    [House Hearing, 117 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                   THE RISE OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM IN AMERICA

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,
                             AND HOMELAND SECURITY

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                          WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2021

                                   __________

                                Serial No. 117-7

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    45-652                      WASHINGTON : 2022

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

    ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
    HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
        Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
    THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
    KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
    HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
    ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
    TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
    JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
    PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
    VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
    J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
    MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
    SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
    JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
    LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
    GREG STANTON, Arizona
    VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
    MONDAIRE JONES, New York
    DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
    CORI BUSH, Missouri

           PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                  CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
                                     ------

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY

                        SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas, Chair
                        CORI BUSH, Missouri, Vice-Chair

    KAREN BASS, California               ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Ranking
    VAL DEMINGS, Florida                     Member
    LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
    MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
    DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island        TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
    TED LIEU, California                 THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
    LOU CORREA, California               VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
    VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               BURGESS OWENS, Utah

                       JOE GRAUPENSPERGER, Chief Counsel
                        JASON CERVENAK, Minority Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, February 24, 2021

                                                                       Page

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of Texas     2
    The Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
      Arizona........................................................     4
    The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York...........................    40
    The Honorable Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of Ohio...............................    58

                                   WITNESSES

    Wade Henderson, Interim President and CEO, The Leadership
      Conference on Civil and Human Rights
      Oral Testimony.................................................    60
      Prepared Statement.............................................    62
    Malcolm Nance, Founder and Executive Director, Terror Asymmetrics
      Project
      Oral Testimony.................................................    72
      Prepared Statement.............................................    74
    Andy Ngo, Editor-at-Large, The Post Millennial
      Oral Testimony.................................................    77
      Prepared Statement.............................................    79
    Michael German, Brennan Center for Justice
      Oral Testimony.................................................    84
      Prepared Statement.............................................    86

               STATEMENTS, LETTERS, MATERIALS, ARTICLES SUBMITTED

    A document from Floyd Lee Corkins, II, Government's Sentencing
      Memorandum, submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking
      Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
      Security from the State of Arizona for the record..............     8
    Statement from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
      Rights, submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the
      Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New York for the
      record.........................................................    44
    Statement from American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), submitted
      by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    51
    An article entitled ``Review: Andy Ngo's New Book Still Pretends
      Antifa's the Real Enemy,'' Los Angeles Times, submitted by the
      Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, a Member of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
      Pennsylvania for the record....................................   126
    An article entitled ``Racist Black Hebrew Israelites Becoming
      More Militant,'' Southern Poverty Law Center, submitted by the
      Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
      Arizona for the record.........................................   134
    An article entitled ``Deadly Attack in New Jersey--Possible Link
      to Black Separatist Movement,'' Southern Poverty Law Center,
      submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the
      Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from
      the State of Arizona for the record............................   149
    An article entitled ``Capitol Police Officer: Trumpist Rioters
      Call Me the N-Word a Dozen Times,'' Daily Beast, submitted by
      the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of Texas
      for the record.................................................   154
    An article entitled ``Prosecutors: Capitol Rioters Intended to
      `Capture and Assassinate' Elected Officials,'' US News,
      submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the
      Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from
      the State of Texas for the record..............................   156
    A document entitled ``(U//FOUO) Black Identity Extremists (BIE)
      Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers,'' FBI
      Counterterrorism Division, leaked FBI counterterrorism division
      memo addressing the infiltration of white supremacy within law
      enforcement, submitted by the Honorable Cori Bush, Vice-Chair
      of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
      from the State of Missouri for the record......................   168
    A document regarding Floyd Corkins' superseding indictment, Case
      1:12-cr-00182-RWR, submitted by the Honorable Cori Bush, Vice-
      Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
      Security from the State of Missouri for the record.............   180

                                    APPENDIX

    An article entitled ``The False and Exaggerated Claims Still
      Being Spread About the Capitol Riot,'' submitted by the
      Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
      Arizona for the record.........................................   200
    A document entitled ``(U//FOUO) Black Identity Extremists (BIE)
      Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers,'' FBI
      Counterterrorism Division, submitted by Wade Henderson, Interim
      President and CEO, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
      Rights for the record..........................................   202
    A document regarding Floyd Corkins' superseding indictment, Case
      1:12-cr-00182-RWR, submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs,
      Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and
      Homeland Security from the State of Arizona for the record.....   214

                         THE RISE OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM
                                   IN AMERICA

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, February 24, 2021

                            House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:23 p.m., in
    Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sheila Jackson
    Lee [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Members present: Representatives Jackson Lee, Nadler, Bass,
    Demings, McBath, Dean, Scanlon, Bush, Cicilline, Lieu, Correa,
    Escobar, Cohen, Biggs, Jordan, Chabot, Gohmert, Steube,
    Tiffany, Spartz, Fitzgerald, and Owens.
        Staff present: David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; Madeline
    Strasser, Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma, Member Services and Outreach
    Advisor; John Williams, Parliamentarian; Ben Hernandez-Stern,
    Counsel, Crime; Joe Graupensperger, Chief Counsel, Crime;
    Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member, Crime; Jason
    Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel, Crime; Ken David, Minority
    Counsel; Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff Member;
    and Kiley Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. In this opening, as I call this
    Subcommittee to order, without objection the Chair is
    authorized to declare recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
    Just as an aside: Technology will not defeat our work. So, we
    are gathered here, and I welcome everyone this afternoon to
    this afternoon's oversight hearing on ``The Rise of Domestic
    Terrorism in America.''
        Before we begin, I would like to remind Members that we
    have established an email address and distribution list to
    circulate exhibits, motions, or other written materials that
    Members may want to offer as part of our hearing. If you would
    like to submit materials, please send them to the email address
    that has been previously distributed to your offices, and we
    will circulate the materials to Members and staff as quickly as
    possible.
        I would also ask all Members, both those in person and
    those attending remotely, to mute your microphones when you are
    not speaking. This will help prevent feedback and other
    technical issues. You may unmute yourself any time you seek
    recognition.
        I would also remind all Members that guidance from the
    Office of Attending Physician calls for all Members to wear
    masks even when they are speaking.
        I will now recognize myself for an opening statement and
    emphasize the importance of this day.
        Over the course of the last four years, every corner of the
    United States has felt the impact of rise of domestic
    terrorism. Communities of faith, peaceful protesters, and even
    the United States Congress itself have been attacked by
    domestic terrorists. The Executive Branch has an array of
    statutory authorities to prevent attacks and bring charges
    against domestic terrorists, including those that are White
    supremacists.
        It is abundantly clear, however, that despite pleas from
    Congress and the American people, these tools have not been
    fully utilized nor implemented effectively and with the full
    force of law and all the available resources. We must focus on
    our Federal Government on the goal of eradicating those
    homegrown threats in communities across the country. Domestic
    terrorists pose a clear and deadly threat to the well-being of
    all Americans.
        During the past two years, this Committee has examined the
    federal response to domestic terrorists each time a horrific
    and tragic White supremacist attack has taken place. As just
    one sober example, in August of 2019, a shooting spree at a
    Walmart in El Paso, the home of our colleague, the Honorable
    Veronica Escobar, left 22 people dead and 24 more wounded,
    marking the third deadliest Act of violence by domestic
    extremists in more than 50 years.
        It is certainly troubling that the core of his hatred was
    based on language and ethnicity.
        It is so troubling that there have been so many shocking
    tragedies in recent years, from the deadly rampage at
    Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, religion, and immigration
    issues, to the 2012 White supremacist attack on the Sikh temple
    in Milwaukee. So sad that I have been on this Committee through
    all these horrific attacks. To the brutal murder of nine
    worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in
    Charleston. Even our most hallowed houses of worship have
    become targets of violent and hateful domestic terrorists. The
    funeral for these precious souls was a powerful statement that
    we would not tolerate that violence and was taken to another
    level when President Barack Obama sang the song ``Amazing
    Grace.''
        For all of those who want to equivocate about the nature of
    these threats or make false comparison, take a moment to pause
    and reflect on that statistic. Over the last ten years, 75
    percent of all murders have--resulting from domestic terrorism
    have been the result of right-wing extremists. Attempts to
    equate White supremacy to anarchists, activists, and other
    groups who are opposed to White nationalism and other domestic
    terrorists, ring as hollow today as they did following the alt-
    right protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. No, there are not
    good people on both sides.
        On January 6th, former President Trump directed a group of
    his followers, which included an array of hate-filled
    extremists, to attack the Capitol and Congress at a time when
    we were fulfilling our sacred constitutional duty in certifying
    electors. Our citizens have repeatedly seen and have been
    horrified by the images from that day, including police
    officers being beaten and bloodied, beatings which caused a
    death and serious lasting injuries.
        There are no both sides in this debate. We must not be
    misled by efforts to divert the attention and accountability
    for these acts of right-wing violence and terror. Any attempt
    to do so, for instance, says that the real problem is something
    called antifa, is irresponsible and belittles the seriousness
    of the threat of extreme right-wing violence and misidentifies
    who the perpetrators predominantly are in this community.
        As the FBI director said unequivocally, White supremacists
    are the most lethal threat for domestic violence in our
    country. Among domestic terrorists, White supremacy has no
    equivalent.
        I ask all the Members of the Subcommittee to join me today
    in denouncing domestic terrorism, including White supremacy, in
    all forms. I wish we would just take an oath or raise our
    hands.
        With this hearing today this Subcommittee comes together
    again to seek answers to why our Federal Government has not
    taken the steps necessary to address the rising specter of
    right-wing and White nationalist domestic terrorism. At the
    beginning of the last Congress, the Judiciary Committee held a
    hearing entitled ``Hate Crimes and the Rise of White
    Nationalism.'' During that hearing we heard from a diverse
    panel of witnesses who described both the rise of White
    nationalism and the shortcomings in the current enforcement
    regime.
        What was clear then and is clear now is that our current
    approach is not working. Enough is enough. It is time for the
    action. I look forward to hearing from today's panelists on
    what federal law enforcement must do to swiftly address the
    rise of domestic terrorism and how Congress can help.
        I believe that there are well-reasoned and measured steps
    that we can take, such as passing Representative Brad
    Schneider's Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act that would focus
    the Federal Government's resources on the continuing threats to
    terrorize and kill Americans. With domestic terrorism, our
    country has suffered horrendous and repeated attacks on our
    people and our democracy, attacks not from beyond our borders,
    but from within. As well, we saw on January 6th, those attacks
    have been on those innocent law enforcement officers standing
    in the gap to protect the citadel of democracy.
        The wounds are deep, but our resolve is strong. We must not
    allow this to continue. As we examine this very important time
    in our history, we must recognize the importance, the very
    importance of the work that we have to do. The nature of the
    domestic terrorist threats against our country must be
    examined. Let us do so today.
        As we proceed today, I would like to offer the words of
    Abraham Lincoln:

              The world will little note, nor long remember what we
            say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
            It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here
            to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
            thus far so nobly advanced.

        In this Committee, I hope that we will finish this noble
    work, and that we will not succumb to this kind of violence in
    America ever again.
        I yield back at this time.
        It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of
    the subcommittee, of the subcommittee, the gentleman from
    Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for his opening statement.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure for me
    to serve on this Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
    Security. As this is the first hearing, my first hearing as
    Ranking Member of this esteemed subcommittee, I want to start
    out by saying how much I look forward to working with you to
    combat violent crime, keep our community safe, and stand by the
    men and women of law enforcement.
        Now, when you and I spoke before, I told you I did not
    intend to show a video. Something in your comments I think
    causes me to want to change my mind. I will show you in a
    second.
        Turning our attention to today's hearing on the rise of
    domestic terrorism in America, we must approach this subject
    with open minds and open eyes. We must acknowledge that all
    domestic terrorism is wrong and must not only be acknowledged
    but condemned. This includes domestic terrorism labeled as
    right- or left-wing.
        I fear that my colleagues on the other side will simply
    want to focus on right-wing domestic terrorism, and I hope that
    I am mistaken. However, I suppose that they would first need to
    admit that left-wing domestic terrorism exists. Just last year,
    for instance, Chair of the whole Judiciary Committee called
    antifa imaginary.
        I suppose our witness today, Mr. Ngo, was beaten and
    continually threatened by adherents to an imaginary group.
        Antifa laid siege to some of our cities much of last year.
    I hope that we can have a thoughtful and balanced discussion
    about the issue of domestic terrorism. I remain hopeful that,
    despite the fact that one our witnesses here today suggested
    that ISIS bomb a Trump property in Turkey. I cannot decide
    which is worse, that a retired naval non-commissioned officer
    made such a suggestion on Twitter, or that it was thought
    appropriate to invite him here today to discuss domestic
    terrorism.
        Ideologies that fuel domestic terrorism exist all along the
    political spectrum. In 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia,
    during a Unite the Right rally, James Alex Fields drove his car
    into counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 28
    others. That was evil and unacceptable. Comments made today and
    other times since that point need to be put into perspective.
        With that, let's go with the video, if we may, Madam Chair.
        [Video played.]
        Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, I would ask that we pause that for
    a second.
        Madam Chair, yeah, with the feedback, that I suggest maybe
    some people do not have their computers on mute. If they have
    their computers on mute, that will allow, should allow for it
    to proceed without feedback.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. You may proceed.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
        Please proceed with the video.
        [Video played.]
        Mr. Biggs. So, the point is this, the previous president,
    the former President Trump, called out neo-Nazis and White
    nationalists and said they should be condemned. I think there
    is no one in this room that would disagree with that statement.
        Earlier that same year we saw politically-inspired domestic
    terrorism that actually hit much closer to our home. As
    Republican Members gathered at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in
    Alexandria, Virginia, to practice for an annual congressional
    baseball game for charity, James Thompson Hodgkinson, aged 66,
    fired at least 70 rounds from a handgun and rifle at the
    congressmen, staff, and others at the park. Five people were
    injured during the assault, including Republican Whip Steve
    Scalise, who was in critical condition and underwent multiple
    surgeries.
        The Commonwealth attorney for the City of Alexandria, a
    Democrat, concluded ``the evidence in this case establishes
    beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect, fueled by rage
    against Republican legislators, decided to commit an act of
    terrorism.'' He was a Bernie Sanders supporter.
        We also cannot forget the attack that took place in 2012 at
    the Family Research Council when Floyd Corkins attempted to
    ``it was to kill as many people as I could'' at the Family
    Research Council center in Washington, DC. According to the
    sentencing memorandum, he told the FBI he wanted ``I wanted to
    kill the people in the building and then smear a Chicken-fil-A
    sandwich on their face.''
        He was inspired to attack the FRC because it had been
    identified on Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map.
        It was a different set of ideologies that inspired the
    attacks on West Coast federal buildings than those that
    inspired an attack on our Capitol. We have seen White and Black
    supremacist groups inspire domestic terrorist events.
        In 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, Dylann Roof,
    harboring views of White supremacy, took the lives of nine
    congregants of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
        In 2019, in Jersey City, New Jersey, David N. Anderson and
    Francine Graham shot and killed three people at a kosher
    grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey. The shooters also
    wounded one customer and two police officers. A Jersey City
    Police Department detective was shot and killed by the
    assailants at a nearby cemetery just before the grocery store
    attack.
        David Anderson and Francine Graham, identified as Black
    Hebrew Israelites, which the Southern Poverty Law Center found
    that ``the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement is
    Black supremacists.'' It also wrote that the Members of those
    groups ``believe that Jews are devilish imposters and openly
    condemn whites as evil personified, deserving only death or
    slavery.''
        I hope that our hearing and the outcome of today will
    address all forms of domestic terrorism, no matter which
    ideology inspires that terrorism.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I would like
    to add the indictment and sentencing memo from the Family
    Research Council case to the record, if that is okay.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]

