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


                  CONFRONTING VIOLENT WHITE SUPREMACY
                     (PART VI): EXAMINING THE BIDEN
                   ADMINISTRATION'S COUNTERTERRORISM
                                STRATEGY

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

                                 OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                               AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-42

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
      
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]     


                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov                             
                                __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-879 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                
                             
                             
                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Ro Khanna, California                Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Katie Porter, California             Pete Sessions, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Andy Biggs, Arizona
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Scott Franklin, Florida
    Georgia                          Jake LaTurner, Kansas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Pat Fallon, Texas
Jackie Speier, California            Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois             Byron Donalds, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Mike Quigley, Illinois

                      Russ Anello, Staff Director
               Devon Ombres, Subcommittee Staff Director
                    Amy Stratton, Deputy Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------                                

            Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

                    Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Chairman
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Pete Sessions, Texas, Ranking 
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida        Minority Member
Robin Kelly, Illinois                Jim Jordan, Ohio
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts       Andy Biggs, Arizona
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   Nancy Mace, South Carolina
    Columbia                         Scott Franklin, Florida
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Byron Donalds, Florida
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Danny K. Davis, Illinois
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on September 29, 2021...............................     1

                               Witnesses

Mr. John D. Cohen, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department 
  of Homeland Security
Oral Statement...................................................     8
Mr. Timothy R. Langan, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism 
  Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Oral Statement...................................................    10
Mr. Brad Wiegmann, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National 
  Security Division, Department of Justice
Oral Statement...................................................    11

Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * CSIS, article, ``The Military, Police, and the Rise of 
  Terrorism in the United States''; submitted by Rep. Wasserman-
  Schultz.

  * Brennan Center, a study, ``Countering Violent Extremism in 
  the Trump Era''; submitted by Rep. Pressley.

  * CSIS, ``The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United 
  States''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * The New York Times, article, ``How Trump's Focus on Antifa 
  Distracted Attention From the Far-Right Threat''; submitted by 
  Rep. Norton.
  * The Washington Post, article, ``The Rise of Domestic 
  Extremism in America''; submitted by Rep. Norton.

  * The New York Times, article, ``Efforts to Weed Out Extremists 
  in Law Enforcement Meet Resistance''; submitted by Rep. Ocasio-
  Cortez.

  * PBS News Hour, ``FBI Warned of White Supremacists in Law 
  Enforcement 10 Years Ago. Has Anything Changed?''; submitted by 
  Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.

  * The Guardian, article, ``The FBI Has a History of Targeting 
  Black Activists. That's Still True Today''; submitted by Rep. 
  Tlaib.
  * The Post and Courier, article, ``Police Connect Vandalism at 
  Nancy Mace's Home to Incident at Bishop England High School; 
  submitted by Rep. Mace.

  * The Wall Street Journal, article, ``Cities Reverse Defunding 
  the Police Amid Rising Crime''; submitted by Rep. Mace.

  * The New York Times, article, ``Why Charges Against Protesters 
  are Being Dismissed''; submitted by Rep. Mace.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                  CONFRONTING VIOLENT WHITE SUPREMACY.
                     (PART VI): EXAMINING THE BIDEN
                   ADMINISTRATION'S COUNTERTERRORISM
                                STRATEGY

