that in the last year. so i think that there's a big problem here in trying to figure out how many investigations go on of this, who is identifying extremists, how is this being reported. there is supposedly a report the pentagon does every year internally on white supremacy in the military. is that happening? what does it indicate? it's very hard to answer your question because there's no transparency, no data. >> well, go ahead, sir. >> i would just like to agree that without being alarmist about the nature of the problem there is a problem about white supremacy in the military, but our military leadership may not realize the full extent of it simply because the data and the transparency is not there. >> all right. well, with that i'm out of time and thank you very much and i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. now we will hear from the gentleman from maryland, mr. brown. >> thank you, madam chair and giving me this opportunity. i want to thank the members of the military personnel subcommittee for your work. you wrestle with some of the thorniest issues that face congress in the house armed services committee. miss brooks, i think you're right. we should listen to our soldiers. there are a lot of ways that the military can, commanders and the chain of command, inspector jags, j.a.g. office, chaplains and also climate surveys and dr. beirich, you mentioned in your testimony about the watering down of a provision in the nda that was offered by the house. i was the lead author and joined by a number of my colleagues. these hearings are often an opportunity for us to really establish the record that supports what we're trying to accomplish in the nda. in that amendment it was very specific. it said that the secretary of defense will include or shall include in the workplace an equal opportunity command climate and workplace and general relationship surveys of the department of defense questions regarding whether respondents have ever experienced or witnessed in the workplace supremacist activity, extremist activity or racism. probably should include anti-semitism and whether you've reported activity described in paragraph 1. it was watered down to include extremist activity and i think miss brooks in your written testimony you pointed out how in the screening procedures that too was watered down. somewhere between the house and coming through conference, someone, somebody, some organization is -- has an aversion to the use of either white supremacy or supremacist activity in the ndaa and gets watered down. so could you please make the strongest argument why whether it's in screening or whether it's in the survey we have to be specific. >> well, let me just say aside from the danger to the troops themselves, especially troops of color and thank you for pursuing this issue, because i think it's critically important, the biggest problem is that white supremacy is distinct from other forms of extremism and it is deadly to the united states. we've had far too many former soldiers, timothy mcveigh is best known, but eric rudolph who bombed the olympics in '96, and many other soldiers who have been involved in serious domestic terrorist attacks where people shared that particular point of view and those people then are coming out of the military and joining up with groups like the base that was mentioned here, autumn waffen or active duty and they're a threat to the american public and they're a threat to people overseas anywhere white supremacy is functioning, anywhere our troops are if they're involved in these issues and white supremacy is a distinct problem. it's also indigenous to the united states. i don't think we should forget this, right. white supremacy is born and bred out of our history and needs to be tackled. the armed forces have been a shining light in calling this out. so we should be specific. we need to know are people around you have white supremacist view, white nationalist ideas, what are you seeing? this is really critical information to stop domestic terrorism, hate crime, all kinds of violence. >> miss brooks. >> thank you so much. i appreciate your efforts as well. i would and i completely agree with everything dr. beirich said. i would point your colleagues in congress back to the joint resolution that was passed unanimously post-charlottesville and in there they rejected and they named it white nationalism, white supremacy, neo-naziism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are a contradiction to the values that define the people of the united states. if we can -- we cannot just say these things post-crisis or post-massacre. we have to be about trying to thwart these attempts every day. as dr. beirich said it's a clear and present danger. i don't know how to make it more clear. our history shows it and we will just continue to repeat it until we face it head on. white supremacy is just that serious. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. i'd like to just ask one last question. the base as an organization has an intention to derail some train, kill some people, poison some water supplies. what do you know about the base? and do we have representatives here in the united states that are associated with that organization? i know the leader appears to be in russia. >> from the arrest you mentioned in your opening remarks we know we have members of the base here in the united states which i should just point out the name itself is a translation of al qaeda so it shows you that there's this symbiosis in terms of dangerous, dangerous threats. and, yes, they have a violent, violent -- the list of what they've been arrested for is scare yy including murdering pee and certain dozens of this organization in united states and abroad. what was interesting in that case there was a member of the canadian military who was also arrested so it shows that this is an international problem and it's run out of russia. right? which is a red flag as well. so it's a serious matter. >> all right. thank you. any other comments, dr. pitcavage? >> i think one thing that's worth pointing out about the base is that it is part of a new wave of white supremacist group called acceleration groups and accelerationists are extreme in a very unique way. they believe that there aren't simply -- that present society is not redeemable. they can't shape it into the white dom nailed or white only