                            MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Biggs.
        I am now pleased to recognize the distinguished Chair of
    the Full Committee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler,
    for his opening statement.
        Chair Nadler. I thank Chair Sheila Jackson Lee for holding
    this important and timely hearing.
        Domestic terrorism continues to be a serious and lethal
    threat to our country, and we must do more to stop it. Much of
    this threat is driven by racially-motivated hate and animus
    toward religious minorities. Sadly, many domestic terrorist
    attacks have taken place through mass shootings, such as the
    2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where a
    gunman targeted Mexican-American shoppers.
        This mass shooting joins other attacks perpetrated by
    domestic terrorists, including an attack at a Sikh temple in
    Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist
    Episcopal Church, and the mass murder at the Tree of Life
    synagogue that has already been mentioned, among a tragic list
    of others.
        Violent extremism also touched the halls of our Capitol on
    January 6th, resulting in death and destruction. It is clear
    that the mob that attacked us that terrible day included
    significant representation from White nationalists, among other
    hate-filled groups.
        We must ensure that our law enforcement resources and
    priorities are properly directed at this dangerous and growing
    threat. The FBI's annual Hate Crime Statistics Act report found
    in 2019, the last year that statistics are available, that
    there were 7,314 hate crimes, up from 7,120 the year before.
    These numbers, which hardly show the pain and anguish these
    attacks brought, is, sadly, near a record high.
        FBI Director Christopher Wray also testified that 2019 was
    the deadliest year for domestic extremist violence since the
    Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Senior FBI officials have noted
    that racially-motivated violent extremists are responsible for
    the majority of lethal attacks and fatalities perpetrated by
    domestic terrorists since 2000.
        To truly understand what is driving this increase in hate
    crimes and the link to violent extremists, we still need better
    and more comprehensive data. The FBI should simplify its data
    reporting, which must include reliable information from all
    jurisdictions. This information should be shared with Congress
    and the American people in a clear format, so that we can
    better focus resources on our domestic terrorist threats at
    hand.
        We also need to ensure that once informed by the proper
    data we dedicate resources towards addressing the greatest
    threats. That is why I support the Domestic Terrorism
    Prevention Act, a bipartisan measure introduced to do just
    that. This legislation, of which I am an original co-sponsor,
    would create offices within the Department of Justice, the
    Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, to monitor,
    investigate, and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism. These
    newly created offices would be required to focus their
    resources based on the data collected on the most significant
    threats.
        Domestic violent extremism is not a new phenomenon, but it
    has become supercharged in recent years. We have seen a surge
    in hate-filled extremist groups, driven by conspiracy theories
    based on racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, which has been
    fueled by success at online recruiting and organizing. When
    combined with violence, they form a toxic stew that must be met
    with the resources necessary to address this threat.
        We must renew and reinforce our efforts against this
    scourge by marshaling the resources and authorities we already
    have so that we are more effective in this endeavor. I am
    particularly interested in hearing the recommendations of our
    witnesses today about how best we can do that.
        Madam Chair, I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the
    record two documents. The first is a letter from the Leadership
    Conference on Civil and Human Rights signed by 156
    organizations expressing their opposition to the expansion of
    terrorism-related legal authorities.
        The second letter, from the American Civil Liberties Union,
    highlights the perils that expanded terrorism authorities may
    pose to communities of color.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]

                          CHAIR NADLER FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back the
    balance of my time.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
        It is now my pleasure to recognize the distinguished
    Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from Ohio,
    Mr. Jordan, for his opening statement.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me
    congratulate Mr. Biggs, our colleague, as the new Ranking
    Member on our side for this, for his work that he will have in
    leading here on this important subcommittee.
        The violence of January 6th was as wrong as wrong can be.
    Every American has the right under the First amendment to
    peacefully protest, but political violence of any kind of
    unacceptable, and all of us must never tolerate it. We must
    denounce all forms of domestic terrorism. To discuss one kind
    of extremism and look the other way on another, as the
    Democrats are trying to do today and have been doing for almost
    a year, is, frankly, dishonest and it is wrong. I think the
    American people see through it.
        Republicans have been consistent in denouncing all acts of
    political violence: The violence that took place on the 6th of
    January 2021, and violence that took place across our country
    in major urban areas throughout the summer of last year.
    Unfortunately, Democrats have not. All last summer Democrats
    looked the other way as violent left-wing extremists used
    legitimate protests about policing concerns as a vehicle to
    incite riots and reap destruction throughout our country.
        While Americans watched their cities burn, some prominent
    Democrats in Congress downplayed the threat. Worse yet, some
    encouraged the violence. The current Vice President publicly
    supported the riots last summer, even asking her supporters to
    contribute money to raise bail funds for violent extremists
    arrested in the riots.
        The Democratic Chair of this Committee, this very
    committee, the Judiciary Committee, called antifa an imaginary
    thing, and antifa violence a myth that is only spread in
    Washington, DC.
        My guess is one of our witnesses today will have a little
    different story to talk about the violence of antifa.
        Another Democrat called for there to be ``unrest in the
    streets.'' While there was unrest in the streets you have a
    Democrat member of Congress calling for ``unrest in the
    streets.''
        Last July, when former Attorney General Mr. Barr urged this
    Committee to condemn mob violence and destruction of federal
    property, not one single Democrat spoke up. Last September we
    wrote to Chair demanding that we convene a hearing on left-wing
    violent extremism to confirm that it is not a myth as was
    claimed. We are still waiting on a response.
        Antifa and left-wing violence are certainly no myth. In
    fact, a recent study showed that attacks by left-wing violent
    extremists have more than doubled from 2019 to 2020. Violence,
    whether in Washington, DC, or Portland, Oregon, or any other
    place in this country should be condemned, all forms of it, all
    the time, by both parties.
        I hope we can have an honest and productive conversation.
        Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman Mr. Jordan for his
    opening remarks.
        It is now my privilege to welcome all our distinguished
    witnesses. We thank them for their participation.
        I will begin by swearing in our witnesses. I ask our
    witnesses testifying in person to rise. I will stand with you.
    Also, I ask our witnesses testifying remotely to turn on their
    audio, make sure I can see your face.
        Wave your hand.
        I can see you alright. Raise your right hand while I
    administer the oath.
        Witnesses stand or unmute and raise your right hands.
        Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
    testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
    of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
        [Chorus of ayes.]
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much. The witnesses have
    responded. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in
    the affirmative.
        Thank you and please be seated.
        To the Members, let me indicate that we are in the midst of
    four votes. We are going to attempt to hear at least one or two
    witnesses. I am keeping my eye on the calendar, the floor, as I
    know your staff are. Then we will recess and try to get back
    here as quickly as possible.
        Thank you, Mr. Biggs, for your indulgence and your
    cooperation.
        We will now proceed with the witness introductions.
        Mr. Wade Henderson currently serves as the Interim
    President of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
    Rights. He previously served as President of the Leadership
    Conference for more than 20 years.
        Prior to joining the Leadership Conference, Mr. Henderson
    was the Washington Bureau Director of the NAACP; Associate
    Director of the Washington National Office of the ACLU; and
    Executive Director of the Council on Legal Education
    Opportunity.
        Mr. Malcolm W. Nance retired from the United States Navy as
    a Senior Chief Petty Officer. While in uniform, Mr. Nance
    worked in naval cryptology where the focus was on
    counterterrorism, intelligence, and combat operations.
        Following the September 11th attacks he served as an
    intelligence and security contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan, the
    UAE, and North Africa.
        He is Founder and Executive Director of the Terror
    Asymmetrics Project on Strategy. In 2016 he published two
    books: ``Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How they Fight, What
    they Believe;'' and ``The Plot to Hack America.''
        Mr. Andy Ngo is a journalist who has written reports for
    the New York Post, Newsweek, and others. He is the author of
    ``Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy
    Democracy.''
        Michael German is a fellow with the Brennan Center for
    Justice's liberty and national security program. He is a former
    special agent with the FBI. There he conducted undercover
    operations against White supremacists and far-right militia
    groups engaged in the manufacture and use of explosives and
    illegal firearms.
        In addition to his current role, Mr. German served as an
    Adjunct Professor of Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the
    National Defense University.
        Please note that each of your written statements will be
    entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask
    that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. To help you
    stay within that time there is a timing light on your table or
    where you are virtually viewing it from. When the light
    switches from green to yellow or your clock starts to down the
    numbers to two minutes, one minute, you have one minute to
    conclude your testimony. When the light turns red it signals
    your five minutes have expired.
        Mr. Henderson, welcome. You may begin.

                      TESTIMONY OF WADE HENDERSON

        Mr. Henderson. Thank you. Chair Jackson Lee, full Committee
    Chair Nadler, Chair Biggs, and Full Committee Member Jordan,
    and Members of the Committee, thank you for holding this
    hearing today on the federal response to domestic terrorism. I
    am Wade Henderson, Interim President and CEO of The Leadership
    Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than
    200 national organizations working to build an America as good
    as its ideals.
        The hearing, this hearing in the wake of the January 6th
    attack on the Capitol is important. Last month's attack, fueled
    in part by White nationalism and antisemitism that has long
    thrived in our country and horrified us all. For those of us
    who represent marginalized people, the violence did not
    surprise us because, sadly, it is not new.
        We are all too familiar with the ways in which White
    supremacy has long thrived in our country. We also know that
    for too long the threat of White nationalist violence has been
    weaponized, not only by White supremacists, but also by laws
    and programs that target us rather than protect us.
        I would like to offer four recommendations today:
        First, Congress must pass the Domestic Terrorism Prevention
    Act, without any poison pill amendments, that would create a
    new charge, and demand that federal agencies show how they are
    fighting White supremacist violence.
        Federal law enforcement already has statutes and
    investigative powers to combat violence fueled by White
    supremacy, including over 50 terrorism-related crimes, and over
    a dozen other criminal laws. It has lacked the will to use
    them, and the DTPA would help address this.
        Importantly, the bill would not create new domestic
    terrorism charges or sentence enhancements that would
    ultimately harm our communities. Our nation's long history of
    misusing its mechanisms, including the use of COINTELPRO
    against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the post-9/11 targeting of
    Arabs and Muslims, and the FBI's prioritization of Black
    identity extremists makes clear that new authority would be
    used to expand racial profiling, undermine due process, or
    target political opponents, all in the name of national
    security.
        Instead, we should use existing tools to combat White
    supremacy without enabling new abuses.
        Second, Congress must identify ways to address and
    dismantle White supremacy in law enforcement. We know most
    police officers report to duty every day determined to honor
    their mission. We also know that there are officers who have
    actively promoted White supremacist groups that incite or use
    violence.
        White supremacy infects so many of our institutions, but
    its impact on policing is especially devastating and makes us
    all less safe, including the police.
        Congress must demand a full accounting of what is being
    done to address White supremacy in law enforcement. The White
    Supremacy in Law Enforcement Information Act is a good first
    step. Congress and federal agencies must also identify ways to
    ensure that law enforcement officers who incite racist violence
    are no longer welcome.
        Third, Congress must pass legislation and appropriations to
    enhance the federal response to hate crimes. White nationalist
    violence and other hate crime terrorizes communities on a daily
    basis. We also know that we do not have the accurate data
    necessary to effectively address it.
        The Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act improves data and community-
    centered responses. More must be done, including mandatory
    reporting and implementation by the National Incident-Based
    Reporting System.
        Finally, Congress must pass H.R. 40 to study the efficacy
    of reparations to African Americans and create a U.S.
    Commission for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. For
    over 400 years subjugation of Black people was a major factor
    in American economic growth. Yet, long after the end of
    slavery, Black people are still deprived of the benefits of
    that growth. If we are to address White nationalist violence,
    we must confront our history, including disinvestment in Black
    and brown communities because it still remains with us.
        Congress must pass H.R. 40 and reckon and account for our
    history. Reparations are owed, transformation is required. Now
    is the time to create a shared vision for a country as good as
    its ideals where all are valued. To do this, we must reckon
    with White supremacy that was present at our founding and
    persists to this day.
        Thank you for having me here today. I would be happy to
    take your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Henderson follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
    expired.
        Now, we recognized Mr. Malcolm W. Nance for five minutes of
    testimony.
        Mr. Nance, you are recognized.

                     TESTIMONY OF MALCOLM W. NANCE

        Mr. Nance. Thank you, Madam Chair and all the Members of
    this Committee.
        20-seven years ago, on April 19th, 1995, I was a U.S. Navy
    Cryptologic Intelligence Chief Petty Officer aboard a Los
    Angeles Class submarine carrying out operations in the eastern
    hemisphere. I was sitting in the radio communications space
    monitoring a report from our higher headquarters. One item
    dominated the unclassified significant events: ``truck bomb
    explodes in Oklahoma City. Dozens killed.''
        As a specialist in Middle East terror groups, I was
    convinced that one of our adversaries had infiltrated the
    American homeland and perpetrated a major Act of violence. I
    was so sure, that I bet an entire month's salary. I quickly
    lost that bet.
        The terrorist that conceptualized, built, and delivered the
    4,500-pound ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb at the Alfred P.
    Murrah Federal Building was a decorated U.S. Army veteran named
    Timothy James McVeigh. He conspired with two others, including
    his platoon leader Terry Nichols, to exact revenge against the
    government for the deaths of the Branch Davidian religious
    extremists in Waco, Texas. However, there was a larger
    ideological belief at play.
        McVeigh was a White supremacist who had self-radicalized.
    He came to believe that a race war was imminent in the United
    States. He used the 1978 fictional novel, ``The Turner
    Diaries,'' as a blueprint to ignite a civil war which would
    lead to a White domination of North America.
        ``The Turner Diaries,'' written by American neo-Nazi,
    William Pierce, describes America as a dystopia where Black and
    Hispanic crime runs rampant, 800,000 whites are mass-arrested,
    and guns are confiscated. The fictional Earl Tuner is a member
    of the terrorist group called ``The Order.'' In that book, a
    5,000-pound truck bomb is detonated at the headquarters of the
    FBI in Washington, DC, as the ``go sign'' for a war to
    overthrow ``the system.''
        ``The system'' which represented America was led by ``The
    Jews,'' the news media, Hollywood, and liberal government
    politicians. The Order carries out reprisal lynchings on
    liberal whites they call ``race traitors'' in ``the Day of the
    Rope.'' The book ends when the fictional hero dies in a
    kamikaze airplane bombing of the Pentagon. Then came real life:
    McVeigh copied the described bomb and just altered the target.
        Another White supremacist, Robert Mathews, a close
    associate of Pierce, formed a terror group of the same name in
    the 1980s to carry out robberies, assassination, bombings, and
    fund a network of White supremacist terror groups' terror
    training camps in the rural U.S. Mathews would later be killed
    in a shootout with the FBI.
        There is a long history of anti-government extremism in our
    nation. That mistrust is often based on myths, conspiracy
    theories, paranoia laced with a healthy dose of rebellion
    nostalgia. Most domestic violent extremists seek to protect and
    defend rights, not as they are written in the Constitution, but
    as they wish they had been written. They live in an alternate
    information space which bends them out of objective reality.
        Major violent extremist subclasses include the Ku Klux Klan
    and White heritage groups; neo-Nazi and fascist international
    groups; Christian identity movement groups; anti-tax
    extremists; anti-government militia groups; anti-abortion
    extremists; anti-immigrant macro-nationalists; clash of
    civilization groups; White ethnostate accelerationist groups;
    conspiracy theory-driven DVEs; and autocrat political cultist
    DVEs.
        The 2008 election of President Barack Obama would be a
    watershed moment that would start the consolidation of the
    disparate wings of the domestic violent extremist movements.
    The 2016 election of President Donald Trump gave them a tribal
    chieftain they can all rally behind.
        Most right-wing extremists have poorly formed cells with
    limited capacity or knowledge of terrorist operations. However,
    many veterans in the military could lend in-depth operational
    planning and improvised explosive skills to any group. These
    groups may be amateur but can demonstrate devastating
    capability if not detected in time.
        The former president's 2020 defeat has led to a completely
    new wave of DVE organizations and preparedness that could
    potentially realize their most violent fever dream fantasies as
    patriotic resistance fighters straight from the movie ``Red
    Dawn.'' If they do not understand there is a national rejection
    of their behaviors, then they may feel compunction to Act on
    that potential. We could see future attacks that make Oklahoma
    City bombing pale in comparison.
        Thank you. I look forward to answering your questions, even
    the silly ones.
        [The statement of Mr. Nance follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Members, there are 185 Members who have not voted. I am
    going to try and get through at least one more witness because
    we can vote on at least two votes and, hopefully, the third
    vote, and we can come back and not have any further
    interruptions.
        If there is a member that wants to leave for the floor now,
    please feel free.
        I would like to continue now with Mr. Ngo for his five
    minutes.
        Mr. Ngo, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you
    very much.