                              ----------                              


                     Wednesday, September 29, 2021

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
           Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and on Zoom. Hon. 
Jamie Raskin (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Raskin, Maloney, Mfume, Wasserman 
Schultz, Kelly, Pressley, Norton, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Davis, 
Mace, Comer, Higgins, Sessions, and Donalds.
    Also present: Representatives Lawrence (waived on).
    Mr. Raskin. The committee will now come to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess at any time.
    This is the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and 
Civil Liberties. Before we get started, I want to acknowledge 
Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina. The representative 
of Charleston is our new ranking member, and I want to 
congratulate her on being the new ranking member. And I am 
going to ask unanimous consent that we recognize her as the new 
ranking member.
    And without objection, we will do that.
    Ms. Mace has had a fascinating career. She is an active 
legislator and she is a great writer, whose memoir, In the 
Company of Men: A Woman at the Citadel, tells the story of her 
being the first woman ever to graduate from The Citadel. She 
has a great interest in civil rights and civil liberties, and 
we have already spoken about her specific interest in mental 
health services for the prison population. So, Congresswoman 
Mace, I very much look forward to working with you in the 
months ahead, and congratulations on being our new ranking 
member.
    Also, without objection, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence and 
Congressman Glenn Grothman shall be permitted to join the 
hearing today and be recognized for the purpose of questioning 
the witnesses.
    Hearing no objection, they will be waived on for those 
purposes.
    This is the sixth hearing in our subcommittee's series on 
the crisis of violent white supremacy, something the members 
know we have been following closely for several years. For more 
than two years, we have worked to explore various aspects of 
this worsening crisis in American democracy and to urge the 
Federal Government to prioritize a robust and comprehensive 
response. I want to play a quick video that sums up our prior 
hearings, particularly the need for an executive-branch-wide 
strategy to address the rise in domestic violent extremism. I 
am relieved that we can finally have the hearing today to 
discuss exactly what that strategy is now, and this strategy 
incorporates many of the recommendations that our subcommittee 
has been working for in prior hearings. Please play that video 
if you would.
    [Video shown.]
    Mr. Raskin. So good morning, everyone, and I want to thank 
our witnesses for joining us today, and I want to thank all the 
members who have come to participate in this critical hearing. 
As you just saw in the video compilation, the hearing is sixth 
in a series about the Nation's crisis with violent white 
supremacy and the need for the government to mount an effective 
and comprehensive response to this fundamental threat to the 
safety of the American people and the security of the American 
republic. This is not just an important, but today's is an 
historic hearing because for the first time, an Administration 
has answered our call to set forth a comprehensive whole-of-
government strategy to deal with the threat.
    The Biden Administration took power only two weeks after 
the January 6th insurrection. That day, the whole world watched 
the storm troopers of violent white supremacy act as the 
vanguard of a mass violent political insurrection against the 
Government of the United States that smashed our windows, 
invaded our Capitol, wounded and injured more than 140 Capitol 
Police officers and Metropolitan Police Department officers, 
and left several people dead. The protest that turned into a 
riot and an insurrection had been promoted and incited by then-
President Donald Trump.
    The well-trained battalions of domestic violent extremists 
consisted of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, Q-Anon 
followers, Aryan Nations, Boogaloo Boys, armed militiamen, 
white Christian nationalists, and other violent extremists. 
They rallied behind the banner of Donald Trump's Big Lie: 
asserting that he had won the 2020 Presidential election and 
that it was being stolen from him. In fact, Joe Biden received 
more than 7 million votes more than Donald Trump and won by a 
margin of 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. And yet Trump's 
Big Lie unified these disparate violent groups into a mass 
street movement to ``stop the steal'' and storm the Capitol to 
interrupt the counting of Electoral College votes for the very 
first time in the history of the United States, nearly toppling 
the peaceful transfer of power in our country.
    Although warning signs had been popping up everywhere for 
weeks before the insurrection, Federal law enforcement never 
produced a formal threat assessment about the risks of violence 
on that day. That indicates a systematic failure to grapple 
with the magnitude of the threat facing the republic. And let's 
be clear that the most dangerous domestic terror threat facing 
America today comes from the forces that attacked our 
government on January 6th. In October 2020, President Trump's 
own acting Secretary of Homeland Security singled out white 
supremacist extremists as ``the most persistent and lethal 
threat in the homeland.''
    Just two days after being sworn in, President Biden ordered 
Federal law enforcement and intelligence officials to study the 
threat of domestic violent extremism. He understood that a 
post-9/11 counterterrorism framework, set up primarily to 
combat international threats, like al-Qaeda and ISIS, was not 
designed to address the domestic terrorist violence that 
threatens us today. The results of their review became public 
on June 15th when the President released the first-ever 
National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.
    The strategy outlined four main pillars to guide Federal 
agencies. First, the strategy calls for more analysis and 
information sharing related to domestic terror threats. Second, 
it asks agencies to determine how to better prevent domestic 
terror recruitment and mobilization of violence. Third, it 
tasks the government with disrupting and deterring domestic 
terror. And fourth, it calls on the government to confront 
long-term contributors to domestic terror, including racism. 
This strategy offers exactly the kind of coordinated 
governmental response that members of this subcommittee have 
been asking for for more than two years.
    During our prior hearings, we were warned over and over 
again by witnesses with years of counterterror experience and 
Federal law enforcement experience that the Trump 
Administration had no cohesive plan to confront the enormous 
problem facing us. We learned that the Federal Government was 
not devoting sufficient personnel or resources to monitor or 
confront the white supremacist threat of violence spreading 
across the globe. In fact, we heard from Trump Administration 
officials themselves that the Administration, frankly, lacked 
any strategic plan to prevent or combat white supremacist 
violence.
    With the release of this new strategy, the Administration 
has finally ensured that the U.S. has a blueprint to defend 
ourselves. The strategy calls for more resources to boost 
state, local, tribal, and territorial efforts to tackle the 
threat. This includes more information sharing, more analysis, 
and data-driven guidance on potential indicators of violence. 
It also lays out a new public health-focused framework for 
terror prevention that will enlist all sectors of government 
and society to work together as a bulwark against violence and 
provide an off ramp for those who are caught up in the clutches 
of hate. These sweeping objectives will require enormous 
implementation efforts, coordination, and oversight. I hope we 
can use this hearing to explore how these efforts are already 
under way and what Congress can do to help.
    We should also take this opportunity to discuss how the 
Administration's strategy will balance its urgent investigative 
and enforcement priorities with the constant need to uphold the 
civil right and civil liberties of all Americans. I am 
confident that the witnesses before us today will be able to 
clarify how these counterterror efforts will respect the rule 
of law and democracy, the democracy that we, in fact, are 
seeking to protect against terrorist violence.
    We are facing an unprecedented situation in which political 
leaders, up to and including a former President, have been 
actively promoting corrosive anti-democratic messages that 
circulate paranoia, cynicism, and violence. This cesspool of 
conspiracy thinking is activating unstable individuals 
predisposed, because of a mixture of ideological grievances and 
personal disappointments, to commit violence. This is a problem 
that demands the attention of all of us and, indeed, everyone 
in the country who believes in the constitutional order.
    On January 6th, we saw a glimpse of a post-democratic, 
chaotic America. In that violent mob which stormed the Capitol 
of the United States, there was no room for civil rights or 
civil liberties for anyone, either for the marchers, or for the 
officers who were being beat up, or the American people, or the 
Congress. There was no room for equal justice under law. There 
was no room for meaningful dissent. Our government has finally 
woken up to the need to combat, comprehensively and 
effectively, white supremacists and militia-based violent 
extremism. I hope that this hearing will bring more clarity and 
exposure to the Biden Administration's strategic plan and help 
illuminate what Congress can do to ensure that it is both 
effective and, of course, respectful of the civil rights and 
civil liberties of the people. We must all work together to 
defend our democracy and our freedom.
    And with that, I will invite our new ranking member to 
provide an opening statement of her own.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Chairman Raskin. And, first of all, 
thank you for the introduction this morning. It is an honor to 
be here and an honor to work on the Civil Rights and Civil 
Liabilities Subcommittee with you on Oversight.
    Americans of all color, races, nationalities, and religions 
deserve to live in a country where they can sleep safe at 
night, knowing our law enforcement personnel at all levels of 
government are working around the clock to thwart attacks in 
our communities, not just white communities, but communities of 
all colors all across the country. Every citizen, regardless of 
the color of their skin, their zip code, the amount of money 
they make, what they look like, what their religion is, or 
where they are from deserve to live in safe communities.
    Whether motivated by racism or white supremacy, radical 
Islam, fascism, anarchy, or antifa, terrorists from across the 
spectrum and across the world should be warned that the United 
States will not bend to their will, and we will not succumb to 
fear. My own district in South Carolina's First Congressional 
District has witnessed the horrors of domestic terrorism. Six 
years ago this summer, a Nazi-worshiping white supremacist by 
the name of Dylann Roof killed nine Black church members at 
Mother Emanuel. This horrific experience, trauma, horrific 
event, this tragedy inspired me and countless others in untold 
ways to work to root out the worst evils in our community. In 
Charleston and our state of South Carolina, we decided to root 
out the evil, and there is no room for racism in Charleston, in 
South Carolina, or our country.
    Mother Emanuel not only illustrates the tragedy of domestic 
terrorism in the United States, but also illustrates the 
difficulty that law enforcement face when confronting such 
threats. A recent threat assessment by the intelligence 
community notes the difficulty of disrupting lone offenders who 
radicalize independently and mobilize without direction from 
any movement or organization. Yet the domestic terror threat is 
not only a threat we face today. More Americans are falling 
victim to violent crime every year with over 20,000 murders 
occurring in 2020 alone. In 2021, year to date so far, we are 
up 10 percent over last year, and murders jumped 30 percent 
from 2019 to 2020, according to FBI statistics.
    Additionally, the threat of international terrorism grows 
by the day. The Biden Administration's own officials have noted 
that al-Qaeda may reconstitute in the Taliban-controlled 
country of Afghanistan within as little as one to two years. 
And by all accounts, what we have all witnessed over the last 
several weeks in Afghanistan, how we botched the exit, that may 
become a reality sooner than we ever could have anticipated or 
imagined because of how we exited from Afghanistan, giving 
billions of dollars of equipment and military arms and 
artillery to the Taliban, selling that equipment to Iran. And 
God knows how much money they have in the banks to use against 
us today. The threats we face today, whether or foreign, are 
real, and we must ensure adequate oversight of our government's 
plans to detect and disrupt all of these threats.
    The Biden Administration published its plan to combat 
domestic terrorism this summer. This new focus builds upon the 
prior Administration's efforts to combat domestic terrorism, 
which led to a record number of domestic terrorism charges 
filed by the Department of Justice prosecutors in 2020. I 
wholeheartedly support this effort to combat domestic terrorism 
threats. At the same time, we must ensure we are not myopically 
or singularly focused on threats from within to the detriment 
of efforts to deter threats from without. It is also essential 
that any effort to combat domestic terrorism be focused on 
targeting and disrupting violent behaviors, and that our 
government not target individuals solely because of their 
ideologies or beliefs. We must ensure any plan to combat 
domestic terrorism includes protections of fundamental rights 
and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution.
    I look forward to hearing about these issues and more today 
from three career civil law enforcement witnesses. I especially 
look forward to hearing about their efforts, in collaboration 
with partners at the Federal, state, and local level, to 
detect, disrupt, and prosecute terrorist threats, whether 
foreign or domestic. Their service, and that of the men and 
women in law enforcement working for them, is a testament 
against the irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous defund the 
police rhetoric we continue to hear from some on the left 
today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you, Representative Mace, for your 
very thoughtful statement. And I neglected to thank 
Representative Sessions, wherever he is, for his service to the 
subcommittee before he made his move.
    I now am delighted to recognize the chairwoman of the full 
Oversight Committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney, for five 
minutes, for her opening statement. And she has been such a 
great leader in defending civil rights, civil liberties, and 
democracy against violent white supremacy.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you, Chairman Raskin. I am 
pleased to be here today examine the Biden Administration's 
comprehensive strategy for addressing the threat posed by 
violent white supremacy and domestic terrorism. This 
subcommittee, under Chairman Raskin's leadership, has long 
warned of the need for the Federal Government to address 
domestic terrorism, and on January 6th, many of us in this room 
witnessed this terror firsthand.
    On that day, militia groups and other violent extremists 
led an attack on our Capitol, and the battle flag of the 
Confederacy, the symbol of white supremacy, was brought into 
the halls by force for the first time in American history. That 
threat did not arrive unannounced. In recent years, domestic 
terror attacks by white supremacists, anti-Muslim, and anti-
government extremists on the far right have surged. Yet during 
the same time period, the FBI have arrested fewer, not more, 
domestic terrorists. During the Trump Administration, top 
officials focused on the threat posed by far-left extremism, 
while a right-wing insurrection against the Capitol was planned 
in plain sight on social media, in the newspaper, on the 
airwaves. I commend the Biden Administration for recognizing 
the gravity of this threat and meeting it head on.
    Many of the proposals in this National Strategy represent a 
sea change from the previous Administration and are long 
overdue. Confronting domestic terrorism and white supremacist 
violence requires a whole-of-government approach, pulling from 
all the resources of the Federal Government, as well as state, 
local, and tribal partners. I encourage the Biden 
Administration to forge meaningful partnerships with community 
leaders to support mental health services, restorative justice 
initiatives, bystander intervention programs, and more. With 
this shift in strategy must also come a renewed commitment to 
effective oversight. Over the last 2 decades, our domestic 
national security strategy has far too often targeted 
communities of color, and Muslim communities in particular.
    We must ensure that the Federal Government does not fall 
back on flawed tools or faulty shortcuts in the name of 
national security. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses 
today about how we can achieve these new investigative 
priorities, the safeguards that will protect the civil rights 
and civil liberties of all Americans. Thank you, Chairman 
Raskin, for calling today's hearing and each of our witnesses 
for joining us here today, and I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you so much, Chair Maloney. And I am now 
delighted to recognize the ranking member of the full Oversight 
Committee, Mr. Comer, for five minutes for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Comer. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, and let me begin by 
thanking Representative Sessions for his leadership as ranking 
member of this committee. I think everyone knows Representative 
Sessions took a job in a new position on the Financial Services 
Committee, so I want to now congratulate Representative Mace 
for her rise as the ranking member of this subcommittee. I know 
she is going to do a tremendous job.
    I want to thank the witnesses for appearing here today. The 
men and women of the Department of Homeland Security and the 
Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, work tirelessly to keep Americans safe from 
terrorist attacks. As we continue to hear harmful defund the 
police rhetoric from some on the left, I am reminded of the 
bravery of law enforcement officers who put their lives on the 
line every single day to keep us safe from threats, both 
foreign and domestic.
    Crime is on the rise in the United States. At the same 
time, we face terror threats from within and without. Now more 
than ever, it is essential that our law enforcement have the 
tools they need to combat these ever-growing threats, and it is 
equally essential that we recognize their sacrifice and 
service. Law enforcement in this country is not systematically 
racist or irredeemable beyond reform, as some of my colleagues 
would assert. In fact, we will likely hear from witnesses today 
what they were doing to protect Americans, especially racial 
minorities, from racially motivated violent extremist plots. 
That isn't to say law enforcement need not respect the bounds 
of the law or protect the civil rights and civil liberties that 
we hold so dear.
    Our country is a country ruled by law, and the Constitution 
is the supreme law of the land. That document guarantees many 
of the fundamental freedoms we take for granted in our country: 
the freedoms of religion, of speech, of peaceable assembly, of 
association. It is essential that any strategy to combat 
domestic terrorism keep in mind the goal of preventing violent 
terrorist attacks. At the same time, we must safeguard our 
fundamental freedoms and not allow prejudice against religion 
or ideology to cloud our responses. Our strategy to combat all 
violence must be focused on that violence and be completely 
neutral as to ideological motivations, no matter how repugnant. 
We must target dangerous people because of their violent 
actions and not their protected beliefs.
    I hope that today's hearing will demonstrate to the Biden 
Administration that Congress is providing oversight over their 
plans to combat domestic terrorism, and I look forward to 
hearing from witnesses today what safeguards are in place to 
ensure that civil rights and civil liberties are protected. It 
is unfortunately a rare occurrence in this Congress for the 
majority to invite Biden Administration witnesses. I hope the 
majority will continue this trend and finally begin to hold the 
Biden Administration accountable for the crisis on the southern 
border and the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
    Once again, I thank the witnesses for appearing today, and 
I look forward to hearing about the work they are doing to keep 
Americans safe from terrorist attacks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 
I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. And, Mr. Comer, thank you very much for your 
thoughtful remarks. And now I get to introduce three 
extraordinary witnesses. I am not going to be able to go into 
detail on their bios, but let me quickly introduce the three of 
them before we get started.
    Our first witness is John D. Cohen, who is the coordinator 
for counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security. He 
has more than 3 decades of experience in law enforcement, 
counterintelligence, and homeland security. He has studied mass 
casualties and is currently studying the impact of internet-
based communications technologies on crime and homeland 
security. Then we will hear from Timothy Langan, who is the 
assistant director for the Counterterrorism Division at the 
FBI. He first joined the FBI back in 1998, was assigned to the 
Dallas Field Office, later Washington. He has investigated 
counterterrorism, Mexican drug trafficking, and violent crimes. 
Prior to joining the FBI, he served in the Marine Corps and was 
a police officer and undercover narcotics detective. And 
finally, we will hear from Brad Wiegmann, who is the deputy 
assistant attorney general for the National Security Division 
at the Department of Justice. Most of his career over the last 
25 years has been focused on national security, including 
counterterrorism, intelligence, counterproliferation, cyber 
policy, and law enforcement.
    So I want to welcome all three of our witnesses. The 
witnesses will be please unmuted so we can swear you in. Please 
raise your right hands.
    Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give 
is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 
help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Mr. Raskin. Let the record show that the witnesses have all 
answered in the affirmative. Thank you.
    Without objection, your written statements will be made 
part of the record.
    And with that, Mr. Cohen, you are now recognized for your 
five minutes of opening testimony.