society that they seek, that the only thing they can do is actually destroy our society and then build something new from the ashes. and so accelerationists believe any violence, anything that will destabilize the system even senseless violence is, you know, is actually good if it will help bring down the system that they so want to destroy and replace. and, you know, groups like that particularly dangerous and particularly liable to engage in violent acts. >> anything further? all right. any -- >> no, ma'am. i want to again thank you all for your testimony this afternoon. it was very enlightening. we'll now take a short recess and switch out to our second panel. >> i'm going to get some coffee to wake up. afternoon. we invite our panelists for the second panel to come forward. the hearing will come to order once again. i'd like to welcome our second panel. we have joined this afternoon by mr. gary reid who is a director for defense intelligence, obviously the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, stefanie miller, director of accessions policy, office of the undersecretary of deps for personnel and readiness and mr. joe etheridge, chief criminal intelligence division, u.s. army criminal investigation command and mr. christopher mcmahon, national security director rat, the naval criminal investigative services and mr. robert grabolski of afsoi, u.s. air force, office of special investigations. mr. >> thank you madam chair and ranking member. on behalf of the entire team here i would like to convey our appreciation for your time and interest and the committee's support for the department. if you would allow, madam chair, i represent the background investigation piece of this process and i would like ms. miller to begin and i'll come back. it's the front end and then we'll go through the military departments. thank you. >> that's appropriate. ms. miller? >> good afternoon, madam chair, ranking member kelly and members of the subcommittee. i'm stephanie miller. i'm director under the secretary of defense. i'm pleased to provide testimony on this important issue and i want to thank the members of the first panel for their knowledge and expertise. i'm responsible for the oversight of all matters of officers and enlisted personnel. i'm responsible for policy and recruitment matters, providing oversight of resources, managing the process and other matters of the all volunteer force. each year we recruit approximately 400,000 applicants for military service. we remain committed the recruiting high quality applicant represents. while today's economy has brought challenges to military recruiting, the department has been steadfast that we only enlist only candidates that actually meet our high standa standards. the life cycle for military personnel is a complex process which is constantly evolving. the beginning of the life cycle starts with each new member whether enlisted or officer undergoing a thorough screening process. this multi-tiered screening process has a review of each applicant. we believe we've been successful in screening individuals, but we continually review our practices and methods for improvement. we launched a program that vets all applicants. this new process has proven successful over the summer. not only available solely from the standardized background form. recruiters play a critical role in assessing the intent of the applicant. each applicant is interviewed by a recruiter. at our military process station applicants undergo a full physical and background searches of law enforcement and other records. they answer questions about involvement with law enforcement agencies including arrests, citations, parole. furthermore all applicants undergo an advanced finger print check. subsequent background checks screen recruits for extremist ti ties, fbi checks, local law enforcement agency checks and a review of the gang trial. the department, the military services and individuals share a responsibility to ensure members are afforded the opportunity to serve with dignity and respect. the departments overreaching guidance is clear that military personnel must not advocate supremacist or gang-affiliated doctrines, including those that participate in discrimination or those that advocate the use of force, violence or criminal activity. beyond its guidance the department works to provide commanders and senior military leaders the tools they need. commanders working with key stake holders are swift to take appropriate action when warranted. we are gaining additional insights on service members through the deployment of new technologies and have employed screening techniques to identify applicants that fit with the military's culture of treating all with dignity and respect. these tools can be utilized as a whole-person applicant screening process and can tell us a great deal about the ability of that individual to adapt to the rules and regulations of military culture. d.o.d. remains committed to ensuring all personnel are treated with dignity and respect. this is accomplished while keeping each person's civil liberties intact. while it's not always easy, it's critical to protect our service members throughout the country. madam chair woman, i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, ms. miller. mr. reid? >> thank you madam chair. again, i thank you for the opportunity to testify on my oversight of personnel security policy and the steps we take in the department of defense to develop and sustain a workforce that embodies our values as americans. i will focus my opening remarks on background investigations, insider threat programs and continuous evaluation as these are the primary authorities and capabilities we employ to identify persons with extremist ideologies and deny them the opportunity to serve in the department of defense. where indicated we also ensure they are investigated for any policy violations or criminal behaviors and are held accountable for their actions. once a person has been selected for military service the department initiates a comprehensive background investigation. all applicants must complete the questionnaire for national security positions publish by the office of personnel management or the sf-86. all military applicants must pass a rigorous background examination that exceeds to many nonmilitary persons. this is a choice made by the defendant of defense in