                         TESTIMONY OF ANDY NGO

        Mr. Ngo. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking Member
    Biggs, and Members of the Committee.
        Being a journalist from Portland, Oregon, I know domestic
    terrorism well. Since 2016, I have witnessed how violent
    extremists from antifa, and others have made political violence
    on the streets of my home city banal. Local politicians turn a
    blind eye to the violence because they believed the extremism
    was a justified response to the surprise election win of Donald
    Trump. Local fellow journalists did the same in downplaying
    antifa's violent extremism.
        Today, I ask that you don't do the same.
        From 2016-2019, Portland and the surrounding areas suffered
    dozens of violent protests, mass street brawls, and riots that
    resulted in serious bodily injuries, arson attacks, and
    property destruction. By 2020, antifa exploited the anger
    around the death of George Floyd and others to launch an
    unprecedented, attempted insurrection in Portland. For more
    than 120 recurring days, antifa carried out nightly riots
    targeting federal, county, and private property.
        They developed a riot apparatus that included streams of
    funding for accommodation, travel, riot gear, and weapons,
    which resulted in a murder, hundreds of arson attacks, mass
    injuries, and mass property destruction.
        To put that into context for those here today, similar
    actions that occurred at the Capitol Hill riot on the 6th of
    January 2021, were repeated every night, months on end in the
    Pacific Northwest. In Seattle, antifa and far-left extremists
    seized six blocks of city territory that they said was
    ``autonomous.'' It resulted in six shootings and two murders
    over a period of three weeks.
        In July 2020, then-DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli
    reported to Congress at a Senate hearing that at least 277
    injuries had been inflicted on about 140 federal agents
    protecting the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland.
    With my own eyes, I witnessed black-clad, masked militants
    setting fires to buildings occupied by people. The antifa came
    armed with homemade IEDs, guns, and knives.
        They blinded their targets with powerful lasers before
    throwing projectiles like rocks, glass, and frozen water
    bottles. Some of them even brought electric power tools to cut
    apart the fencing that was set up to protect the courthouse.
    Andrew Faulkner, one of the few federal suspects indicted over
    rioting charges, allegedly possessed pipe bomb components and a
    machete at the time of his arrest.
        The following month, a self-described antifa member hunted
    down a Trump supporter in downtown and shot him dead point
    blank before fleeing out of State and being killed by federal
    authorities the following week. He left behind a trail of posts
    on his social media indicating his desire for an armed conflict
    with the state, which he viewed as fascist.
        I am encouraged today to see lawmakers discussing the
    important subject of domestic terrorism. I am concerned that
    our representatives are increasingly viewing this through a
    partisan lens. This puts all Americans at risk.
        Those speaking before and after me can illuminate and
    educate us on far-right terrorism, a threat extremely well-
    tracked by government agencies, non-profits, and journalists.
    Much less understood is the terrorism threat from the far left,
    particularly antifa.
        Far-left terrorism isn't new in the U.S. It has a long
    history in the second half of the 20th Century where groups
    like the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and
    the May 19 Communist Organization carried out bombings,
    robberies, and jailbreaks in the name of ``anti-racism.''
    antifa are continuing that legacy today and use the cloak of
    ``anti-fascism'' to shield themselves from criticism, and to
    fool well-meaning people into becoming allies.
        In September 2020, FBI Director Chris Wray told lawmakers
    that antifa is real and that the FBI investigates the threat
    coming from violent anarchist extremists who identify with
    antifa. We should heed his warnings.
        Domestic terrorism is not partisan. Both the far left and
    the far right seek to delegitimize and destabilize the
    republic.
        Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Ngo follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Ngo. Your time has expired.
    Thank you so very much.
        Mr. Michael German, you are recognized for five minutes.
        Members, there are still more than 143 Members waiting to
    vote that have not yet voted.
        Mr. German, you are now recognized for five minutes.

