Thread by @jseldin

Happening now: @HomelandDems @HomelandGOP hearing on worldwide threats to the homeland

Chair @BennieGThompson slams @DHSgov acting director @DHS_Wolf for not showing up, accusing him of reneging on a commitment while having time "for no fewer than 4 appearances on Fox News"

.@HomelandDems Chair @BennieGThompson says @DHS_Wolf is ignoring a subpoena by not showing up

"We continue to face grave threats to the homeland, including the rise of domestic terrorism, ongoing foreign interference in the 2020 elections & a #coronavirus pandemic" per @BennieGThompson "As the person running the Dept of Homeland Security, Mr. Wolf should be here"

"I'm also disappointed DHS is not here today" per @HomelandGOP ranking member @RepMikeRogersAL "But I want the record to be very clear on why...It is not the fault of the department or this administration"

"Acting Sec Wolf offered to testify before this committee in both July & August. Unfortunately, the majority refused to make either of those days work" per @RepMikeRogersAL "Now, due to his nomination, Mr. Wolf is prohibited from testifying under a policy that has been in place"

"This is a political stunt and a huge disservice" per @RepMikeRogersAL "Having the public hear about all the good things DHS is doing to protect them might undermine the radical left's latest rallying cry: dismantle DHS"

Here's the statement issued last night by @DHSgov... and a link to @HomelandKen's prepared testimony: dhs.gov/news/2020/09/1…

"Terrorism remains the FBI's top priority although the nature of that threat has evolved significantly" per @FBI Dir Christopher Wray

#alQaida #ISIS "pose a threat not just to Americans overseas but also here at home, most notably by those we call Homegrown Violent Extremists"

Homegrown Violent Extremists (#HVEs) are "individuals who have been radicalized primarily in the United States, & who are inspired by, but not receiving individualized direction from, foreign terrorist organizations" per Wray's statement for the record

"We're also working around the clock to prevent attacks by domestic terrorists...or ethnically motivated violent extremists" per @FBI's Wray "They too are often radicalized online and mobilized quickly"

"We are focused on disruption, on making arrests before a criminal can act" per @FBI's Wray

FBI thwarted potential terror attacks this year in #KansasCity #Tampa #Cleveland #OklahomaCity #Boston #Phoenix & other locations, per Wray

#Protests "Although the majority of protestors have been peaceful, we have opened investigations on individuals involved in criminal activity at these protests, some of whom adhere to violent, extremist agendas designed to sow discord & upheaval" per @FBI's Wray

"Let me be clear-We do not investigate groups or individuals based on ideology or the exercise of 1st Amendment protected activity alone" per Wray "But when the ideology leads someone to commit criminal acts & pursue violence the @FBI will not hesitate to take appropriate action"

#Election2020 - "Americans must have confidence in our voting system & our election infrastructure" per @FBI's Wray "The security of our elections is & will continue to be 1 of our highest priorities"

"We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections" per @FBI's Wray "Just recently for example we shared threat indicators w/both @Facebook & @Twitter that allowed them to take down fake accounts created as part of a #Russia|n disinformation campaign"

"Today's terrorism threat to the United States & our allies is less acute but more ideologically and geographically diffuse, emanating from more groups and more places than it did in 2001" per National Counterterrorism Center (#NCTC) Dir. Christopher Miller

#ISIS #alQaida operation in "more than two dozen countries" per #NCTC's Miller

"Our focus remains defeating #alQaida, its affiliates and other terrorist actors while defending our shores against terrorist entry" per #NCTC's Miller

"We believe this threat picture will only grow more complex over the coming year as technological advances, changing geopolitical dynamics & instability resulting from global pandemic create more opportunities for terrorists to benefit" per #NCTC's Miller

#NCTC's Miller calls for "greater resources to enrich our terrorist identities analysis & enhance our ability to detect & prevent terrorist travel to the United States"

Also says must invest in new data science

"We assess that the greatest threat to the homeland, to us here domestically, is not one organization, certainly not one ideology but rather lone actors, largely self-radicalized online who pursue soft targets using readily accesible weapons" per @FBI's Wray

"Those include both domestic violent extremists (#DVE) of a variety of sorts & as well Homegrown Violent Extremists (#HVE) who are motivated by foreign, jihadist type sources" per @FBI's Wray

"They can go from radicalization to mobilization in weeks, if not days" per Wray

With #HVE and #DVE, there are often not a lot of dots to connect, says @FBI's Wray

Asked about #ANTIFA, @FBI's Wray says "We don't really think of threats in terms of left & right...We're focused on the violence, not the ideology"

"Our domestic violent extremists include everything from racially motivated violent extremists...all the way to anti-gvt, anti-authority violent extremists" per @FBI's Wray

"That includes ppl ranging from anarchist violent extremists, ppl who subscribe to #Antifa or other ideologies, as well as militia types" per @FBI's Wray

"We look as #Antifa as more of an ideology or a movement than an organization per @FBI's Wray "To be clear we do have quite a number of properly predicated investigations into violent anarchist extremists, any number of who self-identify w/the #Antifa movement"

#Election2020-"#Russia continues to try to influence our elections, primarily thru what we would call malign foreign influence" per @FBI's Wray "As opposed to what we saw in 2016 where there was also an effort to target election infrastructure"