    STATEMENT OF JOHN COHEN, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERRORISM, 
                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

    Mr. Cohen. Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Mace, thank you 
very much. It is an honor to be here. It is an honor to be with 
the members of the committee, and Chairwoman Maloney and 
Ranking Member Comer. You will find in my opening statement 
that I actually agree with much of what was said in the opening 
statements that were made previous to me.
    As mentioned, in June of this year, the Biden-Harris 
Administration released its National Strategy for Countering 
Domestic Terrorism. The strategy notes that the domestic 
terrorism threat is not a new threat within the United States, 
but it does, for the first time, at least in my experience, 
offer a comprehensive whole-of-government approach in 
combatting that threat. Chairman Raskin, you have already gone 
through the elements of the strategy, so I won't repeat that, 
but I will say is that the Department of Homeland Security 
worked closely with the FBI, the Justice Department, the White 
House, and the rest of the Federal interagencies to develop the 
strategy, and we continue to work closely with those 
organizations, as well as state, local, tribal governments, the 
private sector, community leaders, civil society organizations, 
advocacy groups, as we seek to implement the strategy.
    I'd like to take a few minutes, if I can, to describe our 
underlying understanding of the threat that we face currently 
within the country because I think it will provide some context 
to our discussions today about what the Department is doing.
    While we certainly are facing a threat that has an 
organizational dynamic that involves groups of individuals that 
coalesce around and even engage in violent and destructive 
behavior in furtherance of extremist or a blend of extremist 
beliefs, it is important to remember that it is also a threat 
that is very individualized in nature. As repeatedly assessed 
by DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, when looked at 
from a lethal perspective, the most significant terrorism-
related threat facing the U.S. today comes primarily from lone 
offenders, individuals who engage in violent activity inspired 
by extremist beliefs or a blend of extremist beliefs, or a 
blend of extremist beliefs and personal grievances that are 
most often cultivated through the consumption of online 
content.
    This is a trend that began several years ago and has 
continued to evolve. And while, as we look back at past 
attacks, the specific motives behind these attacks vary, 
analysis and research tells us that many of the attackers share 
common behavioral characteristics. In particular, these are 
people who tend to be angry, socially disconnected, seeking a 
sense of life meaning. They spend significant time online, and 
ultimately self-connect with a cause or grievance to justify 
the use of violence as a way to express their anger and achieve 
a sense of social connection and self-worth.
    It is a threat that does not often fit into traditional 
terrorism-or extremism-related definitional categories. In 
fact, this is one of the primary challenges in trying to define 
and investigate these types of threats. Those who engage in 
violence often self-connect with a combination of extremist 
beliefs or a blend of extremist beliefs and personal 
grievances. Terms of art like ``salad bar extremism'' and 
``hybrid ideologies'' are references to the fact that attackers 
adapt a blend of ideological beliefs and grievances.
    This is a threat that manifests itself both in the physical 
and digital environments. Online content, disinformation, false 
narratives, and conspiracy theories spread by foreign nation-
states, international terrorist groups, and extremist thought 
leaders fuel much of the violence we are experiencing in the 
country today. Domestic and foreign threat actors purposely 
seek to exploit the fractures in our society, the anger and 
discord in our political discourse to sow discord and inspire 
acts of violence.
    In addressing this threat, we have to understand a few 
things. From an intelligence perspective, we need to think 
differently about how we look at information. Pre-incident 
indicators may be apparent through public actions or 
communications. Covert collection may not be necessary to 
capture valuable intelligence, but analysts need to be able to 
distinguish between constitutionally protected speech and 
threat-related activity.
    Preventing acts of violence. Joint terrorism task forces 
have for years kept our communities safe through 
multijurisdictional investigations into potential terrorism 
threats. Community-based prevention programs are needed to 
complement the efforts of the JTTF.
    The threat posed by high-risk individuals who do not meet 
the investigative threshold necessary for terrorism-related 
investigations. This means providing grant funding, training, 
technical assistance to local communities so that law 
enforcement, mental health professionals, social service 
providers, educators, and community groups can work together to 
identify those individuals who are traveling down the path of 
violence and develop strategies to manage those folks.
    Let me close by saying real quickly that we recognize that 
we are facing a broad, complex, and diverse threat environment. 
We're dealing with an evolving foreign terrorism threat. We're 
dealing with a multiyear trend of increased violent crime. 
We're dealing with disinformation and other covert actions by 
foreign intelligence services. We're dealing with a broad range 
of cyberthreats. We need, at the Department, to be able to deal 
with all of those threats effectively as well as the threat 
posed by domestic terrorists, violent extremists, and targeted 
violence. Let me also say finally that it is not our job to 
police thought. It is not our job to infringe on the 
constitutional rights of Americans. It is our job to prevent 
violence, and the men and women of DHS work closely with law 
enforcement across the country to do that.
    Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. 
Cohen. And, Mr. Langan, you are now recognized for your 
testimony. Five minutes.

       STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY LANGAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, 
   COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

    Mr. Langan. Good morning, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking 
Member Comer, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Mace, and members 
of the subcommittee. I am honored to be here today representing 
the dedicated men and women of the FBI's Counterterrorism 
Division, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here to 
discuss the FBI's role in implementing the National Strategy 
for Countering Domestic Terrorism.
    Preventing acts of terrorism is the FBI's No. 1 priority. 
The great terrorism threat facing our homeland is that posed by 
lone actors or small cells who typically radicalize online and 
look to use easily accessible weapons to attack soft targets. 
We see this threat within both home-grown violent extremists, 
or HVEs, who are inspired by foreign terrorist groups and 
domestic violent extremists, or DVEs, whose inspiration stems 
from domestic influences.
    Domestic terrorism has been and continues to be a top 
priority for the FBI. Although the strategy is new and is the 
first national strategy focused entirely on mitigating domestic 
strategy, this is not the first time domestic terrorism has 
been included in our Nation's counterterrorism strategy, 
largely due to the FBI's focus on this threat. The FBI 
participated heavily in the development of the strategy and is 
the leading agency for the domestic terrorism threat. We have a 
key role in working with our partners to implement the 
strategy. The strategy outlines four strategic pillars that 
guide the U.S. Government's collective response to domestic 
terrorism. These pillars require the FBI to fully leverage our 
partnerships with Federal, state, and local law enforcement, 
the private sector, academia, and our foreign counterparts.
    Pillar one calls for us to understand and share domestic 
terrorism-related information. The FBI has already bolstered 
our analytical resources focused on this threat. We continue to 
disseminate intelligence products to our partners to identify 
actionable intelligence, trends on domestic terrorism threats, 
and tactics and tradecraft used by DVEs. Many of these 
intelligence products are produced jointly with the National 
Counterterrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security 
in the form of joint intelligence bulletins. We also look to 
strengthen our two-way exchange of information with our state 
and local law enforcement partners as they are often in the 
best position to identify important facets of a threat.
    The second pillar calls upon the government to prevent 
domestic terrorism recruitment and mobilization of violence. To 
this end, the FBI is supporting our Federal partners to 
highlight available resources related to prevention. We are 
working with NCTC and DHS to update the Homegrown and Violent 
Extremist Mobilization Indicators Guide, which in 2021 will, 
for the very time, articulate potential indicators of DVE 
mobilization to violence. We also are working with DHS and the 
Department of Justice to research and share best practices for 
curbing prison radicalization.
    Pillar three looks to disrupt and deter domestic terrorism 
activity. Internally, the FBI has prioritized key domestic 
terrorism threats at the same level as certain international 
terrorism threats, such as ISIS and HVEs. The FBI is 
destructing domestic terrorism plots and actors, often in close 
coordination with state and local law enforcement within the 
FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force framework. The final pillar 
seeks to confront long-term contributors to domestic terrorism, 
which is a goal that is not specific to just the FBI, but a 
shared responsibility among the American people.
    The FBI takes seriously its mission to both uphold the 
Constitution and to protect the American people. Regardless of 
a person's ideology, the FBI will actively pursue the opening 
of FBI investigations when an individual uses or threatens the 
use of force, violence, or coercion in violation of Federal law 
and in furtherance of social or political goals. Thank you and 
I look forward to answering your questions.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Langan, thank you very much for your 
thoughtful testimony. And finally, we will recognize Mr. 
Wiegmann for your five minutes.