                      TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL GERMAN

        Mr. German. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking Member
    Biggs, Chair Nadler, and Ranking Member Jordan, and Members of
    the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify.
        The failure to prepare for the January 6th attack on the
    Capitol is an indictment of the counterterrorism intelligence
    enterprise built since 9/11. The Justice Department prioritized
    international terrorism investigations, which in practice
    primarily target Muslims, over domestic terrorism
    investigations which do not.
        International terrorism investigations often involve
    resource-intensive monitoring and infiltration of Muslim
    American communities to preemptively identify and selectively
    prosecute individuals who have never committed an Act of
    violence.
        The Federal Government's domestic terrorism efforts, on the
    other hand, investigate and prosecute only a small percentage
    of the violent acts actually committed by White supremacists
    and other far-right militants, including violence committed at
    rallies all across the country over the last four years.
        It is unknown how much this violence has risen because the
    government [audio interference] that White supremacists and
    far-right militants kill far more Americans, including law
    enforcement officers, than any other group that the FBI
    categorizes as domestic terrorists.
        Fortunately, Congress has already provided federal law
    enforcement with all the tools needed to properly address White
    supremacist and far-right militant violence. I used these tools
    during domestic terrorism undercover operations as an FBI agent
    in the 1990s, seizing illegal weapons, solving bombings and
    hate crimes, and preventing acts of violence. They remain
    effective.
        The Justice Department records indicate it prosecutes twice
    as many domestic terrorism cases as international terrorism
    cases, using just one-fifth the investigative resources. There
    is no lack of authority. There are 52 federal crimes of
    terrorism that apply to domestic acts, and dozens of civil
    rights, organized crime, violent crime, and conspiracy statutes
    that prosecutors regularly use in domestic terrorism cases.
        The problem is that the Justice Department and the FBI
    choose not to prioritize the investigations and prosecution of
    White supremacists and far-right violence as a matter of policy
    and practice. They do not even collect accurate data regarding
    such attacks. Instead, the Justice Department and FBI use these
    terrorism authorities most aggressively against groups that
    rarely, if ever, commit fatal attacks.
        Targeting individuals or groups engaged in civil
    disobedience or property crimes as terrorists wastes resources
    and diverts investigators' attention.
        The Trump Administration's efforts to brand anti-fascism as
    a terrorist threat reportedly distracted the FBI from
    investigations into violence committed by White supremacists
    and far-right militants. Despite an aggressive push to
    investigate protestors as terrorists, federal prosecutors
    failed to link last year's protest arrests to antifa, according
    to reports.
        Giving the Justice Department more power without increased
    authority will lead to further abuse. Congress needs accurate
    data about how the Justice Department and the FBI utilize their
    domestic resources, but they have thwarted efforts to obtain
    this data. The Justice Department redacts docket information
    when it discloses non-sensitive prosecutor data to the public,
    making it impossible to cross-check claimed statistical
    accomplishments against case records.
        The Brennan Center is suing the Justice Department to
    obtain these docket numbers in terrorism prosecutions.
        The FBI also thwarted congressional demands for data
    regarding its domestic terrorism program. In 2019, Congress
    passed the National Defense Authorization Act which required
    the FBI to produce data by June 2020 that would allow Congress
    to determine if the FBI was disproportionately investigating
    groups that committed fewer fatal attacks. The Bureau has not
    produced it.
        The FBI also modified its domestic terrorism categories in
    a manner that could obscure how it uses its counterterrorism
    resources.
        Finally, the FBI regularly warns its agents that White
    supremacists and far-right militants they investigate often
    have active links to law enforcement. So, it isn't surprising
    that several police officers were among those arrested for
    breaching the Capitol, and many more remain under
    investigation.
        Oath Keeper Membership records reportedly included
    applicants claiming to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement
    officers, a Secret Service agent, and two FBI employees. Yet,
    the Justice Department has no national strategy to protect
    communities policed by these dangerously compromised law
    enforcers. The involvement of law enforcement and military in
    these groups makes them more dangerous.
        Congress should require the Justice Department to do what
    it has refused to do thus far: Properly prioritize these
    investigations by producing a comprehensive national strategy
    to combat White supremacists and far-right militant violence
    and the infiltration of law enforcement. Failing to do so
    undermines the Rule of law and the nation's security.
        Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. German follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Let me thank all the witnesses for their testimony at this
    time.
        Members, I will now call for a recess of this Committee
    hearing. I ask that Members pay attention to either staff
    notifications or their own electronic device. We will try to
    participate in all the votes on the floor, unless there are
    some irregularities that will occur. Then we will notify, I
    know that we will notify that we are returning while the
    irregularities are played out and the next series of votes that
    we have to participate in.
        The hearing is now recessed. Thank you.
        [Recess.]
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I will call back to order the ``Rise of
    Domestic Terrorism in America,'' the Subcommittee on Crime,
    Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
        We will now begin to start the questioning, which will
    allow each member to have 5 minutes for their questioning. We
    will proceed under the 5-minute rule, and I will begin by
    recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
        I would like to take this opportunity to address the
    suggestion that the domestic terrorism extremism during the
    1970s that has been recounted in this hearing was more deadly
    than the current surge of attacks. According to the Anti-
    Defamation League's Center for Extremism, while the 1995 and
    the Oklahoma City bombing remains the deadliest year on record
    since 1970 for domestic extremism, 4 of those other 5 years--
    deadliest years since 2015. I think that we have a roll call of
    those particular incidences.
        Again, let me indicate that this hearing is interwoven with
    White racism and White nationalism, the fomenting of White
    Nazism, which has generated into violence. It includes, of
    course, the obvious fact of January 6.
        Mr. German, I am going to come to you for the first
    question. Let me just, again, show a picture that has a police
    officer down and surrounded by the terrorists on January 6. The
    police officer is down.
        Let me also show to you one of the many symbols that was
    utilized on that day. I think all of America knows what this
    symbol is supposed to suggest. These, of course, were
    individuals allegedly protesting an election.
        In the words of Harry Dunn, who recalled the sickening
    events of January 6, he indicated that ``The Trumpist rioters
    called me the n-word dozens of times.'' He said the level of
    racial views that he suffered caused him to break down in
    tears, but I am glad that he also said, ``Y'all failed.''
        My question to you, Mr. German, is that it was reported
    that there was sufficient intelligence that the FBI had, and
    maybe other federal intelligence agencies, that said January 6
    was going to be a bad day. As testimony evidenced in a Senate
    hearing yesterday, individuals responsible relayed that they
    never got this kind of intelligence that individuals,
    insurgents, insurrectionists, people who were intending to do
    harm, violent harm, were coming to the Capitol to perpetrate a
    war.
        My question to you is two-fold. Why did that not happen? As
    well, why did the racial overtones seem to dumb down the
    interests of intelligence entities to give that information to
    the Metro Police, the Capitol Police, and anyone else that
    needed that to protect this citadel of democracy? If you would
    provide an answer, please.
        Mr. German. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee. White supremacist
    violence, as you acknowledge, is a persistent problem that has
    been with us for decades. This isn't something new. The problem
    is the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and the network
    of law enforcement intelligence centers that we have built have
    been focusing on less lethal threats, and they set up a system
    that is constantly warning.
        So, it is warning about any potential that might happen
    somewhere in the future rather than focusing on events that
    actually occur. That is where I think it needs to change. They
    need to focus where there is actual violence, because much of
    the discussion yesterday was about one particular memo that was
    talking about something on social media where they didn't need
    that.
        Far-right militants attacked the Oregon State legislature
    just 2 weeks prior; two previous events in Washington, DC, that
    included Proud Boys engaging in violence at those rallies. So,
    even just following the public reporting about these groups,
    they should have been much better prepared for what was
    ultimately an event that was planned in plain sight.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Nance, given your experience as a leading expert on
    counterterrorism, how would you describe American law
    enforcement's response to domestic terrorism as opposed to
    Islamic terrorism and certainly, again, woven in with racial
    epithets and philosophy? Mr. Nance?
        Mr. Nance. This has gone on longer than decades. It goes
    back to the very founding of this country where people have
    used extremism for their own goals. I mean, we had the Shay's
    Rebellion up to the Civil War, and then the Ku Klux Klan was
    often a good place for ambitious young men to go into.
        Leading into the era that we are in now, law enforcement
    has always dragged its feet because the resources were never
    given to them. In the heyday period of the 1980s when the FBI
    was breaking up internal White supremacist groups within the
    United States, they still missed the Timothy McVeigh bomb plot.
        It wasn't just because they didn't have all the resources.
    It was also, as Mr. German said quite accurately, a lack of
    focus. They need to understand where the threat comes from,
    identify that threat, and then focus the resources to ensure
    that everyone in the Nation is safe, no matter what the
    ideology of the terrorist.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Nance.
        My time has expired. For the Ranking Member, I went over 50
    seconds. You have that opportunity. I yield back to the Ranking
    Member, Mr. Biggs.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Mr. Ngo, two of the witnesses testifying today did not even
    mention Antifa in their written testimony, which is shocking
    actually, given the amount of violence that Antifa has wrought
    over the past several years. Mr. Ngo, if we don't talk about
    Antifa, is Antifa going away?
        Mr. Ngo. No, they are not going away. Since the election
    night, for example, in Portland, Oregon where I am from, the
    National Guard was activated by the governor because dozens or
    actually more than 100 masked militants marauded through
    downtown destroying property. They vandalized a church that
    provides charity services on inauguration day in Portland to
    protest the inauguration of Biden and to destroy the
    headquarters of the Democrat Party.
        So, this perception that they only attack things on the
    right is wrong. They attack anything that they view as
    American, so that includes Democratic institutions, buildings
    that represent the Rule of law. Go ahead.
        Mr. Biggs. So, Mr. Ngo, one of your co-panelists has said
    of Antifa that, quote, ``Though often violent, they do not yet
    use terrorist tactics or acts.'' Based on what you have seen
    first-hand, do you agree with that statement?
        Mr. Ngo. So, I think the issue with the lack of
    understanding of Antifa's violence comes from the fact that
    there is not a lot of mainstream media coverage of it. A lot of
    people, lawmakers in DC, will get their media coverage from The
    New York Times or Washington Post. Sometimes those publications
    will send parachute journalists into the Pacific Northwest, but
    by and large, they don't have somebody on the ground every day
    as the riots were breaking out, let's say in Portland, or when
    CHAZ--the autonomous zone in Seattle.
        This is areas where people were bringing with them homemade
    explosives in their backpacks and distributing them to others
    to throw at the federal courthouse, bringing in electric tools
    to cut into the fence so that they could set the building on
    fire. They did set the exterior on fire multiple times.
        It is not just law enforcement that is inside. There are
    also civilian people who are working as staff who have had to
    flee for their lives as they did at the Justice Center. So, I
    think these acts, because they are targeted on facilities that
    have civilians inside, I think based on my understanding of the
    law that these do count as terrorist acts, that they are not
    being reported as such or perceived as such for political
    reasons.
        Mr. Biggs. One of your co-panelists has also said that
    Antifa's organizing principle is to confront the alt-right. Do
    you agree with that statement? Can you please explain?
        Mr. Ngo. That statement, in itself, is true. Antifa is
    label who they call alt-right or fascists applies very broadly.
    So, yes, it would include people who are actually on the far
    right, but it will also include people who are patriotic, who
    are holding an American flag. They will also assault and beat
    any and all law enforcement. Anybody who defends the
    institutions of this country they view as people who are
    fascistic in one way or another.
        If you dive into the ideology, look at the literature that
    they disseminate at their protests and riots and when the
    establish autonomous zones, you will see that they are calling
    for the overthrow of the American government. So, this whole
    label of antifascists that they are using is just essentially
    marketing and branding to mask what is a very extremist,
    radical agenda to destabilize the republic.
        Mr. Biggs. Another comment that was Tweeted out by one of
    your co-panelists said, quote, ``There are no laws defining
    domestic terrorism in the U.S.A.'' Is that correct, Mr. Ngo?
    Are there no laws defining domestic terrorism in the U.S.?
        Mr. Ngo. There are laws on the books. I think the problem
    right now is that the investigators are being pressured one way
    or another to pursue things for political reasons. I am not
    here to say that is no threat coming from the far right. That
    is not my area of expertise. I defer to those who have been
    giving testimony today.
        At the beginning, we heard that 75 percent of the deaths
    from domestic terrorist attacks have come from the far right.
    Well, does that mean that the other 25 percent doesn't deserve
    attention? I don't think so. It is about keeping all Americans
    safe, and that includes investigating all extremist ideologies.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Ngo.
        I will yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman yields back.
        I will recognize Ms. Bass for 5 minutes. We will come back
    to Ms. Bass.
        I will recognize Ms. Demings for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair,
    the United States has experienced White supremacy and right-
    wing extremist since its founding. From the rise of the Ku Klux
    Klan after the end of the Civil War through the insurrection on
    January 6, America has consistently experienced acts of
    domestic terror.
        I want to thank you, Madam Chair, for recognizing the brave
    police officers who were fighting to defend our democracy on
    that day and fighting for us and for our staff, and also,
    recognizing the Black officer who said he was called the n-word
    so many times that he burst out in tears and asked the
    question, is this America?
        Yes, we saw the attempted overthrow of the government on
    January 6, but those were former President Trump's supporters.
    Aren't we tired? Aren't we as a Nation exhausted? Haven't we
    had enough? Doesn't this issue deserve more than a political
    debate, a lackluster and half-hearted response?
        If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to
    keep score, you will lose. This history is young and this
    country is young, but its history is ugly and long. The FBI has
    been collecting statistics on hate crimes since 1930, and
    Director Wray testified before the Committee on Homeland
    Security that domestic violent extremists radicalized online
    are the greatest threat to our homeland.
        Mr. German, understanding this history and not being in
    denial and not asking the American people to not believe their
    lying eyes and lying ears, understanding this history, has the
    federal response to right-wing extremism and domestic
    terrorism--how has it evolved over the years? If you would
    please talk about the DOJ's policy of deferring to State and
    local authorities for the prosecution and prevention.
        Mr. German. Thank you very much. I appreciate that
    question. The FBI and the Justice Department have long de-
    prioritized the investigation and prosecution of White
    supremacists and far-right violence, and they do this in a
    number of ways.
        One of the ways they do it is by breaking it into different
    program categories. So, if a White supremacist murdered
    somebody, that might be considered a domestic Act of terrorism,
    but it might also be considered a hate crime if the victim was
    part of a protected group.
        Most often the FBI, actually, I don't know most. Very often
    the FBI or the Justice Department, not the FBI, prosecutes
    White supremacists as gang Members in their Violent Crimes
    Program rather than as terrorists. The problem is, if they go
    down into these other categories with hate crimes, the Justice
    Department has a policy, a written policy, of deferring the
    hate crime investigations to State and local law enforcement,
    even though State and local law enforcement--at times there are
    poor states that don't have hate crime laws, and only 14
    percent of police agencies report that hate crimes occur within
    their jurisdiction.
        So that deferral goes into a Black hole where we are not
    actually tracking what violence is actually occurring or who is
    committing it.
        Ms. Demings. Mr. German, thank you so much for that. How
    convenient. It goes into a Black hole for the many people who
    have been victims of it.
        Mr. Henderson, we know the role that social media has
    played in the rise and reach of hate for ideologies, conspiracy
    theories, and White supremacy. You have called for civil rights
    audits. Could you please, Mr. Henderson, talk a little bit
    about those for us?
        Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Congresswoman. A civil rights
    audit is essentially a collection of data and an analysis of
    how a particular agency or institution has responded to the
    great challenge of ensuring that laws are equally enforced,
    particularly with regard to curbing violence.
        I don't think there is any question that White nationalist
    violence has been treated with less urgency and more benign
    than violence that is allegedly attributed to the left. Our
    country has a great history, which you have cited, which
    documents the acceptance of White nationalist violence as an
    ordinary part of our history.
        The Klan motivated, in 1870, the birth of the Department of
    Justice and a commitment by the Attorney General to respond to
    Klan-related violence interrupting the implementation of the
    13th, 14th, 15th Amendments to the Constitution. One hundred
    and fifty years--
        Ms. Demings. Mr. Henderson, I am sorry, but thank you so
    much. I am, unfortunately, out of time. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Henderson. No worries. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentlelady.
        I now recognize Mr. Chabot for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Mr. Ngo, I will begin with you. First, I wanted to express
    my condemnation and rejection of the unlawful attack on the
    Capitol building that we saw back on the 6th of January. There
    is no excuse for it. Those who participated in that disgraceful
    display should and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of
    the law. That is in the process of occurring right now.
        I think everybody on my side and on the other side of the
    aisle agrees with that. However, there are some on the other
    side who continue to not see that the violence that occurred in
    our cities across the country over the last summer in
    particular, and is still going on in some cities is outrageous
    and it is domestic violence and needs to be stopped just as
    well.
        We saw property damage. We saw targeting of police,
    looting, targeting of public officials, targeting of public
    buildings, just like the Capitol building is a public building.
    It goes on both sides and needs to be rejected, and all the
    resources we have available to us, we need to stop that. We
    ought to be doing it in a bipartisan manner, but unfortunately
    too often that just doesn't happen around here.
        Mr. Ngo, will you agree that during the left-wing extremist
    violence last summer there were some prominent elected
    officials, Democrats for the most part--and much of the
    mainstream media that not only downplayed what was going on,
    but in many cases were apologists for that violence that we saw
    in America's cities and on America's streets last summer? Could
    you tell us what you observed with your own two eyes with
    respect to that?
        Mr. Ngo. Thank you for the question. Yes. So, the violence
    that occurred in Portland, which I know best, resulted in
    hundreds of injuries to federal and local law enforcement. I
    was shocked to see that the response from the local city
    council to the mayor and the senators and the governor were to
    describe those officers as an occupying force, as Trump's
    gestapo, as secret police.
        That type of rhetoric extremely inflamed the situation and
    brought in and encouraged other well-meaning protesters to come
    in, which unfortunately those people were then exploited and
    used as human shields. So, at the riots, particularly in July
    when rioters and Antifa and other extremist groups were trying
    to burn down the federal courthouse, they actually had the
    peaceful protesters up at the front, so a wall of moms, wall of
    vets, and wall of dads.
        They put these people at the very front so that law
    enforcement would be slow or hesitant to use tear gas or crowd
    control. Then, from the back, the rioters had a whole brigade
    of people using really powerful lasers, lasers that can cause
    permanent eye damage. They would center it on their target and
    then throw glass, rocks, concrete, and other projectiles to
    injure these officers.
        The response over and over from the media was to call these
    protests mostly peaceful, to the point it became a meme. It
    seemed like they were living in an alternate reality and not
    witnessing what was happening and not seeing the actual
    injuries that were occurring.
        I think the most egregious acts that were done in the later
    months as the riots went on in Portland was the targeting of
    police stations by rioters who set fires to these facilities
    when police officers were inside doing work and when civilian
    staff were doing work inside.
        Again, this did not get the condemnation that it needed,
    and, in fact, people frequently in positions of power were
    calling these racial justice protests, which was obfuscating
    what I view as--and it was Antifa themselves--an agenda for
    terroristic actions to intimidate the public into falling in
    line for their political agenda.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much.
        Madam Chair, my time is about to expire. So, rather than
    going to somebody else, I will yield back at this time.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman has yielded back.
        It is my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from
    Georgia, Ms. McBath, for 5 minutes.
        Ms. McBath. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I want to thank all of you that are here today to discuss
    this really important issue. As your testimony has all noted,
    there is a relationship between hate crimes and domestic
    terrorism. There are many definitions for each of these, and
    they often overlap.
        At their core, hate crimes and domestic terrorism are
    attacks on who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and
    the democratic values that unite us as Americans. Like many of
    my colleagues, I come to this discussion with the attack of
    January 6 which is definitely very fresh on my mind.
        As we have this hearing today, I am also thinking of the
    lives lost at Charleston's Mother Emanuel AME Church and at the
    Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. I am thinking of the
    people we lost to the misogynist violence in Isla Vista and
    Tallahassee, the yoga studio there. Actually, one of my
    constituents was the person that was murdered.
        I am thinking of Ahmaud Arbery, who was chased and killed
    and called the n-word 1 year and actually one day ago. I am
    thinking about my own son, Jordan, and the world that I
    couldn't protect him from. Each of these incidents was
    motivated by hate. Each of these incidents involved taking a
    life, or many lives for that matter, and we can never get those
    lives back.
        What if someone had seen the signs of hate before the
    tragedy struck and been able to simply do something about it? I
    will soon be introducing the Federal Extremist Protection Order
    Act, a bill that actually gives families, neighbors, and law
    enforcement an additional tool to make sure that people who are
    a danger to themselves or to others do not have access to
    firearms.
        I think it is an important tool in responding to the
    imminent threats of violence that people are facing every day,
    but I also want to discuss how we can Act much earlier to
    combat hate and racial ideologies.
        The Washington Post recently reported on groups that work
    to de-radicalize people caught up in hateful movements, often
    with the help of those who were previously de-radicalized
    themselves, people like Chris Buckley, a Georgia veteran who
    turned to the Ku Klux Klan while experiencing drug addiction
    after his tour in Afghanistan. He was helped by of the Klan by
    another reformed extremist and now works with Parents for Peace
    to reach those that he describes as coming out of the military
    with hatred in their heart.
        Mr. Nance, the Post reported that groups like Parents for
    Peace and Life After Hate have been overwhelmed by requests
    from concerned family and friends following the January 6
    attack here at the Capitol. What do we know about how people
    can be de-radicalized and about the programs that we find like
    these that are helping people?
        Mr. Nance. That is an excellent question, and there are
    many groups and individuals who were brought into hate and who
    have found their way out by educating themselves and then by
    being around groups that have managed to show the way, that
    violence is certainly not the way.
        We need to expand these groups because oftentimes when you
    are dealing with ideologically-driven groups you find that the
    buy-in is so deep, and the social networks around them are so
    steep in creating--how do you put it? A culture of fear and
    shame if they leave these groups, principally fear that they
    are going to be not just left out but that they might be hurt,
    that they might be viewed as a snitch, and, in some instances,
    killed.
        The American neo-Nazis were famous for that threatening
    death to Members who went out. We need to show our Nation as
    patriotic Americans. We are greater as a collective than any
    one individual or groups. It is critical that law enforcement
    buy into this also. Do you want to have to really spend money
    doing surveillance on people or using your Joint Terrorism Task
    Force resources when we can start pulling individuals out of
    these networks and groups and using them as mouthpieces as well
    to de-radicalize individuals?
        It worked in the Islamic model in the Middle East. It can
    work in the United States.
        Ms. McBath. Well, thank you for that answer.
        Then also, very quickly, Mr. German, your testimony calls
    on the DOJ to create a national strategy to prevent White
    supremacists and far-right violence. What would you like that
    plan to include with respect to de-radicalization and
    preventing people from getting involved with hate groups in the
    first place?
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        Mr. German. I think we must be very careful to follow the
    science on this issue, and there isn't a clear connection
    between ideology and violence. The Justice Department should be
    focusing on violence and criminality, and there is enough there
    for them to focus on. It is for the rest of society to work on
    programs of socialization.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        Thank you very much.
        The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Madam Chair. We know on January 6
    there were an estimated, early on, tens of thousands, then
    100,000, some say hundreds of thousands. This week I was told
    there were an estimated 200 that got into the Capitol.
        Now, as a former prosecutor and law and order judge, I
    don't care what your party affiliation is or any other matter,
    if you commit violence, you are unlawfully committing violence,
    it needs to be punished. That was uncalled-for violence at our
    Capitol. It was outrageous, and the people should be punished.
    No question about it.
        One thing that has not been discussed--and we know that
    most of the people that were there that day were Trump
    supporters, and we know that most of the people that went into
    the Capitol were Trump supporters, and they should be punished.
    They had no business going into the Capitol.
        We don't need to completely ignore others that were in the
    Capitol, as my friends across the aisle seem to be wanting to
    do. It was reported and I am quoting, ``The Feds allege in a
    criminal complaint that Sullivan, John Sullivan, was actively