recognition that there's a high level of public trust in our military that necessitates a strong commitment to ensuring persons with criminal, extremist or other undesirable characteristics are not allowed to serve in our ranks. applicants are asked probing and detailed questions about personal conduct, job history, encounters with law enforcement, drug use, credit, foreign travel and associations with organizations dedicated to terrorism, use of violence to overthrow the u.s. government and the commission of acts of force or violence to discourage others from exercising their constitutional rights. background investigators supplement and enrich this data on the sf-86 with information provided by former educators, employers, co-workers and neighbors of the politapplicant. investigators check federal and state law enforcement data history and review public records, credit reports and others where needed. this information is aggregated in a reportive investigation. against the 13 federal adjudicated guidelines, of the guidelines personal conduct, criminal conduct and allegiance to the united states are the primary criteria used to vet personnel that exhibit any extremist behaviors. while cases with allegiance are uncommon, overall the three guidelines combine for almost half of the denials for military personnel. keeping in mind the prior screening ms. miller described happens in front of this. applicants with favorable background investigation results are subject to two sets of monitoring procedures throughout their military service. each of our military departments manage their own insider threat programs that serve as a conduit for reporting behaviors of concern that are observable in the workplace. all d.o.d. personnel are mandate to report such behaviors that are similar, but not identical to the federal adjudicated guidelines. the d.o.d. component provides reporting to a d.o.d. center led by our defense counter intelligence and security agency. all d.o.d. are covered by one of the 43 hubs distributed across the department and reporting of behavior is increasing. any behavior that crosses the threshold is assessed by insider threat hubs, the chain of command. in addition to monitoring for insider threat behaviors, the department also conducts a continuous evaluation program at the d.o.d. level. presently 1.9 million d.o.d. personnel are enrolled in this system. the department has plans to enroll the full population by october 2021. continuous evaluation provides data by outside the department with monitoring of commercial and public data services for behavior that violates the standard of conduct. when alerts indicate unacceptable behavior, an incident report is submitted that is reviewed by the chain of command. if appropriate, the incident can be referred to law enforcement. if indicated the subject can be removed from eligibility to hold a position and processed for separation from military service. madam chair, i'll close by saying this is an evolving process. we beliriefed here that the government is adding additional controls moving to a continuous vetting model across the entire government. everything i described will continue to be refined and enriched to where we have the greatest degree of awareness of where threats are across the department including those imposed by those with extremist attitudes. thank you for your time. >> thank you mr. reid. >> mr. ethridge? >> good afternoon chair woman spear, ranking member kelly. i'm joe ethridge. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to provide testimony on the important issue of racially motivated extremist threat. as the chief of cid's intelligence division i'm in charge of -- the cid identifies soldiers suspected of participating in extremist activities to include public police, media, social media searches, tip line reports and fbi domestic terrorism investigative reporting. we evaluate these reports to identify supporting facts. the majority of the soldiers identified as participating to some extent are not subjects of criminal investigations. the more common scenario is participation in an online forum. in these instances cid notifies commanders by an information report for action in accordance with army policy. commanders have the authority to counsel, train and take military action. additionally cid notifies the d.o.d. adjudicated facility and the command for personnel security adjudication. the cid initiates investigations when indications or allegations of a crime are present. in early 2019 cid observed a small increase in criminal investigations initiated with soldier participation in extremist activities as a component. specifically there were 7 criminal investigations initiated with an extremist activity component in 2019 in comparison to an average of 2.4 per year in 2014 to 2018 period. this includes soldiers from all components, active duty, national guard and army reserve. during the same time period the fbi notified cid of an increase in domestic terrorism investigations with soldiers or former soldiers as suspects. the fbi reporting clearly stated that extremist organizations were seeking veteran skills. in may 2019 the provost marshal general and i briefed the vice chief of staff of the army and members of the cid on the fbi obser observations. the army chief of staff ordered a working group to review this. the working group offered up several adjustments stated in chapter 4-12 of army regulation. the revision is scheduled for release in the second quarter of this year. internally cid expanded its liaison relationship with the fbi traditionally centered on the national joint terrorism task force and the national gang intelligence center into the fbi's domestic terrorism investigation unit. in summary over the past year cid has increased collection events and formed our leadership of observations, participated in the review and changes to army policy, expanded our relationship with law enforcement partners and made notification to commanders. additionally cid has formulated a request to the army inspector general to add unit implementation of policy as a focus area for the next inspection cycle for army-wide inspecti inspections. the army is identifying extremist behavior in the ranks. madam chair woman, i'm happy to answer any questions you or any members may have at this time. >> thank you. mr. mcmann? >> good afternoon chair