Thank you, rob. [applause]. So we heard from acting secretary wolf a little bit earlier about the constellation of threats facing the country. Some are new and have have intensified. Were going to look at that landscape a little more closely now with our guest this afternoon. The executive assistant director of the National Security branch of the f. B. I. Hey cover terrorism, espionage weapons of mass destruction. Youve had a very successful career and bring a lot of knowledge and expertise. I want to start first because i am still trying to reform myself as a News Reporter with the news of the day. We heard yesterday that there had been three arrests of individuals who allegedly posed a threat in connection with the gun rights rally thats scheduled for monday in richmond. Let me ask you first have there . Een any additional arrests thank you very much. I want to say thank you to the group and wilson center. Thank you for hosting the f. B. I. Here and thanks for having us. The answer to your question is yes over the last few days we have arrested six individuals, three that were arrested in maryland and three more that were just arrested down in georgia that are involved in the group known as the fwace. The nature has to do with their advocacy for violence and their conspiracy to conduct violent acts. Unfortunately because were so early into the process theres not a lot i can say. Can you tell us about the charges they are facing guest the individuals down in georgia, the newest individuals that weve arrested and are coming public today among other charges were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder. Of whom . Cant talk about that right now. These are state charges . They are state charges. Theyre likely to be additional federal charges . Ink think in the future theres a strong possibility of additional charges and additional subjects. Associated with this group called the base which until yesterday i personally had not heard very much about. What can you tell us about this group . I would turn everybody to the Court Documents that weve put out but the base is a group that largely recruits individuals on line, we would categorize them as racially olent extremists, noo nazi group, and have called for a white etsdz no state in the United States. Is it a coincidence that the base is al qaeda translated . I think it is just simply a coincidence. I dont think there is any direct correlation at all from what ive seen on their media. Can you tell us anything about their size, their reach, their influence . No. I cant because i dont know that we have strong estimates on the number of individuals that share this ideology specific to that group. We dont investigate people based on their membership and group. We investigate them specifically in this area for the ideology married with violence or threats of violence. I have read that this group is something of an umbrella for other groups of noo nazi sentiment. Is that correct . I dont know that i would call it an umbrella what we find is individuals that claim membership in this group is they also have affiliations with other individuals like minde that had subscribe to similar ideology and might have and i should say this also. Theres not a lot of physical membership with these groups. Theres quite a bit of virtual memberships. So we would meet on line, maybe have like types of things posted on our social media. We might visit similar web sites and how we might make connections. Is there cross ferretization with groups overseas . There absolutely are. The Christ Church attacker in new zealand had significant connections to like minded individuals in numerous western countries and he had traveled extensively to western countries. Was he part of the base as well . Not that im familiar with. Ive also read that this group the base has Training Camps in north america. What can you tell us . I will refer everybody back to the charging documents. There was absolutely some training that was done amongst the members that we arrested. I dont know that i would call it a training carm. I know because i read the complaint on those arrested yesterday that they were believed they are alleged to have had a machine gun and ammunition and gone to firing ranges. Can you tell us more about the folks arresteds today what they had in their possession . I have not seen anything regarding the arrest in terms of what was found in subsequent search warrants. One of the group we found out yesterday was a canadian matthews was his name and former military and was said to have explosive training. In the charging documents i dont see any reference to explosives, only to the machine gun, ammunition, and drugs. Did you find anything relating to explosives . I dont believe we found anything related to explosives or explosive components. I havent seen the search invent riss. Just familiar with the briefings. In a news report they referenced the possibility of them weaponizing drones over this demonstration scheduled for monday in richmond. What can you tell us about that . I think thats probably an area we shouldnt talk about it just talks about further investigation. So this is ongoing. We will learn more. I think so. Part of the timing of the disruption of this investigation and i think everybody in this roonl will appreciate this is not an independent investigation. These were conducted off of two separate task forces in conjunction and coordination with the joint task forces down in richmond which is protecting the lawful rallies that are going to happen on monday. And a big reason why we disrupted it now was based on the timing of the rally on monday and the intent of some of the individuals to potentially conduct violent acts down in richmond. Are you saying that the folks who were just finding out about now who were intent on hurting somebody that richmond was also their focus . No. Unrelated. That specific conspiracy unrelated. The vidges in baltimore definitely had an intent. Do you anticipate more arrests before the rallies on monday . Specific to this group of individuals . I dont think so. What about other