    participating in encouraging the siege around the Capitol.'' He
    helped one of the rioters scale a wall leading up to an
    entrance of the Capitol, an affidavit alleges.
        It says in another New York Post, ``John Sullivan founded
    Insurgence USA, a protest group for racial justice and police
    reform,'' and referred to himself as Activist John, filling his
    Twitter feeds with anti-President Trump rhetoric and posts
    supporting Black Lives Matter. I would like to--there is a
    picture of Mr. Sullivan's website, Insurgence USA, and you see
    he identifies with Antifa, it is hard to see those, but
    certainly not a Trump supporter.
        In fact, we have got two videos I would like to play very
    quickly. It might eat up my time trying to get it played. Well,
    there goes my time.
        [Video played.]
        Mr. Gohmert. Not sounding like a Trump supporter as this
    was before his violence and entry to the Capitol. I believe we
    have got one more, if it can be played quickly enough. This is
    him recording this.
        [Video played.]
        Mr. Gohmert. She is saying, ``You were right,'' because he
    had obviously planned on getting into the Capitol. He had told
    her they could get into the Capitol. This was planned in
    advance, and here they go through the Capitol.
        So, it is kind of hard to sit and listen that all of the
    problems were White supremacists when we know that last summer
    estimated $2 billion, many deaths, many injuries, deaths
    including David Dorn. They were just simply trying to protect a
    business and stop the looting and the violence there and he
    lost his life because of it.
        Our hearts go out to Officer Sicknick. Let me tell you,
    Democrats have never come to understand that one of the more
    inciteful things that they do is not only to misrepresent
    things as they did the Russia hoax, but then turn around and
    try to silence Republicans for opposing views; get them off the
    internet. When you seal up a pressure cooker and continue to
    taunt it, test it, heat it, it is not going to work out well.
        I deplore all violence. I condemn all violence. Let's work
    together toward a peaceful resolution instead of only seeing
    one side as the other side does. We on this side see there is
    problems on both sides.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Gohmert, I
    think all of us collaborate on our opposition to violence. I
    think we cannot ignore the penetrating White supremacy and
    White nationalism that has generated violence. Thank you for
    your remarks.
        Let me yield now 5 minutes to the gentlelady from
    Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean, recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you hear me?
        Ms. Jackson Lee. We can hear you very well.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you so much. I thank you for convening this
    important hearing, timely hearing, on the rise of domestic
    terrorism here in America. It is something we simply cannot
    ignore; we cannot turn a blind eye to. We have to save lives.
        I would go right to some questions. I thank all our
    testifiers today. Mr. German, may I start with you, if you
    don't mind. In 2018--and some of you have referred to this--my
    home State of Pennsylvania was rocked by an Act of right-wing
    terrorism when 11 people were murdered at the Tree of Life
    synagogue in Pittsburgh.
        The perpetrator of that attack espoused antisemitic, anti-
    immigrant beliefs. It was a shock to that community, to our
    society, to the whole Commonwealth. We should not have been
    surprised. Nearly a third of right-wing attacks since 2007 have
    targeted religious institutions, most of them Jewish or Muslim.
        Mr. German, in your testimony, you highlighted the threat
    that right-wing extremism poses to religious, ethnic, and other
    minority groups. In fact, you pointed out that our Nation's
    domestic terrorism policy was founded to address the White
    supremacist Ku Klux Klan. With that context in mind, can you
    tell us, what role does antisemitism play in domestic terrorist
    ideology, recruiting, and violence?
        Mr. German. Thank you very much for the question. In my
    experience working undercover in these groups, antisemitism is
    a primary driver. Often, they use bias against other groups as
    a way to grow their organization, particularly post-9/11, and
    using the bias against Muslim Americans was a way that they
    could grow their organization as even our military and law
    enforcement were being trained with Islamophobic training
    materials, counterterrorism training materials, and the
    nativism that also comes out of it.
        So, we saw many groups, militia groups, pivot to this idea
    of being a border militia and somehow working in tandem with
    law enforcement at the border rather than antagonistic to law
    enforcement, as they obviously are.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you for that answer. We know that
    antisemitism, for example, or anti-Islam is not native just to
    our country. We know that other countries, in Europe for
    example, struggle with this as well, historically have
    struggled with it. Do American right-wing extremists draw from
    antisemitic groups in Europe? Are they in any kind of
    coordination or borrowing or learning worst practices or worst
    notions?
        Mr. German. Absolutely. The FBI sometimes even just using
    the language ``domestic terrorism'' when they talk about White
    supremacy is a way of de-prioritizing it. White supremacy has
    always been an international ideology, an ideology that
    respects national borders. So, there has always been
    collaboration with groups in Europe and across Canada, other
    foreign countries. It has always been part of what these groups
    have been doing.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you for your work and your testimony.
        Mr. Nance, if I could pivot to you. Again, thank you for
    your input and your work. From the racist attack at Mother
    Emanuel Church in Charleston to the storming of the Capitol by
    an insurrectionist mob, a theme has persisted in right-wing
    terrorism in America and that theme is guns as the weapon of
    choice.
        There is no surprise, given the language emanating from the
    NRA, quote, ``Our founding fathers understood that the guys
    with the guns make the rules.'' Or even from former President
    Trump, quote, ``If you don't fight like hell, you are not going
    to have a country anymore.''
        Can you tell us, what is the relationship between gun
    rights extremism--not normal gun rights under the 2nd
    Amendment, but gun rights extremism and right-wing anti-
    government extremists in the United States?
        Mr. Nance. The entire myth of the 2nd amendment being a
    tool to overthrow a government that is violent, a government
    that is oppressive, that is a relatively new thing that was
    created by the NRA in the 1970s. I know, I was a member of the
    NRA. I am a gun collector, and I remember quite clearly when
    they went crazy with every mailing showing that you needed more
    guns to protect yourself from the government. It was Black
    helicopter stuff.
        That is pervasive, and it is dangerous because, as ISIS and
    Al-Qaeda have admitted, the easiest thing you can do in the
    United States to carry out a terrorist Act is get a gun. That
    does not prohibit Americans who are carrying them legally,
    lawfully, and using them professionally, but it is a notional
    point that we need to understand. That is the preferred weapon
    system of these terrorists and extremists.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you. I see my time has expired. Thank you
    so much, Chair, and to all our testifiers.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back
    and acknowledging her time.
        I would now like to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin,
    Mr. Tiffany for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I denounce all
    extremism, and I started doing that years ago, but in
    particular when it happened in Wisconsin with the State Street
    riots in Madison and then went on to Kenosha. I denounced that
    all the way back in June as well as the January 6 riots.
        I would just ask, Madam Chair, last summer did you the
    extremism that was going on in our cities across America?
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Is the gentleman posing a question? I
    would be happy to use up his time to respond.
        Mr. Tiffany. So--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman.
        Mr. Tiffany. You mentioned Milwaukee in your statement. As
    far as I know, a Black man who was shot in cold blood,
    execution style, they have still not found out who the killer
    is. That Black man, Bernell Trammell, was a Trump supporter,
    wore a Trump shirt every day out on the streets, gunned down
    execution style. That is the kind of extremism that is going on
    in our country.
        I am so glad the Chair brings up President Lincoln, because
    President Lincoln was the first Republican president. What he
    believed in was equal justice for all, and that is exactly what
    we stand for. That is what we stand for is for equal justice
    for all, regardless of your race, creed, or color. If you are
    going to engage in political violence to harm our country, you
    should be held to account.
        Mr. Nance, why did more minorities vote for President Trump
    in this election?
        Mr. Nance. I am sorry. Is that a legitimate question?
        Mr. Tiffany. You don't have to answer it if you don't want
    to. There were more minorities that--
        Mr. Nance. No. I am just--
        Mr. Tiffany. --voted for President Trump in this election.
        Mr. Nance. Are we stipulating that is a fact? Because I am
    not quite sure that is a fact.
        Mr. Tiffany. We will stipulate that.
        Mr. German, the man in that video, John Sullivan, he was
    paid $35,000 by both CNN and NBC for his footage of the Capitol
    riots. Do you think that is a good thing for the peace of our
    Nation? When someone--you saw his words. You saw his actions in
    the Capitol. Two major networks paid him $35,000 each. Is that
    a wise thing for them to be doing?
        Mr. German. Thank you for the question. I don't know the
    factual circumstance you are talking about, so it is difficult
    for me to reply in any thoughtful way. Sorry.
        Mr. Tiffany. No, no. Thank you, Mr. German. So, CNN and NBC
    paid him $35,000. Do you think the money is being funneled to
    Insurgence USA? Two major networks, supposed to be respectable
    in our country, paying a rioter $35,000.
        So, I really appreciate that Mr. Nance and Mr. German, and
    including the gentlelady from Florida, brought up the FBI. You
    said they lack focus. They have the tools. The gentlelady from
    Florida said it is a Black hole. Maybe if the FBI spent their
    time and money on these things that you are all talking about
    and I have great respect for what you are all saying--that
    these dollars that are precious of the taxpayers of the United
    States of America that are going to the FBI should be spent in
    an appropriate manner. Instead, they followed the myth of the
    Russia collusion.
        Shouldn't James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others be held
    accountable for all the time and effort that they spent chasing
    the Russia collusion, which by the way Mr. Mueller showed that
    there was nothing chargeable there, or anything like that.
    Maybe if they spent the money in an appropriate fashion, we
    would be able to get to the bottom of more of these extremist
    activities.
        The final thing that I would mention, Madam Chair, is that
    it is unfortunate I am not able to get to environmental
    radicalism and terrorism that is going on across this country
    also. I hope those of you that have organizations that are on
    the call today that you will take a look at that also, bombings
    at our major universities, hassling our hunters when they are
    legitimately exercising their right to hunt, fish, and trap.
    Hopefully, sometime, we will be able to dig into that also.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman's
    time has expired.
        Let me stipulate for the record that every person in this
    room, but at least all the Democrats, abhor violence, hope that
    everyone who perpetrates violence, such as those domestic
    terrorists who attacked the democratic citadel, the House of
    Representatives, will be held accountable. Certainly, I want to
    recognize Kyle Rittenhouse, who walked through the streets of
    Wisconsin without impunity, without being arrested, and killed
    two individuals in the street under the auspices of being a
    supporter of right-wing ideology.
        With that, I want to yield to the gentlelady from
    California, Ms. Bass, for 5 minutes. Unmute.
        Ms. Bass. I am so sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you
    for holding this really important hearing, and for your
    leadership on this issue.
        When domestic terrorists stormed the U.S. Capitol on
    January 6, they were not just protecting to take back the
    people's house, but rather to overthrow our elected government,
    they were incited by wild conspiracy theories championed time
    and again by the former President and several of his followers.
        The origins of these groups are well-known, and I wasn't
    surprised at all, sadly, that some were police officers and
    some were in the military, involved in White supremacist
    organizations that have terrorized this country and terrorized
    African Americans for a couple hundred years.
        Capitol Police officers, as you know, were called the n-
    word, and I think you said that in your opening statement. What
    we have found over the years is that many times when there were
    White supremacists in the south and in other parts of our
    country that terrorized African Americans, sometimes they
    covered themselves in hoods, but oftentimes they were law
    enforcement. This is nothing new.
        I very much want to see laws against domestic terrorism,
    but I will tell you that I am concerned about, if we pass laws
    against domestic terrorism, that those laws will be turned
    against the very communities that have been terrorized.
        The COINTELPRO has been discussed, initiated by J. Edgar
    Hoover. Under this program, while the KKK was terrorizing
    people in the south, COINTELPRO and FBI targeted civil rights
    leaders, like Martin Luther King, and it was commonly
    understood that the FBI abused its surveillance power in a
    manner to suppress a peaceful movement. Given this history, it
    is not a leap to recognize the need for scrutiny of FBI
    activities in Black and African American communities.
        Just recently--if anybody is confused about this, watch a
    new movie that just came out called ``Judas and the Black
    Messiah,'' that talks about the assassination of a leader of
    the Black Panther Party. Regardless of what you think of the
    Panthers, I don't know that anyone deserves to be executed
    while they are asleep.
        There is a police officer that on his deathbed just the
    other day had a death-bed confession that as an African
    American member of the New York Police Department that he was
    involved--and the NYPD was involved--in the assassination of
    Malcolm X.
        So, my concern is that if we entertain legislation on
    domestic terrorism, how can we be sure that it will be targeted
    and not be used to groups that are not involved in terrorism?
    In August of 2017, the FBI intelligence assessment entitled
    ``Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law
    Enforcement Officers''--and I asked over and over again, give
    me an example of a Black extremist organization; tell me about
    one.
        I know earlier in this hearing an organization was
    mentioned that I think is ludicrous to be considered a
    terrorist organization, and that is the Black Hebrew
    Israelites.
        Madam Chair, I want to ask the Committee for something. I
    would like to have a classified briefing, so that the FBI can
    come in and tell us about Black terrorists, Black extremist
    organizations, because I am not aware of one. Now, if you want
    to talk about 30 years ago, we can talk about 30 years ago. I
    want to talk about 2021. Tell me about Black terrorist
    organizations.
        Our Vice President was referenced earlier in terms of
    supporting riots. I want to associate myself with the Chair of
    this Committee who said that none of us support violence. What
    the Vice President was saying--at the time she wasn't vice
    president; she was Senator and she was saying, and I have said
    as well, that I support the protests, peaceful protests.
        I have been very clear about that from day one, because
    frankly, if hundreds of thousands of people weren't out
    protesting police abuse and the murder of George Floyd, we
    would have never been able to pass the Justice in Policing Act,
    because the murder of George Floyd was nothing new in this
    country. The only thing that was new was that he was killed and
    tortured on video, and everybody watched his execution.
        I also want to mention that I am concerned that White
    supremacists and other violent far-right extremist groups are
    using human trafficking disinformation to recruit their new
    Members.
        So, in February of 2021, by Polaris, an organization well-
    known to address trafficking, they found that 41 percent of
    people believe that politicians and celebrities are involved in
    a global pedophile ring, a narrative that is at the core of the
    conspiracies driven by QAnon. So, the point is that the people
    promoting QAnon use a real issue, like human trafficking, as a
    way to get people involved.
        So, from the panelists, I would like to know, can you tell
    me how we can do--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        Ms. Bass. Oh. I don't have time for it. Okay.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I am sorry.
        Ms. Bass. Okay. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I will be happy to have you on a second
    round if we are able. Let me, first, thank you for that very
    astute recommendation, and I can assure you that is something
    that I think is very important and should be done.
        The gentlelady's time has expired.
        Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair? May I have a Point of Oder? She
    referenced something I said in my opening statement. I want to
    clarify because I can read exactly what I said.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. What is the Point of Order, sir?
        Mr. Biggs. I think my words have been mischaracterized. I
    would like to clear them up.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Can you just give us a moment?
        Mr. Biggs. Yes.
        Participant. That is not a Point of Order.
        [Pause.]
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Out of the outright fairness of this
    Chair, I am going to give the gentleman 30 seconds to clarify
    his point.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure
    that the gentlelady didn't mishear me. When I was referring to
    the Jersey City, New Jersey, case of Anderson and Graham, and I
    referenced the Black Hebrew Israelites, and I didn't say--I
    thought I said the Southern Poverty Law Center found that, I
    said quote ``the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite
    Movement,'' closed quote, is Black supremacist. That is what I
    said.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the--
        Ms. Bass. I think you need to see an updated version of the
    Southern Poverty Law Center, because I am not sure that
    characterization is up-to-date.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Our Committee will seek to find that
    document. Thank you, Ms. Bass. Thank you to Mr. Biggs.
        Let me now recognize the gentleman from Utah, and that is
    Mr. Owens, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Owens. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member and
    Witnesses. Let's first get a little history taken care of
    because we are hearing a lot about the KKK, now.
        For those who don't know our history, the KKK began in the
    Democratic Party. It was actually eliminated in 1880 by
    President Grant, who went down and had those guys running to
    the hills. It was brought back again in 1915 by President
    Woodrow Wilson. Within 5 years, 20,000 KKK Members were
    marching in DC, Democrats. Forty-seven hundred people were
    lynched by the Democrat KKK. Thirteen hundred of them were
    White Republicans, Italian, and Catholics.
        If we look at where--I just want to make sure--you are
    talking the KKK. Just remember what party that they began with,
    and they made sure the Republicans had no part in the south.
        Ms. Bass. Will the gentleman yield? Will the gentleman
    yield?
        Mr. Owens. No. I am sorry. Let me just finish up. I am
    sorry. Not now. Okay?
        I will also, for our witness--I am kind of a little
    surprised you are not aware of the $35,000 paid by CNN, or
    whoever it was, media. There was a Utah BLM insurgent who was
    in the Capitol encouraging everybody to tear it down. He came
    from Utah. I am surprised you didn't know about that.
        So, I just wanted to make those quick points. By the way,
    18 percent of Black men voted for Republicans, an all-time
    high, twice the percentage of women, highest percentage of
    Hispanic, Asians, and gay. So, no, there is something happening
    where people and Americans are waking up and they are moving
    toward the light. I am just very happy to make that note.
        Over the last 2 years, Congress has held over seven
    Committee hearings on domestic terrorism. The topics they
    covered were important, but the vast majority were topics such
    as confronting White supremacy. However, what has been lacking
    to me is a specific hearing on the violence from the left-wing
    extremists that destroyed so many Black lives and businesses
    over the summer of 2020.
        Twenty-five people were killed, murdered, last summer as a
    result of left-wing violence that was called many times
    peaceful protests. The estimate is over $2 billion of damage
    that caused by looting and other criminal behavior.
        The horrible riots occurred in inner cities--Minneapolis,
    Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and earlier, a couple years
    ago, Ferguson, and Baltimore. Some of the greatest casualties
    of these violent rights have always been minority businesses,
    inner cities, that most is historic forever.
        By the way, we do condemn all violence, and that has been
    the message we have been giving across the board. It doesn't
    matter which side it is, left, hard left, or hard right. When
    people are put into misery, they are being bullied, we should
    all stand against it immediately, not months later.
        Mr. Ngo, in light of the damage done by the violent
    protests last summer, where is the damage to inner city and
    minority businesses, communities trying to find the American
    way, trying to make a living, where has this damage been mostly
    done? Mr. Ngo?
        Mr. Ngo. So, in Portland, there is one example that stands
    out a lot. There was a black-owned cafe, Heroes Cafe, in
    southwest Portland. The business has photographs of first
    responders and law enforcement and some of the proceeds they
    have donated to some pro-law enforcement organizations.
        That business got put on a list by one of the Antifa groups
    in Portland. Then after the statue of Abraham Lincoln was
    toppled last autumn, that same night somebody shot through this
    business several times and someone using a melee weapon smashed
    up some windows.
        So, this is like the real on-the-ground damage of what the
    campaign of terrorism does. They do it in an organized manner
    under groups, on Twitter, on social media, and we have been
    naming anecdotes left and right of mass shootings and killings
    that have happened in the U.S. perpetrated by the far right.
        I just want to State for the record that in August of 2019,
    after the shooting in El Paso, Texas, in Dayton, Ohio, there
    was a far-left extremist who killed nine people and injured 27
    others. His social media, before it was taken down, he showed
    his affiliation for Antifa. Somebody had recognized something
    when he had gone to Antifa protests previously.
        In January, the FBI recently arrested a suspect in Florida
    who had gone to Syria, and on his social media has a long
    history of posts in support of espousing support for Antifa.
        So, I hope that, you will allow me because we can entrust
    you to move beyond the which side is worse than the other and
    start talking about how do we come up with laws to keep all
    Americans safe.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Owens. I yield back. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I am now pleased to yield 5 minutes to the
    gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Scanlon.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, for calling this
    important and obviously timely hearing. The threat of domestic
    terrorism and White supremacist extremism has been a growing
    concern for decades, but of course we have an immediate and
    tangible example of this threat in the attack on our Capitol
    just on January 6.
        As we investigate the failures of systems and leadership
    that contributed to the January 6 tragedy, it is important that
    we also work to prevent future tragedies, because many of the
    forces that were weaponized to cause the violence on January 6
    are obviously still with us.
        Some basic steps are obvious. Political leaders should not
    promote conspiracy theories and false equivalencies and must
    unequivocally reject extremist views just as we would expect
    international leaders in other countries fighting the spread of
    extremism. It does appear to be past time that our federal
    agencies need to take a more global view of the threat of
    domestic terrorism and understand the ways to stop it.
        I am very aware of the challenges inherent in protecting
    individual civil liberties, such as free speech, while ensuring
    our security. Right now, I am really interested in what we can
    do to stop the next domestic terrorism action.
        Mr. German, you have talked about the need for a federal
    approach to domestic terrorism. In particular, you spoke about
    the fact that the Department of Justice has focused on
    international terrorism while deferring to State and local
    authorities to address hate crimes, White supremacy, and other
    forms of domestic terrorism.
        In this minute, it feels like the rise of social media is
    fueling extremism and allowing domestic terrorists to organize
    across jurisdictions. So, in the weeks between the November
    election and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, I saw social
    media posts from people in my region of Pennsylvania recruiting
    and organizing travel to Washington, DC, for the January 6
    rally, and saw comments from people in other states
    recommending that they bring guns and other military equipment.
        How can our federal agencies approach this radicalization
    and coordination across State lines?
        Mr. German. Thank you very much for the question. I think
    it is very important for law enforcement to focus on the
    violence and the crime. There are far more people who say
    things online that sound scary or who join groups that we might
    find abhorrent who don't actually engage in crime, and it is a
    wasted effort to be investigating them when there actually is
    violence that is being perpetrated that law enforcement needs
    to focus their resources on.
        The homicide clearance rate is historically low. We need to
    make sure that we are focusing law enforcement resources on law
    enforcement issues. When we talk about the debate about ideas,
    we need to have that outside the law enforcement sphere. There
    is enough for law enforcement to do focusing on the violence.
        Ms. Scanlon. So, do you have any specific recommendations
    on how we can coordinate across jurisdictions when so much of
    this activity, which actually has resulted in attacks on
    people, whether it is synagogues or mosques or whatever, has
    crossed State lines now?
        Mr. German. Oh, it always has, and that is the problem.
    Congress has made it very explicitly clear that it has an
    interest in addressing White supremacists and far-right
    violence. They passed 52 domestic terrorism laws. They passed
    five federal hate crime statutes, organized crime statutes, and
    conspiracy statutes. So, the laws are all there. It is just
    that law enforcement is not--and the FBI and Justice
    Department, in particular, are not documenting acts of violence
    committed by these organized groups and treating it as
    organized criminal behavior.
        That is the big part of the problem is they are looking at
    every single instance as if that is standalone when they
    actually bother to look for it. So, the problem is the lack of
    collection of this data, and the lack of accountability for
    their programmatic use of their authorities.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        Mr. Henderson, I understand that the collection of a lot of
    data can impact, as Mr. German suggested, folks who are just
    spouting off or just talking. So, what can we learn about
    previous efforts to ensure that civil liberties are protected
    as we fight against these violent threats?
        Mr. Henderson. Ms. Scanlon, thank you for your question.
    Certainly, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights believes
    in the importance of protecting civil liberties of all persons
    in the United States. I think Mr. German is underscoring a
    point that I attempted to make earlier, which is that White
    nationalist violence is often viewed as less urgent and more
    benign than other forms of hate crime activity here in the
    States.
        The fact that the crowd that we saw on January 6 engaging
    in insurrection here at the Nation's capital was not met with
    the kind of police response that we have seen, for example, at
    Lafayette Square here in Washington in June last year with
    teargas and other high-impact forms of intervention by law
    enforcement.
        It really is a testament to that. I think no one questions
    the fact that had that mob largely been African American or of
    color the results would have been far more individuals who had
    been maimed, shot, or killed, during that insurrection.
        So, I do think certain concrete steps are needed. First, I
    am pleased to see that Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, and
    hopefully soon-to-be-confirmed Merrick Garland as Attorney
    General, have each made a commitment to root out violence,
    White supremacist activity, in the military and in law
    enforcement at the federal level.
        Secondly, I believe that an investment in public education
    is certainly needed as a way of helping to address what we know
    are problems with a number of groups, and recognizing--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Henderson, your time has expired.
    Thank you so very much.
        Mr. Henderson. Thank you.
        Ms. Scanlon. If you wouldn't mind submitting the rest of
    that, I would appreciate it.
        Chair--
        Mr. Henderson. Of course.
        Ms. Scanlon. Could I just seek unanimous consent to
    introduce the February 8, 2021, article from the Los Angeles
    Times entitled ``Andy Ngo's New Book Still Pretends That Antifa
    is the Real Enemy.'' With that, I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]