STATEMENT OF BRAD WIEGMANN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, 
       NATIONAL SECURITY DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    Mr. Wiegmann. Good morning, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member 
Mace, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Comer, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today on behalf of the Department of 
Justice.
    The terrible tragedies arising from domestic terrorist 
attacks in the United States in recent years are unfortunately 
all too familiar. In 2015, as Ranking Member Mace mentioned, a 
white supremacist shot and killed nine Black men and women 
during a Bible study at a church in Charleston. In 2017, a man 
with neo-Nazi views drove his car into a crowd of peaceful 
protestors in Charlottesville, murdering one and injuring many 
more. In 2018, a man espousing antisemitic views shot and 
killed 11 Jewish worshippers at their synagogue in Pittsburgh. 
In 2019, 23 people, most of whom were Latino, were gunned down 
by a white nationalist while shopping at a Walmart in El Paso.
    There are also many others who have been arrested and 
prosecuted before they had a chance to do harm: a white 
nationalist convicted last year in Maryland, was stockpiling 
assault weapons and planning attacks on minorities and elected 
officials; a man sentenced earlier this year for plotting to 
blow up a synagogue in Colorado; six men charged with 
conspiring to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. And as you know, 
the Department of Justice and the FBI are now engaged in a 
massive investigation in response to the violent attacks on the 
U.S. Capitol on January 6th in which more than 600 people have 
been arrested. We continue to face an elevated threat. The FBI 
has more than doubled the number of domestic terrorism 
investigations over the last several years. As has been alluded 
to earlier in the hearing, the top threats we face are from 
those we categorize as racially or ethnically motivated violent 
extremists, as well as anti-government or anti-authority 
violent extremists.
    As the Attorney General said earlier this summer, the 
first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic 
Terrorism is designed to provide a principled path for the 
Federal Government's efforts to counter this heightened threat 
using all available tools. It's the culmination of an effort 
undertaken at the President's direction by agencies across the 
Federal Government, from the Justice Department to the 
Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, Health and 
Human Services, and others. There are four pillars that have 
already been mentioned today, so I won't go through them again 
in detail, but just to say, in general, what we're doing at the 
Department of Justice in order to implement this strategy.
    This includes dedicating more resources to counter this 
threat--we've included a request for $100 million more to 
address domestic terrorism--increasing our focus on domestic 
terrorism in the intelligence we collect; ensuring we can share 
as much information as we can with Federal, state, local, 
tribal, and territorial partners; deepening our collaboration 
with our foreign partners and allies to explore links to 
international counterparts of domestic extremists. And that's 
something I would characterize as new in this strategy is we 
are seeing connections around the world, and that's something 
that this strategy recognizes and calls on us to focus on. 
Ensuring that we are working with the tech sector, since so 
much radicalization occurs online. That's a big focus of this 
strategy as well. And ensuring that we have sufficient training 
both at the state and Federal level.
    Finally, I want to just mention two other points that are 
embodied in this strategy and that the other witnesses have 
mentioned today as well as the members of the committee, but 
that are crucial to this whole effort. First is that this 
strategy recognizes that merely espousing an extremist ideology 
is not a crime, nor is expressing hateful views and associating 
with hateful groups. Any steps to counter domestic terrorism 
must be focused on violent acts or true threats of violence so 
as to safeguard Americans' civil rights and civil liberties. 
There are longstanding guidelines that prohibit the FBI from 
engaging in investigative activities solely for the purpose of 
monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or other 
constitutional rights, and this is a core value for the 
Department of Justice and the FBI.
    Second is the strategy also recognizes, as others have 
alluded to today, it is absolutely critical that we condemn and 
confront domestic terrorism regardless of the particular 
motivating ideology. The definition of ``domestic terrorism'' 
in U.S. law makes no distinction based on political views, be 
they left, right, or center, and neither should we.
    In closing, I want to note that this strategy is not just a 
document that we've written to put on a shelf. Actively, work 
is being done to implement it. That's under way and will be 
ongoing for months and years to come. So thank you for the 
invitation to testify today, and I look forward to answering 
your questions.
    Mr. Raskin. I want to thank all of the witnesses for their 
excellent testimony today, and I will recognize myself for my 
five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Wiegmann, let me start with you, picking up on that 
last point. It seems to me that we have a very difficult 
problem because so much of the domestic violent extremist 
activity that takes place is motivated, and inspired, and 
incited by speech online. So what does it mean to say that the 
government wants to disrupt and deter domestic terror activity 
when that activity, as Mr. Cohen testifies, often arises from 
lone actors, individuals who get inspired by disinformation and 
propaganda that they read online?
    Mr. Wiegmann. Yes, and thank you for that question. If your 
question is--what are the rules that we have around online 
activity and how we investigate that? Is that your question?
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Mr. Wiegmann. Yes. So, again, as I mentioned in my opening 
statement, we cannot collect information solely on the basis of 
hate speech or First Amendment protected activity. So if 
someone is online saying they hate a particular religious group 
or ethnic group, that in and of itself is not enough to 
initiate investigative activity, but if it is coupled with any 
kind of indications of violence, that would be something that 
we could investigate. We have a whole set of detailed rules, 
both in the Attorney General guidelines that were developed in 
the 1970's in response to the abuses from the 60's and 70's 
that were identified in the Church Committee Report, and then 
the FBI has an extensive manual, which I actually brought with 
me today. It's called the Domestic Investigations and 
Operations Guide. I don't know if you all can see that on the 
video, but it is a very thick, kind of the size of a phone 
book, set of rules that we have for the different phases of an 
investigation, when you can initiate an investigation, and it 
talks about the First Amendment constraints. It talks about 
freedom of association. It talks about freedom of speech, 
freedom of religion. And the FBI has lawyers that are actively 
involved in all investigations, but, in particular, in domestic 
terrorism investigations, to ensure that will that we are 
walking that line.
    It is a reasonable set of rules. I don't want to over 
emphasize. I think we can still investigate the activities as 
we see fit. It is just that you need more than speech alone in 
order to investigate. I don't know if that answers your 
question.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes, thank you. Mr. Cohen, let me come to you. 
I think most of us who experienced January 6th would consider 
the government's advance threat assessment and planning to be 
woefully inadequate. What has been learned from what took place 
on January 6th, and, you know, are there lessons that will 
correct the kind of inadequate response that the government 
had?
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman. We 
learned several lessons. One, as I alluded to in my opening 
statement, we, from an intelligence perspective, have to look 
differently at information that comes to our attention. You 
know, there is a traditional thought process within the 
intelligence community that ascribes a greater level of 
credibility to information that has been collected through 
covert or sensitive collection platforms. But as we can all 
agree, there was a substantial amount of information on public-
facing social media and online platforms that describe the 
intent of individuals to come to Washington, DC. and engage in 
destructive and even violent behavior in response to their 
belief that the election had been compromised, or had been 
rigged, or had been stolen.
    As I compare what happened prior to January 6th and what 
happened recently on September 18th when we were seeing similar 
traffic on public-facing websites, is there was a much greater 
level of security preparations by local authorities, Federal 
authorities, and others. There was a much higher level of 
information-sharing between DHS, the FBI, and Federal agencies, 
as well as state and locals.
    We have to also understand and become better aware at 
understanding what narratives that are being promoted on 
threat-related platforms are more likely to be an indicator of 
potential violence and use that information to inform physical 
security measures that could actually serve as a disincentive. 
One of the things that we observed between January 6th and 
January 20th was that those who were calling to come back to 
Washington during the Inauguration and continue, from their 
perspective, the fight against what they viewed as a stolen 
election, they saw that there were security preparations in 
place, and they made the decision and were disinclined to come 
to Washington as a result.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, and I will now yield to 
the ranking member for her five minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I was preparing for 
this hearing, and being on a subcommittee chaired by Mr. 
Raskin, you got to be prepared, I was actually kind of shocked 
to discover there was not a lot of good data out there that I 
could find on domestic terrorism. So I have a few questions 
that I would like to try to quantify some of this. And this is 
the sixth hearing on white supremacy in this series, so I would 
be interested to hear from Mr. Cohen first. Understanding that 
statistics might be difficult to quantify, are you able to sort 
of give us an estimate on the number of casualties due to 
domestic terrorism overall in the U.S. over the last 10 or 20 
years? I read somewhere in one study it was around 250. That 
seems kind of low to me, not accurate. Are we talking hundreds, 
thousands, tens of thousands? Do we know the number of 
casualties due to domestic terrorism?
    Mr. Cohen. So thank you for that question, Ranking Member. 
As we had discussed yesterday, I went back and started trying 
to pull some of those same statistics in preparation of the 
hearing, and as you point out, it is difficult. In some cases, 
it is typical to ascribe the motive of a mass casualty attack 
or an act of targeted violence directly to a single extremist 
motivation. In other cases, it is a combination of an extremist 
ideological belief and personal grievances. In other cases, it 
may be ascribed to someone's behavioral health or mental health 
status.
    I think that if you look strictly at the issue of events 
from a prosecutorial perspective that can be ascribed to a 
white supremacist belief, I would have to defer to the FBI from 
the perspective of Federal charges. But, again, the capturing 
of statistics in this is complicated, but it is certainly 
something that we need to be able to do better if we are going 
to tell a convincing narrative about why this is a significant 
problem facing the country.
    Ms. Mace. Yes. I feel like we ought to know the number, the 
answer to that. My next question is for Mr. Wiegmann. Many of 
the atrocities and mass shootings we have seen have not only 
been perpetrated by racists and racist ideology and extremists, 
but also by individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. 
How would or how does the Department of Justice distinguish 
between individuals who are committing acts of violence due to 
mental health crisis versus those who are domestic extremists 
motivated by a racist or political ideology?
    Mr. Wiegmann. So if they have committed a crime, it doesn't 
matter whether it is due to a particular ideology or mental 
health conditions. As the other witnesses have alluded to 
today, it could be a combination of those things, a combination 
of different ideologies and mental health problems. Many of 
these people do have mental health problems, so they can be 
prosecuted regardless of that. And I think the FBI tries to 
keep statistics about the ideology, but it can be challenging 
because it can be a mix of different motivations that are 
involved.
    Ms. Mace. OK. And then, Mr. Langan, the FBI works to 
prevent both international and domestic terrorism threats. Are 
you able to give me a breakdown of the caseload? What 
percentage is domestic terrorism versus foreign terrorism 
threats of the cases that we work on?
    Mr. Langan. Yes. Yes. For domestic terrorism threats, 
currently we are approximately over 2,700 threats, and for the 
international terrorism threats, we are under 1,000. And I did 
have some information on homicides and deaths for the last five 
years, but not for last 10 if you are interested in those.
    Ms. Mace. Yes, I would love that.
    Mr. Langan. As far as international terrorism-related 
deaths, from 2015 to 2020, there were 80 recorded deaths in the 
homeland, and for that same time period for DT attacks, there 
were 83 deaths in that five-year period.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. And then another question, Mr. Langan. 
I read an article in The New Yorker this week about, I am 
calling it ``intelligence sabotage,'' an environmental activist 
advocating to blow up pipelines, not going as far as kidnapping 
people. But does the FBI consider environmental intelligence 
sabotage domestic terrorism?
    Mr. Langan. Any threats to human life are considered 
terrorism by the FBI. The ideology is various, but we take any 
threats that would be toward violent acts to be serious.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you. And we 
will now go to Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her five minutes of 
questioning.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The 
decision by the Biden Administration to release the National 
Strategy document explicitly focused on fighting domestic 
extremism was an unprecedented decision made in response to 
what was clearly an alarming surge in domestic terror threats. 
I would like to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, these 
statistics from the Center for Strategic and International 
Studies, especially in light of the ranking member making a 
reference to there being a lack of data[SA1], which is not 
accurate. The number of----
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much. The number of 
domestic terrorist plots has been on the rise in recent years, 
and in 2020, that figure reached its highest level in at least 