groups . I dont think so. Because let me clear that up quickly. Because our subjects get a vote i dont know i have no way to predict what some of these individuals might do between now and monday or even monday. We know there is a high degree of interest in some individuals from both spect rums in the ongoing debate around gun rights, around ethnic and racial issues that potentially has them coming to that event on monday and might end up with some sort of criminal activity for which they might be arrested. Despite the ban on firearms in the capital square. Look, i think virginia Law Enforcement authorities in virginia specifically the state police the Governors Office et cetera they are doing everything that they can to make that event and all events around than monday as safe as possible. Its a flash point. Its a big day for demonstrations in richmond, gun issues particularly enflamed in virginia right now. Also Martin Luther king day. And historically in richmond this was the day they celebrated the confederate heroes on lee jackson day. Conflict potential points built into this event. How worried are you about monday . So i think the f. B. I. s got a fair sense of worry about monday because of all the factors you just talked about and because we cant account for everybody and everything. We have a degree of interest individuals we know are saying they will be there and we have no way to predict where rhetoric turns to violence. And i think frankly thats the landscape for us right now domestically is that we have a hard time predicting where just talk turns into action. And its so difficult to disrupt sometimes because that amount of time between somebody talking hateful and turning violent sometimes can be just days. And sometimes you dont even hear the talk. Absolutely. More and more our cases and our investigations are around individuals that are incredibly insular that arent involved in a conspiracy or plot with anybody else. The individuals that we call home grown violent extremists or Domestic Violence extremists that literally the only people that might see the change in behavior is very close family or friends. And of course they dont have a tendency to tell Law Enforcement. How can you do prevention . Were doing it all the time. Unfortunately our job is that we can never be wrong on this. And if somebody is successfully attacks us here in the homeland we failed in some sense. If there were any indicators. I remember hearing about the people who did the shooting at the kosher deli in new jersey that there was absolutely nothing that would have put them on the raid a. Not only did they shoot up this deli but they had a phenomenal amount of explosives in their van. Thats right. I think we are increasingly challenged with disrupting individuals ahead of time. Because to add to the issue of them being insular, to add to the issue they might have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health, to add to the issue many are juvenile offenders in the federal system and even in some state systems. Add that along with the challenges which are theyre utilizing encrypted applications for their communications and theyre making it more and more difficult for domestic Law Enforcement and Security Services like the f. B. I. To disrupt. I want to get to that encryption but before we go there i want to ask you given the difficulty of detecting these people proactively is this just a risk that americans are going to have to live with ongoing . Sure it is. What i would say is youve already been living with it. But its intensifying the numbers are going up. The numbers of mass shootings, yes. The numbers of violent acts perptrate by these individuals or plots yes. But i think also our Counter Terrorism machine in the United States is much more adept than it was 15 years ago, much more mature. We have 4,000 joint Terrorism Task force members in addition to the f. B. I. From Something Like 600 agencies. Its incredible the number of people we have working in this space. So lets skip to encryption. Do you have the phones of these individuals that you just picked up . I would presume that we do. I have not again seen anything from any of the searches but i would presume that there were Electronic Media that was obtained when we arrested these individuals. You dont know what kind of phones they are, whether or not youve been able to get access to the information in those phones . I dont know. And i think also just specifically to these cases probably way too early to even talk about those things. Not too early to talk about pebs la, however. The attorney pensacola. Any progress . Have you been able to unencrypt those phones and the data . Cant speak to exactly where we are on the two phones of the shooter in pensacola. I will say that we are working diligently on those phones and we are receiving some help from apple in that work. Because apple pushed back. The attorney general said that there had not been in substantive help from them and then they said wait we found about the second phone late in the game and said they provided Something Like nine giga bytes of information to the f. B. I. Inclouding cloud backups of the devices. What do cloud backups not give you . Whats miss sng what do you still need to get out of the actual phone itself . To be clear because i think theres been some conflation over what the attorney general said. Apple has absolutely responded to Legal Process that we served within hours of the investigation beginning within hours of the event. So apple has been assisting right from the outset there. As is commonly our practice and as you know, those two phones were damaged. Our common practice is to attempt to see if we can get the phone working and then make some attempt to get laufl access to the phone. We had search warrants. And then if youre not able to go to the phone manufacture and ask for help. This notion that apple said we werent delayed, we werent delayed. We simply follow the process that we know is the right process. You dont just go to apple, you go to outside vendors too. We absolutely do and the American