                           MS. SCANLON FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman from Ohio, the Ranking
    Member, Mr. Jordan, is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Mr. Ngo, I want to go right to your testimony. In the
    middle of your testimony, you said, ``Actions that occurred at
    the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were repeated every night''--
    and you emphasized ``every night months on end in the Pacific
    Northwest.''
        Then you define those actions. Antifa carried out nightly
    riots targeting federal, county, and private property. They
    developed a riot apparatus that included streams of funding for
    accommodation, travel, riot gear, and weapons. This all
    resulted in murder, hundreds of arson attacks, mass injuries,
    and mass property destruction.
        How many days in a row did all of that take place in your
    hometown of Portland?
        Mr. Ngo. Consecutively, approximately 120 days.
        Mr. Jordan. One hundred and 20 days. So, what people on
    Capitol Hill lived through one day you, your neighbors, and
    people in Portland, Oregon, lived through for 120 days
    straight. Is that accurate?
        Mr. Ngo. That is correct, sir.
        Mr. Jordan. One hundred and 20 days straight, and yet I
    don't recall, don't remember the Democrats condemning what was
    going on in Portland. That is the part that--a little earlier
    we had the Chair of the Committee say that she abhors violence.
    Last summer when the Attorney General of the United States, the
    chief law enforcement officer of this country, was in front of
    this Committee and asked the Democrats, why wouldn't you
    condemn the violence going on in Portland and other big cities,
    complete silence from the Democrats.
        So, Mr. Ngo, I don't know if you are Republican or
    Democrat. I don't know what your party affiliation is, if any.
    What I do know is you are consistent. You are condemning all
    political violence; is that right?
        Mr. Ngo. That is right, sir.
        Mr. Jordan. Whether it happened on January 6 or whether it
    happened in the summer of 2020, right?
        Mr. Ngo. That is right.
        Mr. Jordan. Whether it happened at the Capitol of the
    United States or whether it happens in your hometown, it is
    wrong; is that right?
        Mr. Ngo. That is correct.
        Mr. Jordan. You know first-hand what it is like, right? You
    have lived it. I think you said in--
        Mr. Ngo. That is right.
        Mr. Jordan. --opening paragraph you said, ``I know domestic
    terrorism well.'' Can you tell us what happened to you back in
    2019?
        Mr. Ngo. Yes. I was hesitant to share this again. In 2019,
    while working as a journalist covering one of the many protest-
    turned-riots involving Antifa and their other far-left allies,
    they taunted me and beat me severely. Masked militants punched
    me repeatedly on the head, in the face, and I ended up in the
    hospital with a brain bleed, and I nearly died from that.
        Mr. Jordan. They targeted you because--
        Mr. Ngo. Ever since--
        Mr. Jordan. Excuse me. I am sorry. They targeted you
    because--
        Mr. Ngo. Ever since then, it continues to escalate death
    threats against me.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah.
        Mr. Ngo. I had to leave my home.
        Mr. Jordan. They targeted you because you had the courage,
    as a journalist, to accurately portray what they were doing and
    what kind of tactics they engage in and the harm and violence
    that they cause; is that right?
        Mr. Ngo. That is what I believe, yes.
        Mr. Jordan. Well, I appreciate it. I mean, look, we need
    consistency. We need to condemn all violence. Republicans
    condemn the violence that took place on the 6th. We condemn the
    violence that took place for 120 straight days in Portland when
    Antifa was laying siege to the federal building.
        While that was happening, we had our colleagues talk about
    that they needed more unrest in the streets at the very time
    unrest was happening in the streets. We had our colleagues say
    that the organization that tried to end your life, and that for
    120 days had violence happening every single day in Portland,
    that that organization was a myth.
        Look, this is so important. I appreciate Mr. Ngo's
    willingness to talk about the consistency that is needed from
    everyone, from both sides of the aisle, to address this problem
    and get violence out of our political process.
        Madam Chair, with that, I would yield back.
        Mr. Biggs. Mr. Jordan?
        Mr. Jordan. Oh, no, excuse me. I have got to yield--I
    wanted to save time for the Ranking Member. I yield to the
    Ranking Member.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Madam Chair, without objection, I
    would like to introduce into the record an article from August
    29, 2008. It is a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center
    about the Black Hebrew Israelites entitled ``Racist Black
    Hebrew Israelites Becoming More Militant,'' and also a 2019
    SPLC article describing the New Jersey attack and the militancy
    of the Black Hebrew Israelites.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]