a quarter century. Ninety percent of those plots were 
committed, as you can see, by domestic extremists, 67 percent 
by far-right groups. Only five percent were inspired by violent 
jihadist ideologies. Nevertheless, as recently as 2018, the 
Trump Administration's national counterterrorism strategy 
emphasized that international jihadist organizations were the 
top terrorism threats and devoted only a few sentences to 
domestic threats. In announcing this strategy, Attorney General 
Merrick Garland promised to, and I quote, ``respond to domestic 
terrorism with the same sense of purpose and dedication that 
previous Administrations have devoted to foreign-based 
terrorist threats.''
    Mr. Wiegmann, you are the principal deputy assistant 
attorney general tasked with implementing the strategy, and I 
commend you. What work is the Department of Justice already 
doing to implement the changes called for in the strategy, and 
what still needs to be accomplished to better respond to the 
rise of violent white supremacists and other forms of violent 
extremism?
    Mr. Wiegmann. Thanks for that question. So as I alluded to 
in my opening testimony, there is a whole range of activities 
that we are undertaking under Attorney General Garland's 
leadership to address domestic terrorism. In addition to the 
January 6th investigation, which I mentioned, obviously we have 
our ordinary cases that we are pursuing all across the country. 
The FBI has more than doubled the number of domestic terrorism 
investigations, so that reflects the increased threat level 
that we are seeing. But as I also mentioned in my opening 
testimony, there are a whole range of other policy initiatives 
that we have launched at DOJ. This includes reinvigorating the 
Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, which is an 
information-sharing and policy oversight forum that the 
Department of Justice chairs that includes elements of the 
interagency.
    We have broadened our approach so that we are working more 
with other parts of the government, be it HHS or the 
intelligence community, to focus on this threat. We have asked 
for more resources to deal with the increased caseload that we 
are seeing. We are focused also on prevention efforts, so we 
are on our toes on that issue as to how we can work to, when we 
do identify people that are posing a threat of domestic 
terrorist attack, but maybe not yet committed a crime----
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    Mr. Wiegmann [continuing]. Or Federal charges would not be 
appropriate, as to what other mechanisms we can develop to 
ensure----
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Wiegmann. I have got 
another question I wanted to ask you about.
    Mr. Wiegmann. Sure.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I am a founder and co-chair of the 
congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations, and so I am all 
too familiar with how real these threats are, and especially 
those targeting Black and Jewish communities. We clearly have 
to have a counterterrorism effort that acknowledges the extent 
to which minority communities are under attack. Can you explain 
how the strategy will directly address the dangers posed to 
racial and ethnic minorities?
    Mr. Wiegmann. Yes. So the strategy is ideology neutral, but 
obviously recognizes that the most lethal attacks that we have 
had in recent years, including some of the ones I mentioned in 
my opening statement, have been from racially motivated violent 
extremists, including targeting synagogues and Jewish 
worshippers, African Americans, Latinos, other ethnic groups. 
So because that is the No. 1 threat, it is inherent in the 
strategy that that is going to be a key focus of ours. I don't 
know if that answers your question.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. I would like to 
underscore the significance of what we are discussing here. 
Since 9/11, the Federal Government has overwhelmingly focused 
its counterterrorism mission on combating foreign terrorist 
organizations and their potential presence in the United 
States. This document represents a blueprint for a Federal 
Government that is hopefully more reactive to the threat 
landscape that we actually face today. Mr. Cohen, as the 
counterterrorism coordinator for the Department of Homeland 
Security, what do you see as the biggest shifts in the threat 
landscape in the two decades since 9/11, and do you see this 
strategy as a long-overdue shift away from a post-9/11 paradigm 
focused primarily on foreign sources of terrorism?
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you for the question. I think that from a 
shift perspective, our counterterrorism strategies in the past 
focused on combating activities of foreign-based organizations 
who sought to introduce operatives into the U.S. to carry out 
attacks. What we are dealing with now, as we have discussed, 
has more to do with lone individuals who self-connect with 
ideological beliefs that they acquire through their online 
activity. They will act on behalf of an ideological belief or 
even a terrorist group but operate independent of that group. 
So many of the tools and resources that we have used, such as 
those of our intelligence community, our military, and other 
counterterrorism capabilities, don't necessarily apply to a 
significant part of the threat. We have to use new tools. We 
have to work with communities more closely in order to identify 
high-risk individuals and take steps to manage the threat they 
pose.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, I know 
I am at a time, but if I could enter into the record, since I 
don't have time to make reference to it, this last slide that 
would show that we have domestic terrorism investigations that 
have more than doubled since 2017, from 1,000 to 2,700 cases.
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection, we will enter that.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, for your 
questions.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I appreciate that, and I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. And I am now delighted to go to Representative 
Sessions, the former ranking member, but we are delighted still 
to have you with us, Mr. Sessions.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and I want 
to thank this panel for being there. Mr. Cohen and Mr. 
Wiegmann, are there any cities that do not fully participate 
and share information with you about criminal activity that 
occurs within their jurisdiction?
    Mr. Cohen. I cannot, as we are sitting here, think of any 
cities. In fact, I would have to say that over the last 10 
months, we have dramatically expanded our information sharing 
with state, local, tribal governments, and the private sector 
to the point where we are having biweekly meetings to discuss 
emerging threats and operational issues.
    Mr. Wiegmann. I am not aware. I defer to the FBI on that 
question.
    Mr. Sessions. OK. Mr. Langan?
    Mr. Langan. Yes, sir. Thank you. We have 56 field offices, 
and every one of our field offices has a joint terrorism task 
force that consists of over 200 joint terrorism task forces and 
hundreds of state and local law enforcement officials. I am not 
aware of direct information related to any particular cities or 
localities that are not sharing, and we concentrate, again, on 
those enhanced relationships and partnerships through our 
JTTFs.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes. Thank you. And sure you do, and I would 
expect that that relationship would be shared. So in other 
words, you are saying that if there were a cartel member or a 
person that was picked up for being arrested, let's say in 
Seattle, for anything, if there was a link to violence or 
terrorism, you would then have access to that information, know 
who that person was. I hear you saying that, Mr. Cohen.
    Mr. Cohen. Look, I left the Department in 2014 after a 
stint in the Bush Administration and then the Obama 
Administration. I came back in 2021. I have to say that I was 
somewhat disappointed at the state of information sharing upon 
my return. Some of the information sharing relationships the 
Department had forged over years had atrophied, and that is why 
it has been such a big priority for us to reestablish those 
lines of communication, the lines of communication, the trust, 
and the technology that we use to exchange information. So I 
can't sit here today and say to you that over the last several 
years there were not instances in which information that was 
gathered by the Federal Government or information that had been 
gathered by state and locals was shared effectively. I can tell 
you that it is a top priority for the Department under 
Secretary Mayorkas to reestablish those lines of communications 
on a very tactical, granular, and operational level.
    Mr. Sessions. Well, what I would ask all three of you, if 
you could please provide information to me or to our 
subcommittee chairman about any jurisdiction that has expressly 
made a decision that they will not share information that was 
gathered or garnered on a local basis with, as you suggest, the 
task forces or with Federal law enforcement. I think it is 
important to note that in Texas, we have had, over our past, a 
number of people, including those that have been what I would 
call mass murderers, who have done things that may have been 
minor, but they came to the attention of local people. They 
were criminal violations, and I would like to make sure that no 
matter where in the United States, that that information would 
be available so that if they reappeared somewhere, we had 
information where we could quickly make sure we knew who they 
were. And so I would ask all three of you, please, on a 
positive basis, to send either to the committee chairman or to 
myself, Congressman Pete Sessions, information that you would 
certify, you know, send me if there is any location, or locale, 
or state, or city that does not actively share because of their 
own decisionmaking that they made.
    I want to thank all three of you. I think that what the 
chairman is doing by having this hearing is important. We need 
to identify, we need to know who these people are, we need to 
understand about them, and I applaud all three of you. But my 
address is Rayburn 2204, and I would appreciate hearing from 
all three of you as to that question.
    Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you so much, Mr. Sessions, for your 
questioning. I am happy now to go to Representative Mfume for 
his five minutes. Before, though, I do want to remind all the 
members of the committee, please wear a mask in accordance with 
the Oversight Committee rule that we are supposed to be wearing 
masks when we are not asking questions. So thank you all for 
modeling good behavior here. And, Representative Mfume, the 
pride of Baltimore, we come to you.
    Mr. Mfume. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want 
to thank you and the ranking member for deciding to hold this 
hearing and then to bring it into existence. I appreciate your 
leadership of this committee obviously. I have two points I 
know that I want to make here as I try to muddle through this. 
I mean, so much of this is subjective, and then there is a lot 
of it that is objective. And both of you, or all three of you, 
are in agencies now that are trying, as I understand, to make 
sure that we maximize our efforts. And I will grant to you that 
it is a tough, tough job.
    One of the things that I do want to go back to was, the 
gentlewoman from Florida raised a point that I was looking at 
making earlier, and that is that since 2017, domestic violence 
cases and threats have more than doubled. And so, if that is 
taking place, can any of you, or all three of you talk about 
how your efforts are matching the doubling, if not the 
tripling, of those threats in those instances?
    Mr. Cohen. I can go first, Congressman. This is John Cohen. 
This year, we identified domestic violent extremism as a 
priority in the FEMA Grant Program, meaning that a portion of 
those grants have to be dedicated to activities at the state 
and local level intended to address the threat posed by 
domestic violent extremists. We just awarded an additional $20 
million in what I call innovation grants, grants that are going 
to localities across the country that are intended to fund the 
evaluation of community-based violence prevention programs, 
which I alluded to in my opening statement, which we see as a 
tool in helping communities to be better able to detect, assess 
the risk posed by individuals, and to manage the threat that 
they pose through the use of mental health support, social 
service support, and other multidisciplinary threat management 
strategies.
    We have expanded the number of people that we have focusing 
on conducting analysis in the Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis, which I also run now. More analysts are focusing on 
the threat posed by domestic violent extremists, domestic 
terrorists, homegrown violent extremists. We have also expanded 
our efforts to analyze and evaluate online content, 
particularly that content that is present on platforms or 
communities that we know are associated with international 
terrorists and domestic violent extremists. That is just a 
snapshot of some of the things that we are doing at the 
Department or have started doing in the Department since the 
release of the strategy.
    Mr. Mfume. Anyone else want to----
    Mr. Langan. Yes, sir. At the FBI, we have surged our 
resources to reflect the increased number of cases and threats 
that we are seeing in the DT space. At one time after January 
6th, we increased our resources over 260 percent to address 
those threats. In addition, in 2019, we created a Hate Crimes-
DT Fusion Cell. So we continue to evaluate the threat in all 56 
field offices individually to make sure that we are allocating 
the appropriate resources regarding the threats and where they 
are in each of our field offices, and then collaborating that 
back here at headquarters.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much. I know it was alluded to 
earlier about whether or not the level of interagency 
cooperation was adequate or not. I want to go back to that, and 
on the record here, can you give me, either of you or all of 
you, some specific sense of how your agencies are working 
together to improve interagency cooperation, which I think, and 
I am sure all of you would agree, is absolutely essential in 
terms of dealing with this problem?
    Mr. Cohen. I speak weekly with the deputy director of the 
FBI. Every call or briefing that we do with state and local 
authorities or the private sector, we conduct in coordination 
with the FBI. In particular, as we are in the process of 
developing a public education campaign for school-age children 
focusing on online resilience, we are working with the 
Department of Education. We are working with the Justice 
Department. We are working with the FBI. We have prevention 
coordinators who are assigned across the country to work with 
local communities. Most of those prevention coordinators are 
co-located within the U.S. attorneys' offices for the 
jurisdictions that they are operating within.
    I would say that the level of coordination and cooperation, 
particularly between the Justice Department, the FBI, and the 
Department of Homeland Security, is probably the strongest that 