#Russia efforts "primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden & what the Russians see as kind of an anti-Russian establishment" per @FBI's Wray

.@FBI now running +2,000 counterintelligence investigations related to #China, "by far the biggest chunk of out counterintelligence portfolio" per FBI Dir Wray "We are opening a new Chinese counterintelligence investigation about every 10 hours"

#QAnon-"We view QAnon as essentially less of an organization & more as a complex set of conspiracy theories" per @FBI's Wray "Certainly we have had cases, properly predicated cases involving violence where ppl have been motivated by some of those conspiracy theories"

"I don't think we've seen lethal attacks involving that kind of motivation [#QAnon]" adds @FBI's Wray

#BLM-"We don't express a view on sort of the political organization itself, Black Lives Matter" per @FBI's Wray

"If there were ppl who follow that group or who adhere to that ideology who were them, based on that ideology or anything else, to commit violent criminal activity, then we would approach them just like we would anyone else" per @FBI's Wray

re: #BLM

#Boogaloo "much like #Antifa is more of a movement or an ideology than it is a group" per @FBI's Wray "1 of the things I don't think a lot of ppl understand about ppl who subscribe to to this sort of Boogaloo thinking is that their main focus is on dismantling, tearing down gvt"

"They're less clear on what it is they think they're going to replace gvt with. I'm not sure they would all agree with each other" per @FBI's Wray

re: Boogaloo

"#Antifa is a real thing. It's not a group or an organization. It's a movement or an ideology" says @FBI's Wray, asked by @RepDLesko if it was "a fantasy" as some Democrats suggest

Some violent anarchist extremists "self identify" w/Antifa, per Wray

#Protests-"1 of the concerns that we have amidst all the growing unrest is the growing trend of protests begets counter protest begets violence" per @FBI's Wray

"Much of the violence that we're seeing does not appear to be organized or attributed to any 1 particular group or movement" per Wray "We are seeing in certain pockets more kind of regionally organized folks coalescing, often coordinating on the ground in the middle of protests"

"This is not innocuous activity" adds @FBI's Wray

"We have seen some efforts by our foreign adversaries, I would mention #China & #Russia specifically but not exclusively, to sort of piggy back on a lot of the unrest" per @FBI's Wray

"To sow divisiveness & discord, on the part of the #Russia|ns or to try to advance their own narratives, say in the case of the #Chinese" per @FBI's Wray

"We have seen some engagement between racially motivated extremists & like-minded individuals overseas" per @FBI's Wray

#Antifa is an ideology/movement but there has been the formation of some regional nodes, per @FBI's Wray

"We are actively investigating the potential of violence from those regional nodes" he says

"We have seen folks who subscribe to or self-identify w/the #Antifa movement who coalesce regionally" per @FBI's Wray "They've certainly organized at that level"

.@FBI's Wray on #Encryption-"We are getting to a point where technology companies are creating an entire warrant-proof world in which there are devices & communication platforms that it doesn't matter how awful the conduct, it doesn't matter how tragic the victim..."

"...it doesn't matter how bullet-proof legally our court order is to get into, we're going to be blinded to it" per @FBI's Wray

Notes 3 years later, still unable to access the phone of the Sutherland Springs shooter

Connections between foreign white supremacists groups & those in US

"We are not picking up on anything of a routine, systemic connection," per #NCTC's Miller "What you'll see is more ad hoc, because they'r all sitting online together, chatting"

"With #Russian Imperial Movement (#RIM) there have been Westerners that have gone out to some of their training" per #NCTC's Miller "Can't say we know all of them"

#NCTC looks at whether other foreign white supremacist groups should be designated, like RIM, per Miller

"Each year, lately, we've been having roughly 1,000 domestic terrorism investigations" per @FBI Dir Christopher Wray, in response to Q from @RepSlotkin "It's higher than that this year"

"We've had about 120 arrests for domestic terrorism this year" per @FBI's Wray

"Of the domestic terrorism threats we, last year. elevated racially motivated violent extremism to be a national threat priority commensurate with Homegrown Violent Extremists-that's the jihadist inspired ppl here, ad w/#ISIS" per @FBI's Wray

.@RepSlotkin: "How many of them of white supremacists?"

.@FBI's Wray: "Within the domestic terrorism bucket, category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is I think the biggest bucket within that larger group..."

"...and within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, ppl who are subscribing to some sort of white supremacist type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that" per @FBI's Wray

"Racially motivated violent extremists over recent years have been responsible for the most lethal activity in the Us" per @FBI's Wray, though he says this year its been anti-government anarchist extremists

#Election2020-"What concerns me the most is the steady drumbeat of misinformation & amplification of smaller #cyber intrusions that contribute over time, that we're worried will contribute over time to a lack of confidence of American voters" per @FBI's Wray

"That would be a perception, not reality" per @FBI's Wray "Americans can and should have confidence in our election system & certainly our democracy but I worry that ppl will take on a feeling of futility because of all the noice and confusion"

"My commitment to calling it straight extends not just to our investigations but to our intelligence assessment" per @FBI's Wray "That will continue as long as I am sitting in this roll"

#Election2020-"We have not seen, to date, a coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election" per @FBI Dir. Christopher Wray

"We certainly have investigated voter fraud committed by mail-its typically been at the local level" he adds