                            MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD

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        Ms. Jackson Lee. I am going to introduce into the record,
    without objection, Daily Beast article ``Capitol Police
    Officer: Trumpist Rioters Called Me the N-Word Dozens of
    Times,'' and Exhibit Number B, physically showing the visible
    surrounding of an officer on January 6 who is down, and a
    noose, Exhibit C, placed by the domestic terrorists on January
    6.
        [The information follows:]

                         MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. We have the ability now to recess very
    briefly for the last two votes. So, I am going to recess the
    Committee and ask Members for their patience to come back; and
    to the witnesses, if you would continue to be available for us,
    we will conclude our hearing once we complete quickly these two
    votes.
        Thank you very much. The Committee will stand in recess.
        [Recess.]
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I call the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
    Security Subcommittee to order on the topic of the rise of
    terrorism, domestic terrorism in America. I am very pleased to
    yield to the distinguished Chair of the Full Committee, Mr.
    Nadler of New York, for five minutes.
        Chair Nadler. Well, thank you very much.
        Mr. Henderson, the Biden Administration will soon have a
    new attorney general. What advice would you give him to deal
    with domestic terrorists more effectively and, in particular,
    white-supremacist violence?
        Mr. Henderson. Well, thank you, Chair Nadler, for the
    question. We have asked the attorney general to pursue making
    the attention to extremism one of the top issues of his tenure
    as attorney general. He has announced his intent to do that.
        Secondly, we have asked him to explore processes to address
    the problem of extremism in law enforcement. As you know, there
    were a number of law enforcement officials who were identified
    as part of the group of insurrectionists that struck the
    Capitol on January 6. We hope that the attorney general will
    pursue that suggestion in a vigorous way, similar to what Lloyd
    Austin has announced for the Department of Defense.
        Thirdly, we have asked that resources to address hate-crime
    violence and appropriations be requested by the Department,
    that they make more of an issue of this than has been done, and
    we think the attorney general will do that. I am quite
    confident from the announcement the Attorney General-Elect
    Garland has made, he intends to make addressing White
    nationalism and extremism, hate crime violence, a major
    provision of his Administration, and I think that will be a
    very good step to take.
        Chair Nadler. Well, thank you.
        Now, Mr. German, even if you believe a new domestic
    terrorism statute isn't necessary, and that the Justice
    Department has other legal authorities to address White
    supremacists and far-right militant violence, can you explain
    the harms in providing the FBI and federal prosecutors with one
    more tool to address domestic terrorism?
        Mr. German. Thank you for the question. I think there are
    two harms. First, that these new authorities would be used as
    their current authorities are used, abusively to target groups
    that are not engaged in criminal violence to the nature that
    the White supremacists groups are. Second, that it misdiagnoses
    the problem.
        The problem is not a lack of authority, it is a
    longstanding problem of policy and practice within the FBI and
    within the Justice Department to deprioritize these crimes.
    Until we change that the way that these institutions look at
    this issue, we won't actually, even if more laws are passed
    won't actually be attacking the problem.
        Chair Nadler. Thank you.
        Now, Mr. Nance, what role do international White supremacy
    and extremism organizations play in influencing American
    domestic terrorism?
        Mr. Nance. There are many groups. We saw in the run-up to
    the Charlottesville protest, there was a lot of international
    coordination between the disparate groups that created the
    Unite the Right movement and some that were operating,
    principally the Germany, Pegida, which is an anti-immigrant,
    fascist base group which actually has very deep ties to United
    Russia; the Nashi. The New Dawn organization, another right-
    wing fascist group from Greece--they have all of these networks
    that operate throughout Europe and they were using an actual
    game communication platform to help coordinate.
        One of the things that we mistook about the Charlottesville
    protest or that led to the riots there and the fighting there,
    is that this was not sort of an end State of the American alt-
    right or as they call themselves the neo-Nazis, these neo-
    Confederates; it was a coming-out party. It was where they were
    actually coming together to show themselves as a unified source
    under a White supremacist banner bringing together all these
    disparate groups, they do have international support.
        Some of the people you wouldn't imagine. David Duke had an
    apartment in Moscow. Richard Spencer, the head of the neo-
    Nazis, his wife was the chief translator for Aleksandr Dugin,
    Vladimir Putin's ideological philosopher. She is an ethnic pro-
    Moscow Ukrainian. They have ties. These are things that we are
    going to have to see because their message even today is being
    amplified by foreign powers.
        Chair Nadler. Thank you. Do you agree with what Mr.
    Henderson and Mr. German said?
        Mr. Nance. Oh, absolutely. I absolutely agree with
    everything they said, and particularly Mr. German's comments.
    One of the problems that we have with designating domestic
    violent extremists as terrorists isn't so much a question of
    the laws, it is how the laws can be focused so that it really
    goes after terrorists and not people who are carrying out civil
    unrest or civil disobedience.
        In some definitions, based on what Mr. Ngo said today, we
    would have to have arrested just about everyone who violently
    protested or violently rioted at a Super Bowl party or a State
    championship. The definition needs to meet the tactics. Do the
    tactics involve explosive bombings? Timothy McVeigh was not
    charged with domestic terrorism. He was charged with use of a
    weapon of mass destruction and 186 counts of murder. We may
    need to focus that a bit more.
        Chair Nadler. Thank you. I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman yields back. I now yield to
    the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube, for five minutes.
        Mr. Steube. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank you for the
    opportunity today.
        Today, in a hearing entitled, The Rise of Domestic
    Terrorism in America, all I have heard from the Democrats on
    this Committee and from their witnesses is White supremacy and
    far-right extremism, while completely ignoring the riots,
    destruction, and violence of Antifa and BLM we saw all last
    year, and it continues.
        All forms of domestic terrorism are criminal, but to
    properly address the threats we need to talk about all types of
    domestic terrorism, including Antifa and BLM. The Democrats
    have chosen to either ignore, condone, or even embrace this
    violence from Antifa and Black Lives Matter. The Democratic
    majority and Democratic Members of this Committee have
    downplayed Antifa's violence and status as domestic terrorist
    organizations. They have claimed that Antifa keeps, quote,
    ``protestors safe when a lot of other folks won't,'' and stated
    that Antifa is, quote, ``false issue,'' and quote, ``a myth.''
        The term domestic terrorism is defined in federal law as,
    quote, ``involving acts dangerous to human life that are in
    violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any
    State and appear to be intended to intimidate, coerce a
    civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by
    intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a
    government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.''
        At this time, I would like to play a video.
        [Video played.]
        Mr. Steube. Thank you. Mr. Henderson, after watching that
    video and listening to the reading of my definition under
    federal law of what domestic terrorism is, I ask you, do you
    believe that what you saw on that video meets the elements of
    domestic terrorism, yes or no?
        Mr. Henderson. I will respond simply by saying we can all
    condemn violence, sir.
        Mr. Steube. I am asking you to answer the question yes or
    no.
        Mr. Henderson. I will not. No, I will not answer it yes or
    no because I don't think--
        Mr. Steube. Okay, I will take that as a no.
        Mr. Henderson. --it states the definition appropriately.
        Mr. Steube. Mr. German. This is my time.
        Mr. Henderson. I don't think it states the definition
    appropriately.
        Mr. Steube. Mr. German, the video that you just watched, do
    you define that--would you call that domestic terrorism, yes or
    no?
        Mr. German. Again, unless it involves--
        Mr. Steube. It is very easy. You just watched the video of
    what occurred. Yes or no? Do you determine that under the
    federal law of domestic terrorism, yes or no?
        Mr. German. Are you calling that video violent act?
        Mr. Steube. Yes or no?
        Mr. German. That is your problem. You are showing a piece
    of video--
        Mr. Steube. I will give Mr. Nance--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman is not allowing the witness
    to answer the question.
        Mr. Steube. No, I gave a question which is yes or no. That
    is how they can answer.
        Mr. Nance, yes or no? You are on mute.
        Mr. Nance. No. It is civil disobedience. We have codes for
    that.
        Mr. Steube. Oh, so that is civil disobedience.
        Mr. Nance. --never, ever, ever have--
        Mr. Steube. Burning down, creating 80 billion dollars'
    worth of damage across our country that is civil disobedience,
    but what occurred here on January 6th was domestic terrorism. I
    yield back.
        Mr. Nance. That was expression.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The gentlelady from Missouri is recognized, Ms. Bush, for
    five minutes.
        Ms. Bush. I thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this
    timely hearing. I first want to start by addressing some of
    what has been said. It is easy for us to talk about protests
    from the lofty halls of Congress, but I want to talk about
    these realities from my own experience as an activist on the
    front lines.
        I spent more than 400 days in the streets of Ferguson and
    during that time, while a lot of you all speaking were nestled
    sweetly in your beds looking and reading articles and looking
    at pictures and videos and you have actually no clue what
    really was happening on the ground, what actually happens in
    protests. I am just trying to think if I ever saw any of your
    faces show up for Black lives on the streets of Ferguson. I
    don't remember seeing your faces and we were out there for more
    than 400 days fighting for Black lives.
        So, while you are putting your mouth on people, where were
    you? I am one of those Black Lives Matter activists you are
    talking about. I saw Oath Keepers into our neighborhood that
    heavily armed. They came equipped with military-grade weaponry.
    These militias were on buildings in sniper gear. Their presence
    was a threat. I am also aware of defenders for Black life, for
    people of all walks of life uniting for justice.
        We cannot equate White nationalist violence with what my
    colleagues on the right stated is left-wing extremist violence.
    Equating a righteous movement for justice with hateful and
    racist White nationalism is outright ignorant and disingenuous
    on your part. For White supremacy, in which you benefit, we
    would not be in the streets demanding to be heard. We are
    demanding to be heard to save lives. Let me say this, had you
    fixed it before now, we wouldn't be here. There are not fine
    people on both sides. There is simply no comparison. White
    supremacy is deeply entrenched in our nation's DNA, so much so
    that we have a wealth of history to rely on as we respond to
    this latest iteration of violence.
        Here are the facts as I see them. White nationalist groups
    have infiltrated federal and local law enforcement agencies,
    and I can say that because I know, because the protestors that
    I rocked with, the protestors I am with, we have gone out and
    pulled those undercover officers, those folks that were
    infiltrating the protest movement causing destruction, we
    pulled them out and we gave them back to their police. As a
    matter of fact, you can look up an officer who just won five
    million dollars because he was beaten because they thought that
    he was actually a protestor. He was really an undercover cop.
        So, but don't take my word for it. You can read the leaked
    FBI counterterrorism division memo if you need some more
    information. By expanding the legal authority of law
    enforcement agencies without addressing the infiltration of
    White supremacy within law enforcement, we are expanding the
    capacity of White supremacy itself. It is no wonder then that
    domestic terrorism laws have historically targeted Black
    freedom fighters, indigenous environmentalists, and immigration
    activists.
        Just last week, on the anniversary of his assassination, we
    mourned the loss of Malcolm X, a human rights activist who was
    surveilled and criminalized while fighting for justice and
    Black liberation. Had we had our liberation, he wouldn't have
    had to fight. It is because of this treatment that I am
    committed to holding White supremacists accountable and forcing
    my colleagues and our country to reckon with our violent
    history.
        So, Mr. German, you have argued that the Justice Department
    and FBI's failure to properly address White supremacist
    militant violence is not from a lack of legal authority but a
    matter of policy and practice. Why are those policies and
    practices as they exist not targeting White supremacy?
        Mr. German. I think that there is a multifaceted answer to
    that, but part of the problem is that the FBI remains a mostly
    White organization and that structural racism is still a
    problem within the FBI. So, when those agents go home at night,
    they don't look out on the horizon and see a threat to their
    families from White supremacy.
        Ms. Bush. Yes, exactly. Thank you, Mr. German.
        Our reliance on the police State is entirely misplaced.
    Federal law enforcement officers already have the legal
    authority to go after White supremacy. So, Mr. Henderson, how
    can we hold White supremacy accountable without expanding the
    legal authority?
        Mr. Henderson. We have--thank you for your question. We
    have many statutes on the books, over 50 terrorism-related
    statutes that can be used to prosecute individuals who are
    engaged in violent activity. We do not need another statute to
    simply be used as justification for moving against those who do
    harm to our country. So, I will stop there. Thank you for your
    question.
        Ms. Bush. Thank you, and I yield my time.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The FBI document that you held up
    regarding BLM, do you want to enter it into the record?
        Ms. Bush. Yes.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you.
        [The information follows:]