People would want us to do that because tweff a lawful search wasnt to search the phones. And tech experts have been surprised that you havent been able to get the help you needed from those outside companies to get into those i phones of the pensacola shooters because they were older models. They said you should have been able to get in there. Why havent you been able to . Is it because of the damage that was done to the phones . I would be speaking way ahead of my knowledge level. Also back to your question about the cloud i dont know exactly you get. I know its something to do what physically is on your phone and the cloud backup may not include that information. Cyber security of course is part of the f. B. I. As well. You know what apple and the other Tech Companies say. If we allow you in thats going to give access to bad guys to hackers criminals authoritarian governments. They have a point. They do have a point and i want to make it very clear. The f. B. I. Very much values strong encryption. And Data Protection is actually part of protecting your information is part of our charter as the f. B. I. , it is part of what we do. So we are incredibly thoughtful about what were asking for here. But what the manufacturers and anybody thats here, whether software or hardware manufacturer what theyre asking for is liken to you having a room in your house that i cant search with a Court Authorized Search wasnt, with an actual judgeordered search wasnt. It it would be me coming to your house and i would search everything in your house but one closet that only you had a ey to. How do we break that cycle and come one a solution . I think a partnership between the individuals that make the devices and our legislators and our it to decide what is a way to do it and still protect us from nation state adversaries. Havent you been discussing that for years . Weve been discussing it. I dont know that weve gotten everybody to the table who has an interest. Who has been missing . I dont believe we have the right people sitting in the room talking about how to make this happen. I think the issue had some steam five years ago. I think it really moved for a few years and then kind of lost a little bit of that momentum. I think now it is back. Is it going to end up in court . I have no way to know that. You have to ask the department. Let me turn to domestic terrorism. We have a domestic terrorism statute and the phrase is getting thrown around a fair amount with some of these recent events. But the folks who you just arrested who were allegedly posing a threat in richmond were arrested on weapons charges and alien related charges not terrorism charges because there are no terrorism charges domestic terror crism charges. Thats correct. Statutorily defined in u. S. Code 18 but there are not actually any penalty force that after that definition. So unlike the support to terrorism where its illegal to materially support a Foreign Terrorist Organization we have nothing like that in the domestic front. So what we find right now is we made roughly over 100 arrests in domestic terrorism and of those about 60 were on state and local charges. About 40 were on other federal charges. I know you cant take position on leags or potential legislation. Can you tell us what difference it would make if there were penalties associated with domestic terrorism to both your investigative techniques as well as the charges and potentially the penalties . I think it would really depend on what authorities it came with. So it is hard to give an opinion on what would that actually do for us unless we were talking about what authorities you would have. Yes it would be nice to have a charging statute that makes it illegal to conduct or attempt to conduct violent acts in the United States in furtherance of a social and political change. Maybe including ideology consistent with a group like the base. Sure it would. To have a charge that allows you to charge that versus a gun charge or immigration charge. But i think as far as assistance to your investigation beyond just having a charge there has to be discussion over what authorities . Would it give you enhanced wiretapping . Er it has to be done thoughtfully. We have to have a clear discussion about what are you going to do with that. We currently can conduct a wiretap. We can do a tite 38 wiretap. Lets talk about fisa. I figured we would just throw it right out. As you certainly know the inspecter general issued a pretty scathing report and cited i think 17 errors or owe missions in the application to surveil carter page. The f. B. I. Has said it plans to improve that process but now the advisor has dom out and been critical of your plans saying they dont go far enough. Do you have any response to what he has to say . Ill get to david chris in a second. The very first thing is we made mistakes. We made material facts we omitted material facts and made some mistakes in the fisa applications. We owe the American People and our country better work. You deserve and expect that from the f. B. I. You should get better work out of us. Why havent we been getting it . We made some errors. Again, 37,000 people were an organization of humans. Humans make errors. The small group of individuals that were involved we looked at the process, we proposed 40 changes to change the process. The f. B. I. Survives on its ability to elicit information. My job is to collect and report information and that reporting information is dwrused as ed evidence, might be used as intelligence. I am only as effective as my ability to get you to give me information. So we take very seriously that responsibility. So i just want to be very clear. Were absolutely taking responsibility for errors that we made and were fixing the process. I havent looked significantly at what mr. Chris wrote. Hes certainly in a position, he is a career professional in this area. He certainly is in a position to tell us that we need to do more and perhaps we do need to do more. Iran. The f. B. I. And d. H. S. Did put out a bulletin in the wake of seoul manie killing warning of threats. We heard