I have seen in the many years that I have worked in government.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chairman, my time has 
expired. I want to thank you again for holding this hearing, 
and I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you for your questioning, Mr. Mfume. 
I am going to come now to Mr. Donalds for his five minutes. I 
just do want to restate that the committee rule about masks and 
tell fellow members that on Monday, I had a call from the 
Capitol physician--I was in a committee meeting; I don't know 
if it was this committee or another--from the prior week where 
a member of came down with COVID-19, and I had to go and be 
tested. So it continues to be a real threat in the halls of 
Congress.
    Mr. Donalds, you are recognized for your five minutes.
    Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad you are 
healthy. I hope the other member that tested positive is 
healthy as well. That member was vaccinated. Well, obviously 
that is another issue for another day. Let's just get right to 
it. Thanks for holding this hearing.
    Obviously domestic terror in the United States is something 
that is very important. We must take it seriously. There can be 
no quarter for terrorism from anywhere, whether it is around 
the globe or here at home, against anybody in our Nation. And I 
think we all share that same vow of obligation to do everything 
we can to stop it in its tracks, period, full stop. But I do 
want to dig into some of the details. Mr. Langan, in the 
domestic terrorist assessment, the March 2021 assessment, it 
says domestic violence extremists are motivated by a range of 
ideologies. At the FBI, do you actually have the ability today 
to actually quantify the range of ideologies that exist?
    Mr. Langan. Thank you, sir. We categorize them in five main 
categories for domestic violence, and that is racially or 
ethnically motivated violent extremists, anti-government/anti-
authority violent extremists, animal rights and environmental 
violent extremists, abortion-related violent extremists, and 
then a catch-all category are our overall categories that we 
capture the domestic violent extremists in.
    Mr. Donalds. OK. So you guys quantify them to specific, I 
guess I will say, probably specific categories of politics, but 
not political ideology?
    Mr. Langan. Not politics, sir, but ideology that would 
represent one of those. For example, within racially/ethnically 
motivated, we could have subcategories for white supremacist-
driven or other ethnic groups that would be driving that. So 
there is a way for us to capture it and we do.
    Mr. Donalds. OK. My last point, and it is really an 
important question for you. We are discussing white supremacy, 
so I do want to bring up something or bring up somebody who was 
deemed the black face of white supremacy, Mr. Larry Elder. He 
was actually dubbed that by a columnist at the Los Angeles 
Times. Ironically, while Mr. Elder was walking through a 
neighborhood, he was attacked by a white person wearing a 
gorilla mask who assaulted Mr. Elder. Does the FBI consider 
that to be domestic terror and/or white supremacy?
    Mr. Langan. Sir, I have to look at the specifics of the 
case. So, in general, any acts of violence that are committed 
against an individual----
    Mr. Donalds. Mr. Langan, it was a very specific case. 
Everybody saw it. Well, let me bring that back, Mr. Langan. I 
apologize. Not everybody saw it----
    Mr. Langan. It may be investigated locally.
    Mr. Donalds. It actually wasn't really reported that 
widely, so I will explain this scene, if you will. If there is 
a Black man walking down the street who is running for the 
Governor's mansion in the state of California, and a white 
person in a gorilla mask assaults him on the street, does the 
FBI consider that white supremacy and/or domestic terror?
    Mr. Langan. So, again, any act of violence that would be 
committed against an individual as a result of an ideology of 
the individual. So we would have to look at the motivation of 
that individually or possibly also a hate crime. We work with 
the Department of Justice to identify the particulars. 
Initially, on a case like that--again, it may be pursued right 
now by the local officials--we would work heavily with our 
local officials initially on identifying the fact patterns of 
the investigation, again, as I mentioned, through our JTTFs and 
quickly determine if we would be able to apply Federal law 
against the individual on the investigation, and at least 
provide investigative assistance.
    Mr. Donalds. I appreciate that. I appreciate your candor. 
And, you know, I really do want to thank you, the FBI, the 
Department of Justice, and Homeland for your efforts to, 
frankly, keep all Americans safe. And with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Donalds. I am coming 
to my friend, Ms. Kelly, Robin Kelly, the distinguished 
representative from Illinois.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations to 
Ranking Member Mace. Congratulations to you.
    In touting this counterterrorism strategy as a reset for 
Federal counterterrorism policy, Administration officials have 
often cited the fact that they will be taking a ``public health 
approach to violence prevention'' that will involve a whole-of-
government and whole-of-society approach. The strategy states 
that this will involve not only efforts from DHS and other 
Federal law enforcement, but also ``community-facing 
components'' of the Department of Justice, Health and Human 
Services, and Education. Mr. Cohen, you have been an 
instrumental player in formulating this new public health 
approach to counterterrorism. What does the Administration mean 
when it says it is taking a public health approach to 
counterterrorism?
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much for that question. It is an 
important question. What the public health approach refers to 
is that it brings together, on a multidisciplinary basis, 
resources from across the community so that individuals who may 
pose a risk to that community, based on behavioral health 
issues, based on family issues, based on educational issues, 
but they pose a risk of violence all the same, those 
individuals can take part in services that address the 
underlying issues that are perhaps responsible for them 
traveling down the path of violence.
    I will contrast it to the approach of countering violent 
extremism back in 2012--2013 timeframe, which is an effort that 
I was a part of, but as I look back in retrospect, I find that 
we probably had some flawed assumptions that went into the 
development of that strategy. And we certainly underestimated 
the level of distrust that existed between communities of 
color, in particular, Arab-American and Muslim communities and 
government. And I think that strategy focused on the belief 
that attackers came from specific communities, so we needed to 
work with specific communities in order to have them support 
efforts to prevent attacks by those people.
    This approach recognizes that those who are engaging in 
violence come from a broad cross-section of racial, ethnic, 
socioeconomic elements of our community. It is not limited to a 
specific community, and that oftentimes non-law enforcement 
intervention strategies--mental health support has been 
mentioned several times--that is a key part of this public 
health strategy. But providing access to inpatient and 
outpatient mental health support is an example of the type of 
threat prevention activities that can be applied at the 
community level.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you. I agree that prevention programs that 
focus more on increased access to social services and public 
health are necessary steps toward a more effective Federal 
response. Given that other agencies will be involved, what is 
the precise role that DHS will play in helping to set up these 
public health prevention programs that involve other non-law 
enforcement agencies?
    Mr. Cohen. A great question. So our primary role comes in 
several areas. One is providing financial support through our 
grant programs so that planning activities and the types of 
activities that we were just discussing that are proven to be 
effective in reducing the risk posed by individuals or groups 
of individuals can leverage grant funds provided by the 
Department. We also work closely with the Justice Department 
and the FBI through the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We work with 
the Secret Service through the National Threat Assessment 
Center. We work with representatives from various, you know, 
mental health-related organizations to provide training and 
technical assistance in the area of threat assessment and 
threat management, making sure that local communities have the 
ability to bring together, on a multidisciplinary basis, the 
right skill sets to assess whether somebody who is exhibiting 
behavioral characteristics associated with threat-related 
activity, to assess whether they pose a risk, and then to 
develop a plan to assess that risk.
    Ms. Kelly. Let me just interrupt you----
    Mr. Cohen. Sure.
    Ms. Kelly [continuing]. Just quickly because my time is 
running out. What do you say to some of the criticism that you 
are getting as far as mixing law enforcement agencies or 
intertwining these with public health agencies?
    Mr. Cohen. I think it is a valid concern, and we work very 
hard to, one, make sure that we have the right interagency 
partners that can come together to help develop these 
solutions. But also we are very focused on reestablishing or 
rebuilding, or, in some places, establishing for the first 
time, trust between the Department, and community 
organizations, and community members that may not have a lot of 
trust or not be willing to communicate with the Department.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you. I am out of time. I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. Representative Kelly, thank you so much for 
questioning. I go now to my friend, Mr. Higgins from Louisiana.
    Mr. Higgins. I thank the chairman and the ranking member 
for convening this hearing today, and I am going to ask the 
chairman to perhaps consider engaging in my line of 
questioning, if I have time. I am happy to yield time, or 
perhaps he could use his authority as chair to comment because 
it may surprise America to know that that you, Chairman Raskin, 
and I have cultivated a very respectful friendship over the 
course of five years, and we have had many deep and meaningful 
discussions regarding our Constitution and the rights and 
freedoms of the citizenry that we serve. And today we have 
before us, Chairman, the Department of Homeland Security, the 
FBI, and the Department of Justice to inquire regarding the 
Biden Administration's National Strategy to Combat Domestic 
Terrorism.
    And I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, that in this era of 
enhanced scrutiny that the citizenry is subject to, as 
government attempts to further secure our Nation and our 
homeland, which is indeed a righteous role, I am concerned 
about oppression, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, Americans face 
many, many levels and types of government intrusion into our 
lives, and that is a debate for another day, regarding the 
vaccination mandates, restrictions on assembly, and freedom to 
travel the land, public condemnation, public shaming. It 
doesn't really reflect, to many of us looking upon this and 
witnessing this and feeling this, it doesn't feel like America. 
We actually feel an oppressive government boot upon our throat, 
and America has the right to express strong national views
    So, Mr. Wiegmann, the President's strategy, the National 
Strategy to Combat Domestic Terrorism, states that the 
Administration will respect that civil rights, and civil 
liberties, and privacy protections are constitutionally 
guaranteed protections and freedoms. However, we have seen over 
the years, with the implementation of the PATRIOT Act, that 
data collection and usage of that data can sometimes be very 
shady, and we do indeed feel that that our privacy has been 
infringed upon and our constitutional rights and protections 
have been trod upon. So how does the Department plan to 
increase its scrutiny? We have heard ``threat assessment,'' as 
it has been described, as a main focus of this strategy to 
target Americans that may express strong national views, and we 
have the right to express strong national views. So, Mr. 
Wiegmann, how does your Department plan to balance this?
    Mr. Wiegmann. So as I mentioned earlier, it is a core 
aspect of both the strategy and the Department's policy that we 
need to and must, as we try to protect Americans from the 
threats that we have all talked about today, that we do so in a 
way that that respects privacy and civil liberties. I know the 
Attorney General is committed, and all of us at DOJ and FBI are 
committed, to upholding the rights of all Americans as we try 
to fight domestic terrorism, and that means that there are 
limits on how we conduct our investigations. We as----
    Mr. Higgins. Right, good sir. If I may interject in the 
interest of time, our founders intended as Article III was 
drafted that the innocence of every citizen should be the 
primary focus. And indeed, it was clearly stated during the 
founders' debates as our Constitution was born and the actual 
writ was determined, they acknowledged that they would rather 
see a guilty man walk free than an innocent man be convicted 
and incarcerated. How does your policy, as you intend to 
implement it, increase scrutiny and surveillance of American 
citizens? How can you balance that? How can you guarantee that? 
We cannot sit by as a Congress and as constitutionalist 
servants to the people and allow our Nation to become a 
surveillance state, so you have a very delicate balance to 
maintain, a thin line. Please address my question, sir.
    Mr. Wiegmann. Well, you are right. It is a balance. It is a 
balance that we are striking every day at DOJ as we undertake 
our investigations, as we determine whether a search is 
appropriate, as we determine whether opening an investigation 
is appropriate, and what I can tell you is that it is a core 
value at DOJ and FBI. I can't say that we are always perfect in 
how we strike that balance, but it is something that we work on 
very hard every day to make sure that we are following the 
rules that we have set forth, both in the statutes that 
Congress has given us to investigate criminal activity and in 
the policies that we have adopted, over and above that, to make 
sure that we are respecting fundamental privacy rights and 
constitutional rights. So that is a critical issue for us. You 
are right to raise it, and it is something that we have to work 
out on a daily basis.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, good sir, for your response. Mr. 
Chairman, thank you for your kindness and your accommodation. 
My time is expired. I yield.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you, Mr. Higgins, for your very 
thoughtful questioning. I know you speak for millions of 
Americans across the political spectrum in wanting to ensure 
that Americans civil rights and civil liberties are not 
sacrificed by the government in the creation of a surveillance 
state, at the same time that we are doing everything we can to 
protect ourselves against terrorist violence. So we have had a 
staff briefing for both the majority and minority staff with 
the FBI on the need for oversight on their assessment 