woman, ranking member and distinguished members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to testify today on extremism in the military. i am pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to appear before you and provide testimony on this topic. as executive assistant director of the national security director, i lead investigations confronting the intelligence and terrorism threats posed to the navy personnel, assets and technologies. we investigate all force protection issues to include force engagements, ship visits. the naval criminal investigative service is investigating racially motivated extremism. these investigations receive immediate priority attention. our highly skilled civilian law enforcement use all available resources to address these matters working closely with the fbi and additional federal and local partners to address these threats. over the course of fiscal year 2018 we experienced an increase in the number of domestic extremism related reports from the fbi involving department of defense affiliated personnel. in response to these referrals and to more accurately reflect the scope of these incidents ncis established the case category of domestic terrorism for investigative reporting purposes. ncis generally defines domestic terrorism as terrorism perpetrated by individuals in groups inspired by or associated with u.s. based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, social, religious, racial or environmental nature. we investigate crimes associated with domestic organizations when there's a federal violation, violent ideology in an active service member or current civilian employee who has expressed an aspiration to further the violent ideology by threats, acts of violence or other enabling criminal activity. for instances in which a crime is suspected a general crimes investigation with an ncis is initiated. ncis does not pursue department of the navy individuals who make statements they share the beliefs or a subset of the beliefs held by domestic extremist groups unless information exists indicating it meets this threshold. where crimes are not evident, information is passed to appropriate commands deemed appropriate. in conclusion, the predication for domestic terrorism investigations typically comes from command complaints, other investigative agency referrals or tips. ncis maintains form information sharing agreements with the fbi on terrorism matters. these same channels serve as the primary matter of information sharing. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> all right, thank you. mr. gorowski? >> chair woman, ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address you. as the department director for law enforcement air forces special investigation i oversee policy, training and resources necessary to guide major criminal investigations impacting department of the air force. osi has agents assigned to over 250 locations around the world to include 22 locations with the joint terrorism task force engaged in efforts with other federal law enforcement offices on matters of mutual concern. pertaining to the topic of possible white supremacists, we're concerned with early identification and timely resolution affecting good order and discipline. in fact, the department of the air force has the written policy pertaining specifically to participation in extremist activities. the policy states military personnel must reject participation in criminal gangs and other organizations that facilitate extremism or causes. military members are subject to disciplinary action under article 92 under the uniform code of military justice. it's important to note that the air force policy dictates mere membership in the organization is not prohibited. osi has investigative responsibility to investigate these matters where members are suspected of active participation in groups prohibited by the air force. since september 30, 2019 osi received about nine reported incidents involving possible activity by air force members. these incidents came to our attention in various ways. out of the nine reported reports we opened eight investigations and referred one to other forces for additional investigation. one incident was disproven and the remaining six were inappropriate or racially insensitive verbal postings. for one active participation event, osi made recommendations. it is also important to note osi conducted more than 2,500 criminal investigations in 2019. most of these investigations involved some form of data exploitation such as extraction of information from cell phones, other computer devices or reviews of social media applications. our law enforcement data activities over the past year of thousands of devices and social media accounts have not resulted in identifying activity. even though the amount of extremist actions remain small in the air force, we remain diligent in resolving possible activity affecting discipline within our air and space forces. i thank the committee to allow me to provide insight and i look forward to provide additional information. thank you. >> thank you. let me start with you mr. mcmann. in your statement you make the statement ncis does not pursue investigations of the department of navy affiliated individuals who simply make statements indicating they share the beliefs of a subset of the beliefs held by domestic extremist groups. so, if i say i'm a racist, i'm not going to be investigated? i'm not going to be evaluated whether or not i should be kicked out? >> madam, that is -- so we ncis would not conduct an investigation. we would refer that back to the command of the member. we would refer that member back to the command, provide the command that information, the information we have gained and then allow the command to take care of them in the appropriate manner. >> all right. mr. grobowski, you said specifically that mere membership in the organizations is not prohibited. but, if you had a tattoo of that organization, that would be actionable? >> chair woman, mere participation is not something that osi investigates. we investigate the active participation of a member. there's many avenues within the military, including command or equal opportunity offices that conduct investigations of viewpoints of individuals. if it does not rise to the level of a felony investigation of active participation, we don't get involved. >> you're