from the secretary early this morning no credible threat at the moment. Thats correct. F. B. I. Feels exactly the same way domestically here in the homeland. Have you seen an uptick in cyber activity by iran since that attack . Globally, yes. Here against domestic targets in the u. S. . No actual intrusions. I believe that theres been an increase in level of activity and you will have seen that we put out some bulletance in the cyber space which i believe that the acting secretary referred to that both have put out that have basically tried to get our private sector people that we think could potentially be targeted to harden their systems and be more attentive to this type of activity happening around their systems. Financial sector any commercial sector. Can you tell us anything about what kind of resources you think that the iranians or hezbollah might have in the United States . Sleeper cells . Sleeper cells is such a strong term which i dont really agree with necessarily. Use yours. Look, i will just point you to some disruptions that weve had over the last five years with respect to individuals that we have tied directly to the iranian government or to its proxies like lebanese hezbollah. We have seen reconnaissance work here. We have seen logistics work here in the United States. And we have charged and disrupted some individuals for doing that. I would be remiss if i even tried to give you a number of individuals. There are a number of iranian and lebanese americans that live here in the United States that we know in the past those countries and they have a service have enlisted their help to try to collect information in the United States and those cases are representative of that. There seems to be a deescalation of the tensions in the middle east. Does that mean that the threat of repriseles here evaporated or are you still very concerned . Were still very concerned. And the reason is we continue to not have a strong understanding of what would potentially cause iran to attack us in the homeland. So that what you will hear from members refer to as red lines. We just dont know what that specifically is. I would say they are far more dangerous regional threat than they are in the homeland. Just one question about isis before we turn to some audience questions. Iran opposed isis. Seoul monies gone does that strengthen isis and pose more of a threat to the homeland . Its hard to predict. My sense is im a selfdescribed it specialist. Ive spent working Counter Terrorism. That said i stroppingly believe that the way to keep our terrorism adversaries from striking is to put pressure on them abroad. And i think with isis the key is not to relieve pressure from isis. Although we pulled back for ten days. I guess were back in the fight now. It appears that we are back to normal. But i think pulling out of the region would potentially cause isis to have a resurgence. What about pulling oufo out of africa . Theres talk of reducing its footprint in africa. East africa alshabaab . No. Im talking malli. Oh. Again, i think my general sense is a reduction in force and pressure will potentially cause a resurgence in the groups were most concerned about. Most groups in my opinion are regional threat groups. Now. Still concerning. Right now. Still concerning not as concerning to the homeland. Love to take some questions from if audience. I see a hand right back here. Microphone coming to you. Tell us who you are, who you are with. Im with politico. I have a question about the worldwide threat hearing. Theres been reporting that perhaps some members of the Intel Community dont want to do that publicly, dont want to testify before congress as they usually do every year. Im wondering is the bureau still preparing to give that testimony in public . If not will there be some kind of workaround wrsh they testify in private and then perhaps its released late center im just wondering also whether you think that thats of real value to the public, to be able to hear every year. I had not heard that there was a conversation for that. I know our director is preparing for that right now. As you know theres usually an open and closed session, so a session that is completely opened to the public and the media and typically a closed session with members where were able to get into more classified information. Its probably not a surprise that when the members, the heads of ic agencies give that threat briefing that they have a pretty significant limitations in giving fullsome and complete information in an unclassified open forium. I think the question you asked in terms of its relevancey and usefulness is is the American Public to answer. I believe it is probably useful and relevant to hear about it even if its only an hour or two and then the closed session is many more hours. And again i also think the process is appropriate because it is part of the oversight that congress has over us to ask us how are we preparing to defend our country. Another question. On your point about the encryption device. Why hasnt anybody taken up with these Tech Companies that they go into china, saudi arabia, and a host of other country that is have laws that require them to be able to produce the Encryption Keys to their devices if theyre going to market them and their country or even introduce them into their country and they do that yet they refuse to do that here so theres a false narrative there. And then the second point is weve had a lot of discussion about far right wing activist groups. What about the far left wing activist groups that are creating a lot of havoc on the other side . To your first question. I have heard that discussion and at the highest levels in government ive heard that discussion. Ive also heard that discussion. I wasnt present but have heard that discussion being had with some of the Tech Companies and manufacturers. I do believe its a legitimate question. I think your assertion at tend of the question is spot on. The second question is we the threat from the far left while significant is just frankly not as violent and they historically are more involved in