FBI Director to Testify on Capitol Hill About Jan. 6 Riots
Christopher Wray will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee amid heightened concerns about violent extremism
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WASHINGTON—FBI Director Christopher Wray is expected to make his first extensive remarks about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol before a Senate panel Tuesday, as the agency grapples with how to combat violent domestic extremism in the wake of the attack.
Around 300 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection to the attack, ranging from trespassing to conspiracy and assault charges, laying bare the bureau’s challenges in stopping politically motivated violence before it occurs.
The hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as the Federal Bureau of Investigation is confronting criticism for not pre-empting the violence, with lawmakers from both parties suggesting it should have acted more forcefully, given the warning signs. On Jan. 5, the FBI’s Norfolk, Va., office warned in a report that online message-board traffic urged people to go to Washington “ready for war” and shared maps of the Capitol, law-enforcement officials have said. However, the information in the report was uncorroborated and investigators were unable to link it to specific people, making follow-up difficult.
At the hearing, Mr. Wray is expected to face questions both about why law enforcement hadn’t anticipated the extent of the violence and how the bureau is planning to tackle future acts of extremism.
A senior FBI official told reporters Friday that domestic violent extremists have caused more deaths in the U.S. than overseas terrorists in recent years, with evolving motives. In 2019, the official said, the bureau viewed racially-motivated extremism as the most potent domestic terror threat but has shifted to view antigovernment extremism as the top threat in 2020 and the current year.
“The violent reaction to a mixture of events that took place around the country is unlike anything we’ve seen in decades,” the official said. The FBI said it arrested 180 domestic-terrorism suspects in fiscal year 2020, including on state and local charges, up from 107 the previous fiscal year.
The motivations of groups of extremists appear to also be at issue in how officials view the events of Jan. 6. Democratic lawmakers have increasingly referred to the Capitol attackers as white supremacists. Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, said last week he was concerned about how the bureau is allocating resources to address extremist threats. “The tragic events of January 6 put on full display that violent white supremacists pose the most significant domestic terrorism threat to our nation,” Mr. Durbin said.
While some of the defendants have clear affiliations with white-supremacist ideology—including a Virginia man who was photographed at the Capitol in a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt—many of the defendants appear to have been motivated by antigovernment ideologies and anger at Mr. Trump’s election loss, without explicit reference to race. “I don’t underestimate the resolve of the Deep State. Biden may still yet be our President. If he is, our way of life as we know it is over,” an Ohio military veteran texted an associate in November, according to an indictment filed against her for her alleged participation in the riot.
Prosecutors have alleged that a few dozen members of the Capitol mob coordinated with others to breach the Capitol grounds, but the majority appear to have been unaffiliated with extremist groups. A report from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism released Tuesday found that 142 of the 257 federal defendants it examined could be characterized as “inspired believers,” or those who “were neither participants in an established violent extremist group nor connected to any of the other individuals who are alleged to have stormed the Capitol.”
Authorities have characterized such unaffiliated actors as some of the most vexing for law enforcement. “The lone offender threat has created a new set of challenges for law enforcement, as there are a greater number of potential threats and far, far fewer dots to connect, and much less time to prevent or disrupt an attack,” the FBI official said.