missing my point. you're saying active participation equals something like a tattoo, but active participation does not equal being a member of one of these organizations. i find that astonishing. >> according to air force policy, active participation is attending rallies, fund-raising or being a part of the organization and actively involved in it. >> if you're a member, that's a level of activity. i think we need to look at that. ms. holland referenced an air force individual who was not dismissed or discharged. can you explain to us why? >> the information was received to us of being part of an extremist organization. we opened an investigation. we produced a report, provided it to command and command took action. as i said osi does not get involved in determining punishme punishments. that's in the legal realm of the united states air force and the investigative agency is not involved in that process of making a decision. >> and in your experience, have you found that when you have completed your investigations and referred them back to the command, are you ever made aware of whether or not they take action? >> yes. if it rises to the level of administrative action, we get an after action report that we have to update our files with. >> do you convey that to the fbi? >> if it rises to the level for criminal indexing, yes. all our investigations are abide by criminal indexing of convictions. in this incident i believe he received administrative punishment which does not get reported to the fbi as a criminal conviction. >> in this case he remains in the military. he had nonjudicial punishment. >> he received a letter of reprimand. >> it was a letter of reprimand? >> correct, ma'am. >> no action taken regarding rank, pay, anything like that? >> he received an administrative reduction in rank by one rank in conjunction with the letter of reprimand. i am aware of that. >> can you remind us again what he was actually engaged in? >> he was an active participant of identity oroba. >> he's an active participant -- >> he was fund-raising. >> he was fund-raising for this organization and he's still in the military? >> as i said, ma'am, that's decisions that are beyond -- >> i realize my disbelief is not something that should be registered to you, but to his command. i'm astonished by it. i think the potential for placing our service members at risk is so great. in your -- in the cases that you have -- any of you can answer this -- that you've investigated how many of them come to your attention because of a bystander? another service member who alerts you to it. >> ma'am, i can't give you a specific count. >> majority? >> tip line. i wouldn't say it was a majority, but a common way for us to receive complaints is through the tip line process. we have automated tip line normally that is -- the source of those tips is a fellow soldier or a family member. >> is that the case for all of you? mr. mcmann? >> ma'am, all of the 14 ongoing investigations we're in the process of investigating right now have all come to us via the fbi. we're working in partnership with the fbi. at this time we haven't had one complaint come forward off our tip line regarding white supremacy groups or racially-motivated groups. >> i've exceeded my time. ranking member, kelly? >> thank you, madam chair. i want to talk to you two because you were the guys who have the authority to do something. it amazes me -- i just completed a course last week. in this book "great new work" it talks about the 1944 oss sabotage manual for germany written by will januadonovan. it say insist on doing everything through channels. never permit shortcuts to be taken. make speeches. talk as frequently as possible. illustrate your point. when possible refer all matters to committees. bring upper relevant issues adds p frequently as possible. haggle over words and details. you are the department of defense. the climate survey we talked about -- we have a great secretary of defense. secretary esper is outstanding. he gets this. why don't we write in the survey and ask the question we want. you don't need congressional authority. you can write into the entry exam the questions you want. you or one of your counter parts can write in the exact questions. it doesn't need to just be white supremacy. if it's white supremacy, we can't use the word extremism. if it's something other than white supremacy, we can't use the word extremism. we have to use the specific word. you can write into a climate survey to find out what it is. the second thing is the actions -- these guys can't do anything. they're bound by -- they don't have the authority to prosecutor say this shall result in this. at the d.o.d. level, at the department head level somewhere, you have the authority without congressional authority to say if you're found as an active, passive, any other member in this organization or these organizations, you shall be removed from service or you shall be reduced in rank or criminally charged. we have that authority. sometimes i think we get a big bureaucracy. you ought to read that oss field manual. you'll go holy cow that sounds like 90% of businesses today and all our government. we've got to get away from that. i think you guys can do that. that being said, what recommendations can you make for us to root out white supremacy or any other type of extremism? what can we do better to keep them out and to identify them and get them out? >> yes, sir. i certainly appreciate your comments. the responsibility to incorporate the requirement into climate surveys is within the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. i'm part of the personnel and readiness team. i understand our colleagues who are experts with respect to our climate surveys are in the active effort to research and determine the best way to ask those questions to glean the most information possible. so they are actively engaged and we can provide an update on that work to the committee on their efforts. we have command climate surveys and workforce equal opportunity surveys, both at the active and reserve level, that ask questions about racism and extremist group experience they may be knowledgeable about or hate crime incidents. we collect data on that and have for a number of years. the data we have is slightly different than the results we've seen from the military times poll. we want to take into account the