                            MS. BUSH FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me now yield to Mr. Cicilline of Rhode
    Island for five minutes.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
    very important hearing, and thank you to our extraordinary
    witnesses.
        What is viewed as White nationalists have existed since the
    founding of this country and only gotten worse in recent years.
    In fact, the assistant director for counterterrorism at the FBI
    stated, and I quote, ``racially motivated violent extremists
    are responsible for the majority of lethal attacks and
    fatalities perpetuated by domestic terrorists since 2000,'' end
    quote. A sentiment echoed by the FBI director as well. So, this
    is a fact this is a serious problem facing our country.
        My first question, Mr. German, is for you. In most states,
    people who have been convicted of a violent hate crime would
    still pass a background check to purchase a firearm because
    federal law currently prohibits only individuals convicted of
    felonies from possessing firearms. I am going to be
    reintroducing the Disarm Hate Act, which would close this
    loophole so that people convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime,
    including a misdemeanor assault hate crime, would be prohibited
    from purchasing and possessing firearms.
        I just wondered if you would speak to the relationship
    between firearms and domestic violent extremists and how
    keeping guns out of the hands of violent White supremacists
    before they are able to engage in deadly violence is a key
    strategy to respond to this pandemic.
        Mr. German. Thank you for the question. Yes, illegal
    firearms transactions are one of the primary ways that these
    militant groups obtain weapons, so enforcing the federal
    firearms laws is an effective way to address their crimes.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
        Mr. Nance, I would like to ask you what role that social
    media has played in the resurgence of extremists and White
    nationalists and, particularly, in radicalizing violent
    extremists and in weaponizing them against or to target
    minorities. Kind of what has been the role of social media, and
    if you could tell social media companies to do three things to
    reduce the spread of domestic terrorism and White supremacist
    propaganda what would that be?
        Mr. Nance. Well, first, it has been an explosion since the
    rise of social media. Even as far back as ten years ago, people
    had to communicate through very hard methodologies. If some of
    you will recall back in the 1960s, there was a group called the
    John Birch Society. If you wanted to hear any of their crazy
    rantings, you literally had to receive a mimeographed copy
    mailed to your house or find it on a street corner. The same
    thing with the rise of militia groups in the 1980s and the
    1990s. Now, any one individual can have the communications
    power of the New York Times to spread any method of violence.
        The one thing that is happening right now is the
    deplatforming of many of these groups. I know it upsets our
    conservative Members of this Committee to understand that
    private companies do not need the legal liability of allowing
    people to advocate hate, death, and destruction. They can
    deplatform anyone, including leftist groups or whichever
    groups, so long as they remain within the terms of service.
        What's going on, and I monitor it every day, I read their
    Telegram channels, Parler, Instagram, whatever, they actually
    plot terror on these channels. What we need to do--by
    deplatforming them, they still have their freedom of speech,
    they can say anything they want, they just don't have the right
    to go out and coordinate acts of domestic violence or
    threatening violence using private platforms.
        They want to create their own, allow us to channel that
    streamline our intelligence collection against them, awesome,
    but they don't have the right to use civilian, private
    companies' platforms. Deplatforming is exactly what we did to
    ISIS and Al-Qaeda and that is precisely what needs to happen to
    these militia groups and terrorists.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Henderson, it is great to see you. We know that White
    supremacists and far-right domestic extremists are the most
    significant domestic terrorist threat to our country. How does
    Congress best to ensure that resources are properly allocated
    to address the immediate and real danger these White supremacy
    groups pose to our domestic security, while also ensuring that
    the same authority is not later used to disproportionately
    target communities of color?
        Mr. Henderson. It is a great question, Mr. Cicilline. I
    think we follow the data. I know that both the FBI and the
    Department of Homeland Security have designated White supremacy
    and extremism as the number one national security threat facing
    our country from internal sources. We need to provide resources
    to those agencies to address the problem as they have outlined
    it in their research and findings.
        The fact that we oppose, that is the broad civil rights
    community, the creation of a new domestic terrorism statute is
    based on the fact that we know it will be used against the very
    communities that are most vulnerable now to that extremism and
    we are deeply concerned about it.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Henderson.
        With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
        It is Mr. Lieu? Mr. Lieu is recognized for five minutes,
    the gentleman from California.
        Mr. Lieu. I thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, for holding this
    important hearing. I condemn all political violence. I am
    pleased that my Republican colleagues can say that same
    sentence, but their words ring hollow if they can't say this
    following simple, truthful statement, the election was not
    stolen. Because it is that big lie that fueled the rage that
    caused domestic terrorists to attack our Capitol on January
    6th. It is that same big lie that results in National Guard
    troops still being deployed outside our Capitol in body armor.
    I hope my Republican colleagues will tell the truth and reduce
    the risk of further political violence.
        I also note that at the beginning of this hearing, the
    Republicans played a video of the former President saying that
    there were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville. I
    found that video deeply offensive. The reason is, because if
    you attended that rally of White supremacists and participated,
    you are no longer a very fine person. I don't care if you love
    puppies or if you give to charities, if you go participate in a
    rally where people are holding Nazi flags, wearing swastikas,
    and waving Confederate flags, you are no longer a very fine
    person, and it is wrong for my Republican colleagues to somehow
    whitewash that statement. The former President was wrong then,
    he is wrong now.
        It is that same false equivalence that we see again today
    in other aspects of this hearing. We know--and domestic
    terrorists, if we look at the data that White supremacists
    groups simply are far more lethal. You don't have to trust me.
    You can trust Ken Cuccinelli, the former acting deputy director
    of Department of Homeland Security who basically said, if you
    look at the data, per people incidents of violence, White
    supremacist groups are far more lethal.
        Chad Wolf, the former acting secretary of Homeland Security
    basically said the same exact thing. Then Christopher Wray, the
    FBI director, also said that when you look at extremist-
    motivated domestic terrorist incidents, it is the White
    supremacist ideology that forms the largest portion of that.
        So, stop with the false equivalences. There is one group,
    or groups, it is White supremacist ideology that is causing the
    major problems across America. Unfortunately, we have seen the
    former President use statements such as, there are very fine
    people on both sides. He told the Proud Boys to stand by. He
    uses racist phrases like kung-flu that has resulted in
    increased attacks against Asian Americans during this pandemic.
        So, my question is to Mr. Nance. What happens when the
    leader of the free world uses racist phrases? Does that give
    these White supremacist groups more license to go do their
    violent acts?
        Mr. Nance. Well, absolutely. It is a very simple reason
    why, because a lot of people like to say that what we are
    seeing here is in the White supremacist movement is really an
    Act of patriotism or politics. No, this is tribalism at its
    rawest form. President Trump pretty much promised, in nebulous
    terms, of course, that he was their tribal leader and that he
    would not allow for the e pluribus unum component of our
    government, ``from many, one,'' to take place.
        He was really promising ``unum tribus dominus,'' one tribe
    will dominate the rest. He led for only 45 percent of the
    country and almost ignored 65 percent of the country. They
    think he is their lord. Groups that support him, they actually
    refer to him as god-emperor of the United States. I wish I was
    making that up, but that is true. They view him as a person
    befitting of being the first dictator of the United States.
        One of the reasons why we have a lot of heartburn with what
    happened with the insurrection on the Capitol and why it is not
    equivalent to the protests in Portland or Black Lives Matter,
    which was civil disturbance, was the fact that they came to
    overthrow the government and to install a President as a
    monarch, as a dictator. That is the difference here. It has
    never happened in American history. Even the South attempted to
    use the tenets of the Constitution for secession. Not here. So,
    they believe their tribal chieftain.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I also note that in the last four
    years, we have seen a disturbing rise in antisemitic attacks
    and attacks on the Jewish American community. So, I will just
    close on Mr. Henderson, if you can give your thoughts on how we
    can start mitigating those attacks.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired. I will
    let the gentleman answer just very briefly, please. The
    gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Mr. Lieu.
        Antisemitism is a huge problem in this country and globally
    and we need to address it as we address other serious hate
    crime activity. I hope the Department of Justice will explore
    expanding its hate crime-related education programs and
    enforcement. I think that is the best way to address
    antisemitism.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman very much. The time
    has expired on Mr. Lieu, and I am delighted to recognize Ms.
    Spartz, the gentlelady from Indiana, for five minutes.
        Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just I have a quick
    couple questions. I first wanted to make a quick comment. It is
    important discussion what we have, but I also wanted to make
    sure that we also have a freedom of people to exercise their
    First amendment rights and the rights of protest, of peaceful
    protest. We have to be careful when we create rules where some
    people might be just afraid to go to a peaceful protest, to say
    something there, because it could be some violent people out
    there. I think it is important as part of a free society that
    our freedom for peaceful protest is not infringed.
        I know several of my constituents called me and they were
    very surprised when they had FBI calling their houses. They
    were not even here on January 6th. Some people showed up in
    their houses and people are literally afraid. So, I grew up in
    a very bad country with strong communist government and people
    were afraid to protest, so we can never forget that. We want to
    make sure that we have a right framework, legal framework, if
    people truly create crimes, cause crimes, and they will be
    properly punished.
        So, my question is for Mr. German. We are discussing about
    domestic terrorism, and a lot of this, a lot of things people
    just really are criminals and such that create harm, so we have
    a criminal code. I am not an attorney so I am a common person,
    right, but our laws should be written in the ways that common
    individuals should understand.
        So, my first question, is there anything in the code, any
    type of crimes that are not addressed by already crimes
    existing in the code? We have hate crimes, we have murders, we
    have people creating a different type of violence and assaults.
    So, are there any type of crimes that are not there, or if the
    crimes are there but we want to have some enhanced penalties,
    potentially, if there is some domestic terrorism, then it goes
    to the question, is our definition of domestic terrorism should
    be revisited or you believe it truly reflects what it needs to
    be?
        So, I have three questions. Are there any crimes, about the
    penalties, and the third question about the definition?
        Mr. German. Thank you very much for that question and I
    will try to keep them in order. Yes, there are plenty of crimes
    on the books that the domestic terrorism prosecutors at the
    Justice Department actually use. What our report looked at were
    the instances where these multitude of statutes were actually
    used in domestic terrorism prosecutions.
        So, there are plenty of federal laws, plus the way the
    Justice Department has established its counterterrorism program
    is through joint terrorism task forces where they also take
    advantage of State and local laws, so if there was any gap
    because of the circumstances of a particular crime, State and
    local law enforcement prosecution could follow through. So,
    there are more than enough laws on the books.
        You are right, I want to make sure that law enforcement is
    focused on the violent acts and not on speech or attendance at
    a protest or association. With the White supremacists and far-
    right militant groups, there is a lot of violence that these
    groups commit that falls through the cracks because of the
    Justice Department's policy of deferring hate crimes to State
    and local investigators who may not have hate crime laws that
    can be effectively applied, or just treating it as violent
    crime, which is a local law enforcement problem rather than a
    federal problem and therefore the data about those crimes isn't
    collected.
        So, it is a matter of holding these agencies accountable
    and we want to make sure that we have enough public
    accountability over the way the FBI uses these authorities to
    hold it responsible when it does use them to target people who
    are just expressing themselves or associating with people we
    might find odious.
        Ms. Spartz. So, just to follow-up, so what about it--
    because a lot of enforcement tools are really in the local
    jurisdictions that exist. So, what other things you can have
    and ideas, because it is really a matter not of us really doing
    something with the code but enforcement issues. Do you have
    some ideas to make sure people do enforce the law? Because it
    is important for us for public safety, and we had that
    discussion the same this summer.
        A lot of mayors were not, and a lot of businesses were
    destroyed and nothing was done and mayors, a lot of mayors,
    they hire the police. It is a local jurisdiction issue and
    where does a State even look? What can we do as a state, or is
    the State able, and what ideas do you have?
        Mr. German. So, number one, in many of those protests,
    there were literally hundreds of people arrested so it is not
    as if there wasn't enforcement action being taken. It is just
    that what those prosecutions showed was that there was no
    organized effort to engage in those acts, so--according to what
    the charges that were actually prosecuted.
        To your question, again these agencies work hand in glove
    with the joint terrorism task forces. There are law enforcement
    intelligence fusion centers that are supposed to be sharing
    this information, but too often they are focused on issues that
    don't have to do with actual acts of violence. That is the
    problem, is there is so much false information and
    misinformation going through these networks that when a real
    warning passes through, it is not paid attention to because--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time is up. The witness
    wrap-up his statement. Thank you very much.
        Let me very clear, Ms. Spartz, that we are all committed to
    civil liberties and civil rights and to not have anyone's First
    amendment rights violated. So, thank you for your comments.
        I am now pleased to yield to the gentleman from California,
    Mr. Correa, for five minutes.
        Mr. Correa. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank you
    very much for holding this most important Committee hearing and
    the topic is very, very important.
        I remember three years ago, after the Charlottesville,
    Virginia, incident, hate crime incident--Heather Heyer was
    killed, 34 people were injured--I called on the House Homeland
    Security Committee to hold hearings on this growing threat. My
    words, my request fell on deaf ears, and I am glad that
    Congress is finally figuring out these issues, the dangers of
    domestic terrorism and White nationalism.
        I say this because I think back to my weekends at home on
    Main Street. I do a lot of work with our veterans. I go to the
    VFW/American Legion Halls. I look at our veterans, some that
    are dreamers that just came back from serving, our World War II
    veterans, and these World War II veterans are looking at me and
    saying, we fought against Nazi Germany, against the swastika,
    and now I see them on TV. They ask me, Lou, what are you doing?
    What is happening to our country?
        I would propose to you this White supremacist, this hate,
    is a cancer on our nation. Why? Because our armed services
    today are so diverse, you have people from all over the world
    defending and serving our country. Just last year, we had a
    couple of Vietnamese Americans promoted to generals in our
    nation. Yesterday, I cosponsored, I co-authored a resolution
    speaking out against recent increase in hate crimes against
    Asian Americans. We are a country made up of people from all
    over the world. This is why White nationalism racism is a
    cancer in our society.
        Mr. German, I want to ask you, 9/11, after 9/11 our focus
    of this country was against foreign terrorists. For almost 20
    years, we looked the other way. We focused all our efforts on
    there, not here. Wake wake up today and we have lost more lives
    now to domestic terrorism than to foreign terrorism.
        You said that the FBI has chosen not to prioritize domestic
    terrorism. January 6th, you said, a complete intelligence
    failure. Silos in our backyards, we have our county
    governments, our local police departments operating in silos;
    therefore, we don't have the data we need to paint a complete
    and accurate picture of domestic terrorism.
        Sir, Mr. German, what do we do? Where do we go from here?
    You keep saying we have the laws that we need to prosecute to
    put a stop to White nationalism, to this kind of hate and hate
    crimes. Where do we go from here, sir?
        Mr. German. Thank you very much for the question. First, we
    have to get the data. Congress had passed the National Defense
    Authorization Act. This data is well overdue, and without data
    about how the FBI and the Justice Department are actually using
    the--
        Mr. Correa. Does it take that long to get that data or is
    there a systematic denial that that situation exists and
    therefore the data is not presented to us?
        Mr. German. It is a systematic denial. In the case of the
    Justice Department prosecutions, the docket numbers are public
    information, but they take them off their prosecuted reports so
    that you can't match up a case they are claiming as the
    terrorisms to an actual case.
        With the FBI, yes, this is information that they have in
    their files that they could put out at any time, right? This is
    just basic data about how many investigations they open against
    these--in these categories, so it is data that is easily
    available.
        Mr. Correa. So, Mr. German, is it time that we police the
    FBI to be looking at independent research and data collection
    to get a solid picture of what is going on out there?
        Mr. German. Absolutely. Whether it is through the
    Government Accountability Office or other means, if the FBI is
    refusing to provide data that Congress needs to serve its
    policymaking function, then Congress has robust tools to compel
    that information. I think we have to get tough with these
    agencies now because--
        Mr. Correa. Mr. German, thank you very much. I am running
    out of time, but I just wanted to say that I want to go back to
    Main Street, want to go meet with our veterans, both Democrats
    and Republicans, Independents, and when they ask me, Lou, can
    you bring back the country I fought for that I laid it all on
    the line for, I want to have a good answer for them. Thank you
    very much.
        Madam Chair, I am out of time. I yield.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman from California, and
    we join him in wanting to tell those veterans that our America
    is back.
        With that, I want to yield five minutes to the gentlelady
    from Texas, Ms. Escobar, five minutes. Thank you.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I want to
    express my gratitude to you for having this very important
    hearing. I would like to thank our panelists as well for being
    with us today. I also want to express my gratitude, Madam
    Chair, to you and to Chair Nadler for recognizing the attack on
    El Paso on August 3, 2019, in your opening remarks, and for
    understanding the pain and trauma that my community has gone
    through as a result of that horrific attack.
        My interest is in preventing the kind of pain and trauma my
    community is still enduring and ensuring that no other American
    community has to live through what we lived through which was
    horrific violence at the hands of a domestic terrorist. I think
    to do that, to prevent this from happening, we have got to
    understand, number one, the root causes that fuel the violence;
    number two, the tools that are used by domestic terrorists to
    inflict that violence.
        When it comes to El Paso, we know what the root causes
    were. The root causes were anti-immigrant, racist, xenophobic
    hatred that the domestic terrorist confessed fueled his ten-
    hour drive to El Paso. He drove to my community because he
    confessed to wanting to slaughter Mexicans and immigrants.
        He published a screed online shortly before walking into
    that Walmart, and that screed used the same language, anti-
    immigrant, hateful, dehumanizing language that Donald Trump had
    used from the loudest bully pulpit in the world, from the
    office of the presidency. I wish I could say that with the
    election we no longer have to deal with that kind of xenophobic
    awful hate, but, unfortunately, it is being invited back into
    Washington, DC.
        My Republican colleagues have invited Stephen Miller, who
    is a White nationalist, to come brief them. They have also
    invited Mark Morgan, who is a member of a hate group, an anti-
    immigrant organization recognized as a hate group, he is being
    asked to brief them as well. This is because we on the House
    Democratic side would like to pass immigration reform. So,
    unfortunately, while I wish I could say that the attack on El
    Paso had provided a lesson, a profound lesson against the use
    of anti-immigrant hate, and a playbook rooted in xenophobia, I
    wish that a lesson had been learned; unfortunately, it has not.
        I would call on my colleagues to repudiate that hate and to
    disinvite Stephen Miller, Mark Morgan, Tom Homan, and others
    who perpetuate that hate. I would ask them to please rescind
    their invitations, or to not show up. In addition to
    understanding root causes, we have got to understand the tools.
        Mr. Henderson, Ms. Scanlon had asked you to talk about
    prevention, but she ran out of time and so you were in the
    middle of talking to us about what we in Congress or we in the
    Federal Government can do to prevent more of these attacks. I
    am going to ask you to finish your thoughts.
        Mr. German, among the tools also are guns, frankly, and
    would love for you to comment quickly, after Mr. Henderson
    finishes his thoughts, on what background checks can do to help
    combat domestic terrorism.
        Mr. Henderson?
        Mr. Henderson. Ms. Escobar, thanks for the question. Our
    hearts go out to you and your constituents for their losses in
    August of 2019. I think one of the first things and one of the
    best things that can be done is for our country to really take
    an inward look at where we are and how we got there. There is a
    resolution under consideration in the House sponsored by
    Congresswoman Barbara Lee to establish a national convention on
    truth, racial healing, and transformation. I think that would
    be one of the most important steps that might be undertaken to
    look at the totality of circumstances that brought us to the
    point today. I will stop with that.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much.
        Mr. German, background checks.
        Mr. German. So, as I stated earlier, illegal weapons
    trafficking is one of the routine crimes that these organized
    militant groups engage in. So, background checks are very
    helpful, both to identify people who are prohibited from owning
    weapons and prevent them from getting it, but also because it
    shows where these groups will go to obtain the weapons they
    want, but can't go through legitimate processes. So, it is very
    effective.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentlelady from Texas and her
    time has expired.
        It is now my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from
    10nessee, Mr. Cohen, for five minutes.
        Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It has been a
    very interesting hearing, and the sad part of it is some people
    still don't recognize that we went through the most horrific
    experience that the United States of America has ever been the
    victim of from within, an attempt to overturn our Constitution
    and our government. Yes, while a majority, 57 to 43, felt
    Donald Trump incited that, in public opinion that is pretty
    astonishing, including seven Republicans. He went out on the
    Ellipse and he said, if you don't fight hard, you are not
    strong, you won't have a country.
        Mr. Henderson, you heard people in the '60s and '70s and
    whenever, Ku Klux Klan's people encouraged their people to go
    and do violence. Did you take Mr. Trump's words, you won't have
    a country, to be racial in nature and to be a dog whistle?
        Mr. Henderson. I thought it was certainly a dog whistle,
    Mr. Cohen. I thought it was beyond a dog whistle. I thought it
    was a foghorn. I thought that the effort to inflame passions on
    January 6th that ultimately led to the insurrection at the
    Capitol, the failed coup detat as I saw it, indeed, had been
    inflamed by those words. Yes, I agree completely with your
    observations.
        Mr. Cohen. Mr. Nance, did that ever--I tell you, it didn't
    come to me until, really, I watched a couple of movies that
    were Chadwick Boseman, the Jackie Robinson and the Thurgood
    Marshall. While they were movies, they depicted the society of
    the '40s and the hate and the enmity that White racist
    Southerners had towards integration, and troublemakers like
    Thurgood Marshall, good troublemakers, but they weren't seen
    that way. It hit me that was racial when Trump said you won't
    have a country.
        Mr. Nance, did you see that as well?
        Mr. Nance. Yes. It is disturbing mainly in the sense that
    the bully pulpit of the President of the United States was used
    as a cudgel and a cudgel which was essentially handed off to a
    mob with near-explicit instructions to go up and stop the
    constitutional process of certifying an election.
        This is why I took issue with what Mr. Ngo said earlier.
    For whatever you want to say about what happened in Portland
    and Seattle and Kenosha, those were not acts of terrorism. They
    were not domestic terrorists. They were acts of civil
    disobedience and protests. We've seen equal vigor at Super Bowl
    protests. We have seen fire and fights, and I am from
    Philadelphia.
        What we saw on the 6th of January was literally an
    organized attempt which was backed by 40,000 protestors and as
    many as 3 to 5,000, according to the Park Service's estimates,
    smashing in to destroy your building to stop the democratic
    process. To literally stop democracy in its tracks, they were
    willing to kill. As Officer Fanone said when he was being
    beaten and his pistol belt was being grabbed, someone said kill
    him with his own gun. It was only the fact that he begged them
    that he had children that the protestors got in between them.
        They fully intended to commit this violence. They thought
    they were taking back a country from what it is. They don't
    believe in e pluribus unum. They really wanted to create their
    own imaginary State with Donald Trump as leader.
        Mr. Cohen. It was a sad, sad day, the saddest day in the
    history of our country and some people aren't accepting it.
    Now, I want to say I didn't approve of some of the Antifa
    actions of coming to Washington and breaking windows and doing
    some of the things they did after Trump was inaugurated, and I
    said that.
        Some of the thing--but that is not the issue. It doesn't
    compare. It is like comparing a forest fire to somebody with a
    match or setting the--it is just there is no comparison. The
    fact is, what we experienced was horrific and people need to
    accept it and not try to defend it.
        Somebody here said there were only 200 people that went
    into the Capitol. That is absurd. There were way more than 200
    policemen, and they were overrun. Two hundred people would not
    have overrun our Capitol police. That is just false. When we
    had hearings, I told the committee, try to say Boogaloo. Can
    you say Boogaloo? Nobody could say Boogaloo. I went on the
    floor, and I say, can anybody here say Boogaloo? They couldn't
    say it. Their lips were locked.
        It was Boogaloo that killed the officer in Oakland who they
    tried to claim was part of the unrest and they even brought
    the--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time is expired.
        Mr. Cohen. --to Fort McHenry and make her look like it was
    somebody else. Get real. We have got to fight against the White
    extremists and make our country safe again. I yield back the
    balance of my time.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Thank you very much to Members. We have a few points that
    we would like to clarify and so I am going to yield five
    minutes at this time to Mr. Biggs, the Ranking Member of the
    subcommittee, five minutes.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Mr. German, you wrote a book called ``Disrupt, Discredit,
    and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy,'' right?
        Mr. German. Yes.
        Mr. Biggs. If I can cite--I haven't read your book, just
    read some summaries of it. One of the things that it said, it
    chronicles how the FBI transformed itself after 9/11 from a law
    enforcement agency famous for prosecuting organized crime and
    corruption to, arguably, the most secretive domestic
    intelligence agency the country has ever seen.
        Mr. German. Yes.
        Mr. Biggs. Is that a fair statement?
        Mr. German. It's fair.
        Mr. Biggs. Yes, I don't disagree with that premise. I have
    actually--I don't know if I am going to buy your book, but I
    might check it out at the library to read it because I agree
    with that premise. That leads me to a couple things that I
    would like you and Mr. Ngo to each respond to, if you would,
    please.
        Do you think the FBI has the necessary tools to investigate
    domestic terrorism while ensuring constitutional rights are
    protected, especially in light of the abuse of FISA authority
    which we have seen over the last couple years? So, I will go
    first to Mr. Ngo then to you too, Mr. German.
        Mr. Ngo?
        Mr. Ngo. Thank you for the question. I am not an expert on
    FBI and federal capabilities to investigate, so I will have to
    defer to my co-panelists for the answer. I am sorry.
        Mr. Biggs. That is all right. Thank you.
        Mr. German?
        Mr. German. So, thank you very much for the question. Part
    of the problem after 9/11 was the reduction of criminal
    predicates. So, after the Church Committee investigation, the
    attorney general guidelines were issued to create a requirement
    that an agent have a reasonable indication based on articulable
    facts that the person they want to investigate is engaged in a
    federal crime or will engage in a federal crime.
        This is a very low standard. Most FBI agents I knew woke up
    pretty suspicious. The problem is, removing those standards
    allowed the FBI to investigate people not based on any evidence
    of wrongdoing but, rather, based upon the agent's own bias or
    the agent's own belief that something that might happen in the
    future. That is a big part of the problem, both in the way the
    electronic surveillance authorities were changed with the
    Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the PATRIOT Act, and
    with the way the attorney general guidelines were changed.
        So, if we can restore those criminal predicates that will
    require the FBI agents to actually be working from articulable
    facts rather than bias.
        Mr. Biggs. Sure. So, with that, dozens of states from New
    York to Nevada have their own antiterrorism laws. Can you
    comment on whether these State laws have been effective to
    investigate and prosecute domestic terrorism?
        Mr. German. I haven't done any kind of comprehensive study
    of those. I am concerned about the use of terrorism in the law,
    in federal law as well as State and local law. The way we
    worked when I was undercover in the early '90s was we were
    investigating the criminal activities some of the people within
    these groups were engaged in and that separated it from the
    ideology.
        Terrorism is a politicized term, so it is not surprising
    that when we talk about it, there is a political element to how
    we interpret it. So, my advice is to focus on the violent
    crimes and the actual violations of the criminal statutes and
    not expand this use of terrorism. Learn the lessons from the
    inappropriate and harmful acts we took after 9/11 so we can
    actually work against people who are engaging in violence
    rather than focusing on what their ideologies may or may not
    be.
        Mr. Biggs. So, my last question, and it is for you, Mr.
    German, because you said earlier you were focusing on groups.
    For instance, 18 U.S.C. 2331(5), which defines domestic
    terrorism, it doesn't require that anybody have a conspiracy or
    any group. It just requires the elements of that crime to be
    met and there are three elements. I don't want to get into all
    of them, but you recognize that any individual in and of
    themselves can be a domestic terrorist without being part of a
    group.
        Mr. German. Exactly. The reason I point to the
    organizations and the groups is because there are 17 to 18,000
    homicides every year; 40 percent almost go unsolved, right.
    That is far more unsolved homicides than the hundred or so
    crimes that might happen that are related to what we call
    terrorism.
        So, if we are trying to focus on reducing the impact of
    terrorism, understanding how the organized groups operate to
    perpetuate this violence is the key to working these groups in
    a way that will reduce the violence. Trying to imagine every
    single individual out there who might do something harmful and
    prevent it is not an effective strategy, but unfortunately that
    is the one that we have been following with regard to a lot of
    these acts. Thank you.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you. My time has expired and I thank the
    Chair. Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Ranking Member. We made this
    agreement with Mr. Biggs and myself to clear up the record and
    for me to be able to have the opportunity to say what enormous
    appreciation this Committee has for the time that these very
    excellent witnesses have spent answering the questions and
    concerns of Members, because our challenge, of course, is to be
    legislators and to be able to speak the language that
    Congressman Correa said to those veterans, who wore the uniform
    for this great country that this Nation is back. So, let me say
    that if we had expanded the language of this title of this
    hearing, we might have said the rise of domestic terrorism in
    America that violently caused deaths of many people.
        I want to acknowledge again, Officer Sicknick tragically
    lost his life out of the actions of January 6th, two other
    officers who we understand had committed suicide, and others
    who died on that day. They died, and so it is important to
    frame what we are doing here and the violence of the record of
    the Anti-Defamation League, 75 percent of all murders from
    domestic terrorism have been the result of right-wing
    extremists.
        Mr. Ngo, would you give me the leaders of the Antifa
    movement? What are their names, please?
        Mr. Ngo. If you read any of my reports, you will know that
    there are no single leaders. They are organized into autonomous
    cells that are connected by network.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Ngo.
        So, in fact, as the FBI says, this is an ideology. These
    are ideologues and you can evidence that in the actions that
    they promote across the nation. They show up and they do create
    havoc. As one of our Members indicated, though we all abhor
    violence, we recognize civil protests but in the midst of civil
    liberties and civil rights.
        So, I want to pose these questions to you gentlemen as we
    try to clear up the facts. First, one member was here today, we
    appreciate him, and he is trying to label the history of
    America in the context of Republicans and Democrats. White
    racism, White Nazism does not come in party affiliation. Let us
    put on the record that the freed slaves were Republicans
    because Abraham Lincoln freed them.
        As we went through, those who hung around to see Black
    people hung, I don't know their affiliation. They were White
    and they were filled with hatred. At the same time, he claims
    that they were Democrats. If they were, I find them abhorrent
    and will reject their behavior. So, we cannot put party labels,
    and I am glad Mr. Biggs has extended his hand in friendship.
    Let's find a way to address this question because it is
    dastardly and ugly.
        So, let me pose this question to you, Mr. German. Isn't it
    key that we understand Antifa's ideology, but that out of White
    racism and White extremists come death and violence in many
    instances? If you keep your answer short, I want to get to all
    the gentlemen on this Committee before I have to close. Mr.
    German?
        Mr. German. Yes, exactly. What we need the FBI and the
    Justice Department to do is focus on the White supremacist, far
    right militant violence, actual violence that has happened, and
    recognize that the Capitol attack was not a standalone event.
    It was the culmination of many attacks before that.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
        Mr. Henderson, thank you for acknowledging H.R. 40 as also
    a reparative and restorative legislation that we filed time
    after time after time. Would you admit to the fact that from
    the perspective of hatefulness and actions that African
    Americans, Black Americans have experienced violence throughout
    the 20th century, and that, in addition, to hangings that
    occurred in the early 1900s, we went into the civil rights
    movement, and we had the Mississippi Boys, the Birmingham
    Bombing.
        Those individuals, as we understand it, were White
    Southerners motivated by hatred and White racism. That is
    terror. That is now the modern terminology of alt-right. Would
    you say that plays into why we have to address this question of
    domestic terrorism?
        Mr. Henderson. There is absolutely no question, Madam
    Chair, that you have described circumstances as they exist. The
    history of the African American experience in this country and
    in the 20th century underscores your point quite effectively.
    In fact, later this year, we will celebrate the centennial, or
    acknowledge the centennial anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre,
    in which over 300 African Americans and the most prosperous
    business center of Black people in the country was destroyed; a
    century ago, this year.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Thank you very much for that.
        Mr. Nance, African Americans, Hispanic Latinx, and now, of
    course, the community of Asian Americans, whether it is Sikh
    Indians or whether or not it is Asian Pacific or whether or not
    it is Southeast Asians, provoked by language but results in
    violent acts.
        So, how should this Committee respond to finding a way,
    besides the cultural changes of attitude, harmonious coming
    together, recognizing the unity of this nation, but how can we
    get to that core which winds up with people dying? That is why
    we had this hearing about the rise in domestic terrorism,
    because it is about people dying. That has to stop. How do we
    work that through the present laws and going forward?
        Mr. Nance. Well, first off, as this hearing is very, very
    beneficial for the Nation is to understand that the very fact
    that there is a national threat which is not just congealing
    from all these small disparate groups, they are organizing
    themselves under a political ideology and that ideology is
    intended to Act as a political cudgel over the heads of all
    other peoples.
        The very definition of terrorism is a threat or Act of
    violence, which is political in nature, which uses terrorist
    tactics to influence an audience beyond the immediate victims.
    Well, when you organize as military platoons and you are
    planning to intimidate a population by coming through with
    firearms you are not a terrorist until you use those firearms
    in a mass attack, as we saw with the representative from El
    Paso. That was a terrorist attack. Same thing with what we saw
    in Pittsburgh.
        So, that being the case, we have to really go at this as
    Mr. German said, you can't really tie ideology directly to it,
    but the actions and acts and the conspiracies of the
    individuals to see whether they are just people who are
    carrying out typical crimes, or are they part of a larger
    conspiracy intending to intimidate an entire Nation or peoples.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you so very much, and I thank the
    witnesses again for their patience and their excellent
    testimony and for accepting our invitation to be part of this
    hearing. I thank the Members. We have had a very interesting
    hearing because we have mixed it with three hours of voting.
    So, I thank them for their indulgence and we look forward to
    being proactive in legislating around these issues.
        Let me close the hearing in the names of Michael Fanone,
    Officer Michael Fanone of the Metro Police Department, Harry
    Dunn, Officer Glover, and many others including the officer who
    testified yesterday in front of the Senate Homeland Security
    Committee; and all others who have fallen victim and fallen
    through the violence of hatred, White supremacy, White
    nationalism, and overall hatred. Let us in this full Committee
    and Subcommittee find a way to bring a solution that will heal
    this nation.
        This concludes today's hearing. Thank you to our
    distinguished witnesses for attending, as I said. Thank you
    again for your patience. Thank the Members again for their
    patience. Without objection, all Members will have five
    legislative days to submit additional written questions for the
    witnesses or additional materials for the record. This hearing
    is now adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 6:48 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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