destruction of property, disruption of events and that type of thing. That said we still have a number of active investigations and individuals of interest that we work there and they are still very real threat here in the homeland. One followup to that. How worried are you given how inflamed attitude and opinion is right now about violence from either extreme in the runup to the election or the period between the election and the inauguration . Im not thinking of it personally and specific context of the election or the runup to the election. I think right now we have a significant increase in racially motivated violent extremism in the United States and i think i wont put a number on it but a growing increase in White Nationalism and White Supremacy extremist movements. And that unfortunately is fueling some of those polarized groups being more vocal and then the vocal leads to confrontation, the confrontation leads to violence. We have another question here. Exacerbating that threat that you just described of course is the potential maligned foreign influence. We saw this this is richmond ally is a ripe opportunity for russia to pour gasoline on an emotionally devicive issue in the hopes that it will lead to chaos and violence. We saw this in texas, if i recall correctly we saw this in the aftermath of the sterling shooting which five days later we saw the tragic killing of five Law Enforcement officers. How is that fitting into the work that you all are doing in anticipation of this richmond rally . E you seeing adversaries maligned influence specifically focusing on the richmond rally for example or the gun rights issue . Has there been an uptick in foreign inauthentic messages around that . Are you working with the platform to detect, identify, and take it down . So i cant speak specifically to the event on monday and what we may or may not have seen because it relates to ongoing investigations. What i can say is that in the past we have seen influence attempting to sow social discord. What i would ask everybody to keep doing is to Pay Attention to where you get your news from and Pay Attention to what information youre ingesting and reading, because it may not be authentic. We know that for a fact. And unfortunately there is not a good way to stop it. One way that we have combatted this is as you noted is working with social Media Companies to attempt to identify the profile of what that looks like when it is a false account thats conducting the activity. And of course it is their decision what to do but more often the individual doing it is violating their user agrement and then they do flagging and delete the account. So we have been working closely with them. A university of maryland global campus. My question is how would you look at International Cooperation that we started since 9 11 with partnerships and nontraditional allies . Has that continued to progress and do you think its still effective . Thank you. Thats a great question. So the answer simple answer is absolutely it has continued to progress and it is incredibly effective. So terrorism like most crimes nowadays in the United States or anywhere are global problems. So that connectivity that we need to have with international Law Enforcement and security agencies is imperative to protecting our countries. We have an incredibly strengthened and or strong and rich partnership with the countries, u. K. , canada, new zealand and australia. And then another of western countries, middle Eastern Countries that we continue to share Threat Intelligence with and investigations with to make our country stronger. And when i say we, i really honestly mean the bigger we. The f. B. I. Does that in conjunction with a number of agencies. Tote brexit was being debated there was discussion about whether britains decision to leave the e. U. Would disrupt intelligence and information sharing between britain and other members of the e. U. I know theyre part of the five. But im wondering if their decision to leave the e. U. Is gumming up the works at all in terms of information sharing from the u. S. Perspective. Not at all right now that im aware of. Questions . I support u. S. Coast guard. Im curious your thoughts on how you counter groups that arent unified by an ideology. Im thinking transnational criminal networks. For those who dont know would you define in cells. Its a i hesitate to call it a movement because it is hard to define. Believe in es who celibacy and are as a group i would characterize them as highly violent towards women. And there have been a number of successful attacks in both the u. S. And canada. One really horrific attack in canada back in the 90s and then several in the last few years here in the United States. It is that kind of not defineable group of individuals but we still look at them through the lens of domestic terrorism because we see an ideology married with an attempt to affect social and political change with a conduct of violence and criminal activity. So easily fits the scope of our ability to open them as a domestic terrorism subject and we have a few of those cases and it is a disturbing movement. Again i hate to call it a movement. But a disturbing group of individuals that we are paying close attention to and we disrupt them through the regular ways. We work jointly with our partners out in Middle America and anywhere america off the joint Terrorism Task force. Part is an education process because oftentimes state and local Law Enforcement may not notice. They might just see an individual who has an issue with women and they might just be considered another individual who is a violent felon. Were just about out of time. Have i missed something . Is there Something Big on your radar that we may not have talked about . Here is your chance. Why no, jean, i dont think there is. Thank you so much for being here today. Very appreciative for your insight. [applause] up next we have the assistant attorney general in conversation with another group member. Theyre going to talk about the influence of china and their activities here in the United States homeland