information they have collected, the information that the department has collected is more -- >> let me -- i understand that. what we've got to do is we know there are things we need to know right now. >> yes, sir. >> we can get the perfect answer and the perfect wording or d.o.d. can write a policy that asks the questions and get specific. have you experienced any type of terrorism, racism? put it down there and say please write in. that may be a more effective way. then we get what they think it is. we have to execute. if not, we're relying on outside data which is not scientific which is the best we have right now. you have the capability through command and control to ask the question that gets us the data so we can make specific decisions to get it better. my time is about run out. i thank you guys. i think we're doing a lot of things right. i think you guys can get the specifics without waiting for a congressional authority to do that. i would ask you please do that. thank y'all for what y'all do. especially my law enforcement guys. i yield back. >> ms. davis? >> thank you madam chair. i know that several of you in investigative services mentioned your work and the importance of having the terrorists and subversive checks. can you give us some more understanding of what happens after you've picked up something that concerns you? you toss that over to the fbi or -- sounds like a lot of things come to you from the fbi. how does that work? what is it that really triggers concern and what doesn't? >> ma'am, i'll take the lead on this one. when the fbi refers something generally to us, that's kind of how it flows back. if there's a military member or somebody attached to the navy or mari marine corp., the fbi refers that back to ncis to work the investigation. what triggers that is either some online activity that basically they find somebody online and can identify that person is associated with the navy or marine corp. and that they have potentially talked about being able to procure weapons or take some sort of action. so they refer that back to us. we work that collaboratively with the fbi looking to, you know, continue the investigation, monitor the activity, not just online, but holistically during the investigation and look for any other ties they might have within the military to make sure we're rooting out any additional problems that might exist. >> can you share -- is it more usual that there are a number of people involved or this is sort of a loner? is that possible? >> again, i'm going off limited data as we talked about earlier in the earlier panel. with the 14 investigations we have specifically focussed on domestic terrorism, it's a little bit of a mixed bag. there are -- there are a few investigations that indicated one or two other members that are in communication. quite often they're involved in a group that other members are not, may have been former military, but currently they're in communication with people espousing the same viewpoints. >> did you want to comment on that? no. that's fine. thank you. before marines united scandal, it's my understanding we didn't check people's social media when they were being recruited, is that correct? or were you looking at social media at that time? >> so i can answer that, ma'am. right now social media checks are not a part of the recruiting process. that's an element we're working in collaboration with our colleagues in the intelligence community to determine how best to incorporate that requirement. >> i think when that happened, i was shocked that you didn't do that because certainly as members even within our offices that's something people talk. how do we -- if we're not checking that at recruitment, isn't that a real gap? >> right now the recruiting process is a multi-tiered approach starting with the recruiter who asks a number of questions during the interview. we also pull local record checks and the fbi check with the finger print check. once we have that information and the individual appears to be suitable for military service, if they're contracted, then they fill out the fs-86 form that initiates the background investigation process. intelligence takes it from there. they can do additional work beyond what we have done at an addition entry level. >> once they sign that fs-86, it's been written in that form they're granting consent to limited social media monitoring. it has to be publicly facing. we can't go behind passwords. we can't look in private chat rooms et cetera. we don't do that on scale for every background investigation right now. we have the ability to do it if there are investigative leads that come through the process i described. we would like to do it on scale for everybody all of the time. we are still developing the right tools. there's pit falls here. there's false information of course online. there's identity resolution. there's use of handles and avatars that you don't know what you have. earlier you mentioned our work with people analytics. great partners of ours. we're in the midst of another pilot to figure out how to do this. there's great returns on personal conduct and some on allegiance making disparaging remarks where you think you're in private. so we see promise there. our investigative friends can do this when we have leads and things we need to get into in terms of a screening protocol. we haven't found the right success model yet, but we have the ability to do it if we need to. >> do you need help from congress to do that better? >> i don't think so. i knew you would ask. well, no, you've given us the authority. an insider threat, we've gained more scope on insider threats. insider threat is a great tool. the things i described, those are federal guidelines. they're set by the dni for security. we don't get wiggle room as an agency to do our own. insider threat is a much more flexible framework. we have, as i mentioned, programs in everyone of our components. they're building. for my military investigative colleagues, they're enforcing u.s. code. these behaviors fall below criminal code. we have policies. we have military policies. separating someone from the service sometimes takes time and sometimes we don't rush to do it. we want to reserve the ability to take for action. if an individual exhibits behaviors below a criminal investigative charge, it's going to make them unsuitable for clearance. that's the bar