investigations, so this is a matter that we clearly are all 
focused on. And we have been in touch with the ranking member, 
Ms. Mace, about pursuing this very question. OK. Thank you.
    And I will now come to Ms. Pressley, the gentlelady from 
Massachusetts, for her five minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairman Raskin. I really 
appreciate your continuing the series of hearings on how we 
confront violent white supremacy. The Federal Government 
certainly has a significant role to play in deterring and 
ending domestic terrorism at the hands of violent white 
supremacists. And confronting this threat, I believe, requires 
law enforcement agencies to recognize how they have contributed 
to the harm, destabilization, and trauma of Black and brown 
communities.
    In recent years we have seen white supremacists commit 
massacres that target people of color, religious minorities, 
and others, from Charleston, South Carolina, to Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania, to El Paso, Texas, to the city of Winthrop in my 
own home state of Massachusetts. The surge of violent organized 
white supremacy knows no bounds and has claimed the lives of 
far too many of our neighbors. Moreover, Federal law 
enforcement has a well-documented history of attacking these 
same communities. The truth is racial and religious profiling 
and counterterrorism has disproportionately targeted 
marginalized communities, including Muslims, Sikhs, immigrants, 
and Black people. As the Biden Administration is crafting a 
more effective domestic counterterrorism policy, we have to not 
lose sight of the fact that the victims of these violent 
incidents come overwhelmingly from marginalized communities.
    Mr. Langan, the FBI is responsible for tracking these 
domestic terrorism threats across the country. Would you agree 
that as we see a rise and domestic terrorist incidents, that we 
also see an increase in the surveillance and the targeting of 
communities of color being targeted? Yes or no.
    Mr. Langan. So I agree we have definitely seen a rise of 
those domestic terrorism cases, and as such, we continue, as we 
brought up on the last point, also continue to be very focused 
on ensuring that we are addressing the civil rights needs. It 
is part of a two-part process, a two-mission----
    Ms. Pressley. I am sorry. Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Langan. 
I am sorry. I just want to make sure you understand my 
question. I am just going to reclaim my time, and it is just a 
``yes'' or ``no'' question. As we see an increase in domestic 
terrorist incidents, do we also see an increase in the 
targeting and the surveillance of communities of color? Yes or 
no?
    Mr. Langan. No, I am not seeing that as far as my data is 
showing me.
    Ms. Pressley. Without objection, I would like to enter into 
the record, Mr. Chair, a study from the Brennan Center titled, 
``Countering Violent Extremism in the Trump Era,'' which 
estimates that 85 percent of countering violent extremist 
grants and over half of the programs targeted minority groups.
    [No response.]
    Ms. Pressley. Mr. Chair?
    [No response.]
    Ms. Pressley. OK. I assume that is accepted without 
objection.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. [Presiding.] Without objection, it is 
accepted.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
    Ms. Pressley. In the district I represent, the 
Massachusetts 7th, Somali immigrants living in Roxbury are 
directly targeted. Across the country, we see Muslims, Black 
Lives Matter activists, LGBTQ folks, refugees, and others that 
are also targeted and subjected to heightened surveillance. 
These communities are overwhelmingly the victims of domestic 
terrorism, not the perpetrators. Mr. Cohen, how will the new 
Federal strategy encourage DHS to emphasize the protection, 
rather than the surveillance, of these marginalized 
communities?
    Mr. Cohen. So, Congresswoman, let me just first say, as I 
alluded to earlier, I agree that there were issues with the CVE 
Program, and in many respects, one of the big issues that we 
found is that we underestimated the amount of distrust between 
communities of color, and, in particular, Arab-American and 
American Muslim communities and law enforcement. There was a 
perception that the CVE Program, which was started with good 
intentions, was mainly a subterfuge to facilitate surveillance 
of communities of color, Arab-American and Muslim communities. 
That is why we have done away with it. That is why the approach 
that we are taking in the Biden Administration is antithetical 
to the approach that we took as part of the Countering Violent 
Extremism Program.
    To the second part of your question, we have work to do. I 
spend a lot of my time each week reaching out and working with 
state and local law enforcement, but I probably spend an equal 
amount of time meeting with groups like the Brennan Center, 
civil rights/civil liberties organizations, advocacy groups, 
faith-based organizations----
    Ms. Pressley. Excuse me. I am sorry. I am running out of 
time. I am going to reclaim my time for a moment. Mr. Cohen, as 
we close here, can you share an example, since you are having 
those broader discussions, of how the counterterrorism strategy 
has been altered because of feedback that you have received 
directly from community stakeholders who have traditionally 
been targeted?
    Mr. Cohen. Yes. We have been asked to specifically focus on 
funding community-based programs that are organized and managed 
at the community level versus having them organized from 
Washington or by law enforcement organizations.
    Ms. Pressley. Well, it is good to hear about those efforts 
to engage with those vulnerable communities, and nevertheless, 
these same communities who are targets of domestic terrorism, 
they do still appear to be the main focus of many intrusive 
Federal efforts. It is unacceptable for communities of color to 
bear the brunt of white supremacist violence at the hands of 
domestic terrorists, and to then be disproportionately targeted 
by Federal law enforcement in response to domestic terrorism. 
So, you know, I look forward to these ongoing conversations as 
you are recalibrating a strategy here. And thank you for, you 
know, a commitment to recognize that violent white supremacy is 
a systemic threat to our Nation, to our democracy, and 
specifically to marginalized communities.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, and I yield.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, and the chair now 
recognizes Representative Comer.
    Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to yield 
the balance of my time to the distinguished ranking member, Ms. 
Mace.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Congressman Comer. Mr. Langan, earlier 
this morning when Congressman Donalds was speaking, you 
mentioned in the FBI and domestic terrorism, there are these 
subcategories of domestic terrorism: racial, anti-government, 
animal, environmental, abortion, and catch-all. I think those 
are what I heard. Under the anti-government category or 
subcategory of domestic terrorism, would that include groups 
like antifa or Black Lives Matter folks who commit violence or 
acts of domestic terrorism?
    Mr. Langan. Well, we don't identify groups, but 
individuals' action. So if individuals are committing actions 
that would be in furtherance of anti-government or anarchist 
ideals, then they would fall into that category.
    Ms. Mace. So would you quantify antifa as an anarchist 
group then under that subcategory? I mean, it is an anarchist 
group, right, or related?
    Mr. Langan. There are individuals--I think the director 
previously described them as a movement--and there have been 
individuals that have associated or identified with antifa that 
have conducted violent acts that we would categorize as 
anarchist.
    Ms. Mace. How many acts of violence or domestic terrorism 
has antifa committed over the last two years?
    Mr. Langan. Since we don't categorize antifa, nor do we 
collate information regarding antifa, that movement, we don't 
have that, but we could provide you information on anarchist 
threats and cases in general.
    Ms. Mace. How many open cases of anarchist violence and 
domestic terrorism have occurred over the last two years?
    Mr. Langan. Can you hear me now?
    Ms. Mace. Yes.
    Mr. Langan. OK. So we have as far as arrest activities for 
the anti-government, anti-authority, we have 75 total arrests, 
and within that would be the anti-government, 36 being of anti-
government and 21 being militia violence. That is all part of 
our anti-government authority.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Interesting. I mean, antifa is real. It is 
not a myth. I have been a victim of some of the anarchist 
antifa type of activity, violence, whatever you want to call 
it. I even had my house spray painted this summer. Democrats 
told me it wasn't Antifa. It was anarchy. I don't really know 
the difference. I have one more question at the end for Mr. 
Cohen, and really appreciate all of your testimoneys this 
morning, and I want to thank each and every one of you for 
being here today, but discuss the importance of working with 
Federal, state and local, tribal, and territorial law 
enforcement partners and agencies. This partnership is 
immensely critical to protecting all of our communities from 
terrorism, domestic and foreign, racially motivated or 
otherwise. But I am dismayed by the recent push by many on the 
left to defund the police and slash law enforcement budgets and 
personnel at a time when crime is clearly on the rise. Mr. 
Cohen, do you believe defunding state, local, tribal, and 
territorial partners, law enforcement agencies is going to help 
solve our domestic terrorism problem? Yes or no?
    Mr. Cohen. I mean, I was a police officer. I am proud of my 
profession. I think law enforcement has a critically important 
role to play in protecting our communities, whether it be from 
crime or terrorism. Law enforcement agencies also have to 
behave in a non-discriminatory manner to be----
    Ms. Mace. Mr. Cohen, do you believe that defunding state 
and local police funding is going to help solve domestic 
terror? Yes or no?
    Mr. Cohen. No, we need police.
    Ms. Mace. Is there any scenario where defunding the police 
would prevent the next Dylann Roof?
    Mr. Cohen. I would just go back to what I said before. I 
think law enforcement plays a critical role in preventing acts 
of domestic terrorism.
    Ms. Mace. I believe the answer is no. I want to thank you 
all for your time today. Mr. Chairman, I am shocked by the few 
arrests that we have in cases open regarding antifa. I would 
like to request unanimous consent that the following documents 
be entered into the record: the first, an article from the Post 
and Courier detailing vandalism committed at my home by 
anarchists and antifa-related individuals allegedly based on 
the symbolism and the comments made on my home at the time; an 
article from The Wall Street Journal showing $840 million in 
cuts to police budgets last year; an article from The New York 
Times explaining that there were 300 Federal protest cases 
involving mostly arson or assaulting police officers.
    Mr. Raskin.[Presiding.] Without objection.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Ms. Mace, and we were, of 
course, very sorry to learn about the vandalism that took place 
at your home. And I want to submit for the record and, I think 
in answer to some of the questions you are raising, a 2020 
report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 
which will reflect the number of political murders committed in 
the country[SA3][SA4] The report reflects that since 1994, far-
right domestic extremists murdered 329 Americans in violent 
attacks. The report reflects no murders committed by antifa 
during that 25-year timeframe. Since the report was released, 
though, we did find one killing linked to antifa, the 
perpetrator of which--his name is Michael Reinoehl--was killed 
by law enforcement shortly after the murder took place. But 
without objection, we will enter that one into the record.
    Mr. Raskin. And I am delighted now to go to the 
representative of the District of Columbia, Representative 
Eleanor Holmes Norton.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this 
important series of hearings. As we discuss the 
Administration's decision on domestic terrorist threats, it is 
important to look at what kind of domestic violent extremism 
most threatens Americans. I would, therefore, Mr. Chairman, 
like to enter into the record this New York Times report from 
February 2021. It details how the Trump Administration's 
obsession with antifa hindered Federal law enforcement's 
attempts to counter the rising tide of right-wing violence.
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Norton. This is a question for Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen, 
the report details how personnel and other resources were 
diverted from investigations into white supremacist and far-
right anti-government groups to satisfy President Trump's 
desire to target so-called antifa activists. May I ask you, Mr. 
Cohen, how does the Biden Administration's new strategy help to 
better equip the Federal Government in its fight against white 
supremacist and other far-right violence? Specifically, I am 
interested in how this strategy seeks to address the 
intelligence and information-sharing failures that preceded the 
insurrection.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Congresswoman. I think it seeks to 
address it in several ways. One, the guidance is very clear. 
Our responsibility is to work with Federal, state, and local 
organizations to prevent acts of violence. We shouldn't be 
prioritizing one over the other simply because of the political 
beliefs or the ideological beliefs associated with those who 
are in elected service. We should be focusing, in an objective, 
threat-based way, on those individuals and groups, regardless 
of their ideological belief system, that are planning acts of 
violence.
    What the strategy also does is it builds a toolbox that can 
be used not only at the national level, but it expands the 
toolbox that can be used at the community level in order to 
address emerging threats within those communities that are 
posed by those who embrace extremist ideological beliefs. It 
also prioritizes the sharing of information not only between 
Federal authorities and state and local authorities, but also 
with community organizations, educators, others, and the tech 
sector, and those who conduct analysis and research into 
emerging trends in the online space, because, as we talked 
about before, the fuel for a lot of this violence comes through 
the consumption of online content that's specifically placed 
there by individuals who are seeking to inspire acts of 
violence.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you. In this hearing, I think it has 
already been clear that the preeminent terrorist threat facing 
our country comes from white supremacist extremists and far-
right militia extremists. This really shouldn't be a 
controversial notion. So I would like to introduce this data 
analysis by The Washington Post, which shows that since 2015 
the number of terrorist plot that is by far-right groups dwarfs 
those by left-wing groups, 267 to 66. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
    Ms. Norton. Mr. Langan, in March, the FBI director, 
