Thread by @jseldin

NEW: "The greatest long-term threat to out nation's ideas, innovation & economic security, our national security, is that from #China" @FBI Dir Christopher Wray tells House Homeland Security Committee

"The Chinese gvt aspires to equal or surpass the US as a global superpower & influence the world w/a value system shaped by undemocratic authoritarian ideals" per @FBI's Wray "We are confronting that threat head-on"

"The @FBI has scores of investigations open into the #China in all 56 of our field offices" per Wray

#China has "stolen more of Americans' personal & business data than every other nation combined" per @FBI's Wray on China #cyber threat

Overall #cyber threat-@FBI investigating +100 #ransomware variants, "each one of those w/scores of victims" per Wray

"It is becoming more&more difficult to discern where the cyber criminal activity ends & the nation state activity begins as line between those 2 continue to blur"

"Just in the last several years the FBI has thwarted terrorist attacks in places like #LasVegas #Tampa #NewYork #Cleveland #KansasCity #Pittsburgh. Those are just the ones I can think f off the top of my head" per @FBI's Wray

"We need more funding for those efforts, not less"

.@FBI's Wray tells @RepSwalwell de-funding the bureau would also hurt efforts against child exploitation & #COVID fraud

#Iran-"The Iranian regime across multiple vectors has become more aggressive, more brazen & more dangerous" per @FBI's Wray

Points to:
-cyber attack on children's hospital
-attempted assassination of @AmbJohnBolton
- attempt to kidnap journalist "smack in the middle of" NYC

Greatest threat to US-"lone actors in small cells, typically radicalized online, using easily accessible weapons against soft targets" per @FBI's Wray

"That group includes...domestic violent extremists & homegrown violent extremists, which are foreign terrorist inspired"

"In 2020, the most lethal attacks came from what we categorize as anti-gvt, authority violent extremism, which includes both anarchist violent extremism as well as militia violent extremism" per @FBI's Wray

Transnational criminal orgs, including cartels in #Mexico, sending #fentanyl into the US "a major threat to the homeland os almost epidemic proportions" per @FBI's Wray

"We are certainly seeing a trend that is magnified online of ppl using a mix, a hodgepodge of different personal beliefs & ideologies & grievances as justification for violence" per @FBI's Wray

"That is an alarming trend that has continued for 4 or 5 years"

"A number of nation states- #Russia initially, but since then not just Russia but #China & #Iran -have capitalized on the same toxic, politically charged violence that occurs in this country...to amplify tensions that already there & make it worse" per @FBI's Wray

"The #Russia|n intelligence services are perhaps the most active & aggressive here on US soil, & no place more so than in the city of #NewYork" per @FBI's Wray

"We are concerned about the #Russia|n intelligence service's activity in the US, including in #NewYork, & their ability to exploit their diplomatic presence to accomplish that" per @FBI's Wray

"We have seen a long history of the #Russia|n intelligence services abusing & exploiting their diplomatic presence in the US, including in #NewYork" per @FBI's Wray

"We are seeing a migration in the Western Hemisphere & in fact across the world that unprecedented" per @SecMayorkas

Points to examples of 8 million #Venezuela|ns who have left their country, as well as hundreds of thousands of #Nicaragua|ns who have left their homes