i described. it's very likely without getting into any specific case that when you follow through on the administrative side, an individual loses their eligibility to serve and they get separated. it takes time sometimes. >> mr. cesnaros? >> thank you madam chair woman. you commented on the background checks and the gang file. a lot of these white supremacists groups, these al alt-right groups aren't on the gang files. a lot of these international white supremacist groups aren't classified as terrorist groups. when you're doing background checks, these groups aren't popping up. what are we looking for to classify them that they might be part of these groups? >> that's an excellent question. thank you. i mentioned the multi-layered approach we take. that starts with the recruiter who does the interview with the polit applicant. they ask about a number of qualifying factors. the traditional ones of citizen z citizenship and age, medical history and drug use. they asked about tattoos. tattoos is one of the best ways to identify whether an individual has had a current or past history of engagement with any sort of extremist or gang activity. our colleagues in the first panel mentioned the importance and value of knowing those tattoos. for many years the recruiters and our military processing stations had multiple files, large binders with copies and images of tattoos to try to help educate them and help identify tattoos. what we learned is that the landscape of tattoos involve so rapidly and it's very difficult to maintain currency on those static resources and references. so we agree with our colleagues in the first panel that having access to timely information about tattoos and branding is very important. so one of the requirements that we now include is for any sort of concerning or questionable branding or tattoo there is a requirement to take images as appropriate of those markings and to engage local law enforcement and to engage the fbi and to actually ascertain more information about those markings. that's a very important step, a part of what we do. we also -- the recruiters do a lot of work in terms of working with family members. they spend an incredible amount of time in their community. they get to know the indicators in their communities. they talk to school counselors, resource officers and police. they get a sense of who the individual is. so that is some of the preliminary work that we do before we hand it over to more formal channels and more formal investigative channels. >> now, mr. reid, you said the investigative officers they're enforcing u.s. code. the department of defense has policy. we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drugs. why don't we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to white supremacy? it was stated that being a member of the organization is not illegal, but only if you're active. would we let a member of al qaeda or a member of isis into our military if they're not active? why aren't we doing this with white supremacist grooups? >> these is hinged to the guidelines. one of the guidelines speaks to engaging in behavior that denies oth others their basic constitutional rights. any involvement with a group that espoused those views and membership and involvement with that group, although may be below the level of a criminal code violation, would be a disqualifier for a decision by an adjudicator on the eligibility of that individual. >> if somebody is a member of that group, one of these white supremacist groups, they're not eligible to certain in the u.s. military? >> they could be disqualified. the questionnaire asks questions are you a member of any of those groups. if they withhold information, they falsified the form which is a criminal offense. it also goes to loyal and honesty. there are 13 guidelines. they crisscross in many instances, personal conduct, criminal conduct, allegiance. alignment with those activities would be an element of an investigative file. keep this in mind, we're going through this continuous evaluation. we don't wait for the next investigation. these are occurring every day. we have public records checks and other checks where if this comes to light, someone mentions anything to an insider threat, it's going to a security manager and they'll pull the string on that and find out what's going on. >> madam chair woman, this is a bigger problem in our country. it's something we need to work on. it's not only a military problem. we need these groups -- they need to be classified as domestic terrorist groups, as gangs. we need to recognize what they are, they're terrorist organizations. with that i yield back. >> thank you. mr. reis, ms. miller -- ms. miller, we worked together on a number of high issues. i have a high regard for you. i'm flummoxed by what i heard today. in this policy it says that any of these active participation in gangs or organizations is prohibited. so if it's prohibited and we have an air force service member who is actively fund-raising for this despicable organization, why is he still in the military? >> ma'am, we'll have to refer you to the air force to gain more details on that specific case. to your point, yes, the policy does say it prohibits active participation which includes fund-raising, demonstrating, rallying, recruiting, distributing material, wearing gang colors and to your point tattoos or other brandings. so, therefore, those are the types of indicators that need to be evaluated when determining whether there was a violation of the policy which could lead to, you know, certainly administrative separation and other actions against the individual. as it pertains to that case and as mr. reid indicated, the services work very deliberately through that process. there's an element of due process and so sometimes that takes time. we will have to refer you to the air force to garner specific details about that specific individual. >> here's the problem, if all of these cases that you work very hard to investigate are referred to the command and there's total discretion within command, there's not equal due process. there is not equal parsing out of punishment if we don't have a standard. we have to -- if i'm a member of the sierra club, i espouse all of their values. if kbrii'm a member of an organization that is specifically interested in doing harm to the united states, i believe i will be supportive of that. i have a real problem with our -- with the vagueness of these policies and the distinction between active participation and membership and i think these policies have to be updated. they're woefully inadequate for what we know today is a very serious domestic terrorism problem. so we're going to hopefully be working with you to try to develop, you know, clearer outlines. one last question i have and i'll turn it over to mr. kelly. what training is being provided to commanders now about white supremacy specifically, the accelerationist community and a number of these organizations we referenced here today? >> ma'am, my capacity here today is a session as i mentioned. i'm not an expert on what commanding officers receive. the policy requires training. it requires training at the entry level. it requires routine and regular training all the way up to commanding officer level. we'll have to take that question back and make sure the committee gets a full answer. one point that is very helpful is that each command has an equal opportunity adviser. an equal opportunity adviser is a very important asset and they do receive training specifically on extremism and white supremacy. actually largely pulling from information from the adl and the southern poverty law center to help educate them to look for concerning signs and indicators to inform their commanding officers on what to recognize. >> i would like to associate myself with ms. davis' comments, any job application today requires the review that takes place looks at social media. our reluctance in wanting to do that makes no sense. this is how people communicate. if we can't look at that, then we're not necessarily doing this full review as we have individuals become members of the military. i will now turn it over to mr. kelly. >> i just ask that you guys please look at requiring that when you do administrative action or ucmj, that you make them recoport that to d.o.d. soe can collect the data. without that, we don't know what's happening below. if you require that, number one, people are more accountable on things they have to report. we know that from almost anything. i think that's an easy fix. now i'm going to ask you guys what can chair woman spear and myself, what authorities do you need to better do your job to not just -- white supremacy is what we're talking about today. whether it's other organizations, it doesn't matter to me. they're all bad to the order and discipline to the military. what authorities do you need from us to make your jobs easier? >> mr. reid answered that similar question. i believe the department has the authorities that we need to work after this issue. certainly the continued evolution and development of additional tools and capabilities particularly as it comes to social media will very informative. there are some initial challenges and hurdles we need to work through before we can implement that. >> now the really hard question. for you two guys -- it's more -- i'm not ignoring y'all. these are the decision makers or at least you influence the decision makers. what's one thing you can do with your current authorities that immediately make a difference in either identifying members of organizations that are adverse, white supremacists, any other group that are adverse to the united states government and also or that punishes them or makes the punishment even. let's be for real. if they're a member, doesn't matter if you catch them being active. they're not passive. what can you do or influence your superior to do to make that -- to keep them out or get them out? >> i apologize, sir. i didn't exactly hear the question. >> what under the authorities -- i asked what authorities you need from us. you said none. in your kournt job what one simple thing can you do to keep people out, identify them or get them out of the d.o.d.? >> i think you hit on a good one. that's if we could find a way to extend our reach of the things we do in background investigations, as i indicated, we cannot apply those at the federal level until an individual has been placed on contract and files a consent form. the space that exists left of that is a difficult space for us to operate in. among other things, especially when you talk about social media, any time i'm going to go check any of that, i'm going to get other information. we run into a lot of obstacles with privacy concerns, civil liberty concerns and eo12333 concerns. any american chatting with other people is probably chatting with other americans that are not part of my sphere. it's a complex thing. >> i get all that. you would be surprised of what you can find out with a simple google. thank you. real quickly, if you can answer, ms. miller. tell us what we can do. >> one of the things we're working on is to expand our scope of engagement with the fbi, the domestic criminal task. we do a level of work with local law enforcement and the local gang activities. the information available at the fbi is limited to law enforcement, and so that's not necessarily information that we can provide to 20,000 recruiters across the country. so we have a working group right now to determine how best to share that information and at what level so that we can continue to update them real-time on emerging patterns and tattoos and markings. so that's work that we're doing right now, and i think it will be very helpful. >> and i want to end with, guys, you are setting the standard for america. thank you. you are doing an outstanding job, so i don't want -- but i still want to get better. say good get better and better get best. i believe in that in everything we do. please look at the climate survey. i don't think you need our authority to ask the right questions to identify issue. i would ask influence or do that. with that i yield back, chair woman. >> all right. lots of food for thought here. we look forward to working with you. this is a serious issue. i think you recognize that we're taking it very seriously. so we thank you for your contributions today and your work that you do every day. with that we stand adjourned. >> you guys really should be jealous, have a tv show. >> you are involved -- all right. >> appreciate you guys. >> thank you very much. >> good to see you. the new hampshire primary is today. watch results and candidate speeches starting at

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