Christopher Wray, reiterated that there is no evidence that 
left-wing groups were linked to the attack on the Capitol, but 
said that the individuals there were tied to white supremacy 
and right-wing militia extremism. Mr. Langan, has any evidence 
come to light in the intervening months to change that 
assessment?
    Mr. Langan. Well, ma'am, we continue to investigate the 
actions and the crimes of January 6th. As of today, there have 
been over 600 arrests made and over 1,400 investigations into 
it. And we look at the individual actors as that, individuals 
for each of those occurrences, and don't overlay one baseline 
over any one of those individual subjects on what their 
motivation is. And it requires an investigation into each one 
to determine what their individual ideology was to motivate 
them toward the act of violence or to commit Federal crimes.
    Mr. Raskin. And, Representative Norton, a technical snafu. 
You actually were given a couple extra minutes, but in 
deference to you, I will give you one more question if you 
would be willing to take that.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question is 
really for Mr. Cohen. I am sorry, Mr. Langan. Mr. Langan, do 
you agree with the director of national intelligence's March 
2021 conclusion that white supremacist extremism and military 
extremists are our ``most lethal'' threats? Mr. Langan?
    Mr. Langan. You know, as I said earlier, the most lethal 
threat is that posed by lone actors that have an ideology that 
both support HVEs and DVEs. Regarding the issues, regarding 
military, you know, we work closely with our partnerships on 
identifying individuals within any positions of trust, to 
investigate vigorously individuals that may be radicalizing 
their views and those positions. So as far as the racially 
motivated violent extremists of the white supremacist 
categories, we have the most investigations and the most amount 
of subjects involving that categorization.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. The gentlelady's time has 
expired. Thank you, Ms. Norton, and I come now to the vice 
chair of the subcommittee, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Chairman Raskin. You 
know, in a 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white 
nationalists infiltrating police departments, a coordinated 
effort. This bulletin came during a time when a neo-Nazi gang, 
formed by members of the L.A. Sheriff's Department, were found 
harassing Black and brown communities. And while this was about 
15 years ago, according to recent reporting from The New York 
Times in addition to PBS, it is found that despite those 
efforts, it doesn't look like things have improved. And I would 
like to submit both of these documents to the record.
    Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Police officers have been dismissed 
across the United States, including Virginia, Texas, Florida, 
Michigan, Nebraska, and Louisiana, for having ties to the Ku 
Klux Klan. And we also know that more than 30 active or retired 
police officers joined the January 6th attack on the Capitol, 
and at least seven are facing charges connected to that day. 
Director Langan, I take it you are familiar with this 2006 
bulletin, correct?
    Mr. Langan. I may have to review that bulletin, ma'am, to 
recall it exactly.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. No worries. To your knowledge, what do 
we know about the radicalization efforts among certain officers 
already in police departments and the effort to recruit white 
nationalists joining police departments across the United 
States?
    Mr. Langan. Yes, ma'am. Well, as I mentioned before, 
individuals that are in positions of trust, and have 
radicalized ideas, and gravitate toward hate and violence are 
very concerning as they have always been. We work with our 
local partners very closely to help identify and to educate 
their departments on proper vetting and on standards of 
acceptance, so we are constantly working to try to make sure 
that that does not exist. I can speak that an overwhelming 
amount of law enforcement interactions that we have with the 
FBI are positive, and that does represent a very, very small 
amount of law enforcement, but an amount that can never be 
tolerated.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. One aspect of the Biden 
Administration's counterterrorism strategy is the focus on 
detecting these insider threats; that is, ensuring that no one 
in state or Federal law enforcement abuses their position by 
engaging in domestic terrorism-related activities of any kind. 
Now, what happens when the FBI does find instances of white 
nationalists in local law enforcement? What does the FBI do?
    Mr. Langan. Well, if the individuals are part of an ongoing 
or conducting or plan to conduct any type of criminal actions, 
we would, along with the U.S. Attorney's Office, try to open 
investigation and determine whether or not there are charges. 
If the individual is showing that they have memberships of a 
group that may be deemed to be a racist or a group that is 
focused on hate, that becomes the departmental issue on how 
they will proceed with that employee.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK. So it sounds like there isn't a 
protocol for what to do when a police officer is found to be 
part of a white supremacist organization.
    Mr. Langan. No, ma'am, there is no central method to notify 
the FBI about violent extremism, again, stressing the 
importance of partnership between local law enforcement and the 
FBI and DHS.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK. Perfect. That is something that I 
just would like the committee to note, that there is no 
currently existing protocol of what to do when a member of law 
enforcement is discovered to be part of an organization like 
the Ku Klux Klan, but this is very important information. I 
thank you for your candor. Now, during a briefing in March of 
this year, the FBI did promise to provide this subcommittee 
with information on how we could set up a reporting structure 
that would give Federal law enforcement capability to track 
white supremacist threats between state and local police. Now, 
despite multiple efforts to followup, we have yet to receive a 
reply. Can we get a commitment to securing that answer on this 
as quickly as possible from the Department?
    Mr. Langan. Ma'am, I will look into that and get back with 
your office. I recently took this post, but I will look into 
those requests----
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Sure.
    Mr. Langan [continuing]. And get back with your office.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Now, Mr. Cohen, the committee is 
currently investigating an incident of CBP's response to a 
massive Facebook group of thousands of CBP officers where many 
posted violent racist content, including mocking the deaths of 
migrants and threatening Members of Congress. Just last week, 
we saw agents violently confronting and whipping Haitian 
migrants. So, in light of this latest incident, how does 
Secretary Mayorkas plan to accelerate efforts to root out 
incidents of violent racism within DHS' ranks?
    Mr. Cohen. So the Secretary has instructed the Office of 
Security as well as the Human Capital Office and others to do 
several things: one, to evaluate, through the Insider Threat 
Program, whether there are open investigations into domestic 
violent extremist behavior by our employees, to review our 
hiring practices and our employee practices to ensure that 
domestic violent extremists' ideological beliefs are not 
influencing the decisionmaking of personnel working within the 
Department of Homeland Security. And I would say as someone who 
spent 35-plus years in law enforcement and homeland security, 
the exercise of law enforcement responsibilities have to be 
free from discriminatory practices. Decisionmaking can't be 
based on implicit or unconscious biases of individuals or the 
organization, quite frankly. And even the perception that 
individuals who are holding positions of public trust, 
particularly those who enforce our laws, even the perception 
that they hold racially biased or extremist attitudes can 
undermine faith and confidence in those organizations. So it is 
a significant concern for the Department, and the Secretary has 
instructed a very aggressive effort to address it.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Raskin. The gentlelady yields back. Let's see. Is Mr. 
Biggs present? He is not. OK. I am going to go to the 
gentlelady from Detroit, Michigan, Ms. Tlaib, for your five 
minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chairman. My first question 
is to Assistant Director Langan. Do you have any evidence that 
antifa formally exists as an organization?
    Mr. Langan. Ma'am, we do not look into domestic 
organizations, so I don't have further data----
    Ms. Tlaib. So there is no evidence that antifa is an 
organization in our country.
    Mr. Langan. I can't speak to that, ma'am.
    Ms. Tlaib. OK. Now that I got that a little bit clearer 
here, I am very concerned about an exception that gives way for 
systemic, I think, targeting, I believe, in black Muslim and 
immigrant communities, which I believe is dangerous and can 
pull resources away from real dangers in our country. The 
strategy document produced by the Biden Administration 
maintains an exception in 2014 through the Department of 
Justice's guidance that permits racial or ethnic profiling in 
cases of ``national security'' or ``border investigation.''
    We know that hundreds of documents show that the Department 
of Homeland Security used its powers to collect information of 
Black Lives Matter activists for years since the protests in 
Ferguson, Missouri after the murder of Michael Brown. Just last 
summer, DHS used aircraft to monitor Black Lives Matter 
protests in at least 15 cities across the country. Isn't that 
right, Mr. Cohen?
    Mr. Cohen. Congresswoman, I wasn't at the Department at 
that time, so I have no insights regarding those activities.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, I think it is racist, unacceptable, and 
must end. I would like to turn to another element of the 
strategy document that deeply concerns me and concerns many 
civil liberties attorneys as well as advocates: the focus on 
how suspected potential domestic terrorists increasingly 
utilize social media and other internet forums to organize. 
Under existing rules, the FBI may conduct online surveillance 
assessments without a factual predicate or something of 
criminal wrongdoing. So this invasive type of what they call 
proto-investigation has been used by the FBI to target black 
civil rights activists. And given the FBI's lax attitude toward 
white supremacist infiltration of our law enforcement that my 
good colleague from New York brought up, it raises very serious 
civil liberties concerns.
    So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit an article, this 
article by former FBI Agent Michael German explaining----
    Mr. Raskin. Yes, indeed. Without----
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes, without objection.
    Ms. Tlaib [continuing]. Explaining how the FBI has abused 
its investigative powers. I would like to add that in just the 
past few years, you all, FBI, conducted an intelligence 
operation called ``The Iron Fist'' that prioritized 
surveillance of so-called ``black identity extremists'' over 
increasingly active and violent white supremacist groups. I am 
going to repeat that. They are using more resources to go 
toward a so-called Iron Fist Program of some sort against black 
identity extremists over active violent white supremacist 
groups in our country. So, Mr. Langan, yes or no, has Iron Fist 
or similar programs used to target black activists for 
surveillance been totally dismantled under the current 
Administration? Yes or no.
    Mr. Langan. Ma'am, I have to look into the aspects of that 
investigation, but as far as when it comes to First Amendment 
freedom of activity, the FBI vehemently defends the civil 
liberties of Americans. And it is part of our dual-pronged 
approach of both protecting Americans and also protecting their 
rights.
    Ms. Tlaib. So Assistant Director, is the FBI currently 
conducting any surveillance right now of the Black Lives Matter 
movement?
    Mr. Langan. Ma'am, for one, I can't speak to current 
ongoing investigations, but we only would focus surveillance on 
individuals that we believe are going to be involved in or 
promoting violence against other individuals.
    Ms. Tlaib. So you don't know if the Iron Fist is still 
active, this so-called Iron Fist program of some sort. Is that 
active right now at the FBI?
    Mr. Langan. I can look into it, ma'am, and we will 
definitely get back to your office.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I may, the FBI's action 
in this so-called black identity extremist program at best 
indirectly aided white supremacy in our country and put many of 
us in danger and continues to endanger our country. So time and 
time again, we give the FBI another chance to right its wrongs, 
and time and time again, it proves itself incapable of acting 
as an organization without racial bias. The failure, really, 
truly, specifically, to address these issues in this strategy 
document itself requires Congress to consider whether it must 
act on its own to codify safeguards to prevent a reoccurrence 
of this kind of discriminatory overreach we saw in prior errors 
of counterterrorism.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this critically important 
hearing, and I yield.
    Mr. Raskin. I thank the gentlelady for her remarks. We will 
go to Mrs. Lawrence, who is recognized for five minutes, for 
her questioning.
    [No response.]
    Mr. Raskin. Is Mrs. Lawrence there?
    [No response.]
    Mr. Raskin. I think you have to unmute, Mrs. Lawrence.
    [No response.]
    Mr. Raskin. Do we need to unmute her?
    Mrs. Lawrence. I am unmuted. Thank you. Thank you for your 
patience. Thank you so much for this hearing, and I have a few 
questions. When we talk about the investigations, I want to 
followup on the questions that my colleague, Representative 
Tlaib, just mentioned. I want to ask, when you say you don't 
know if it is ongoing or if it is happening, given the FBI's 
most recent data release on hate crimes, how is the Department 
of Justice working to resolve hate crimes, some of which 
qualify as acts of domestic terrorism? Can you either of you 
speak to what is being done to address the rise in hate crimes, 
because all the data is pointing to that?
    Mr. Langan. For the FBI, ma'am, I can address that to an 
extent. In 2019, the FBI created a Hate Crimes-Domestic 
Terrorism Fusion Cell because of the overlap with domestic 
terrorism ideologies that also incorporate hate and hate crimes 
against individuals. Hate crimes alone is under our Criminal 
Investigative Division, but being that we are exceptionally 
concerned about the rise in hate crimes and the influence that 
individuals with ideologies have to promote hate crimes and 
continue, that is one way that we are actively and proactively 
trying to mitigate that threat from the Bureau.
    Mrs. Lawrence. So, when we talk about hate crimes, and we 
know that some of them are actually acts of domestic terrorism, 
does the FBI send that somewhere else? What happens when you 
see that connection?
    Mr. Langan. Yes, ma'am. So several things happen. The FBI 
would start the investigation, and then we, of course, try to 
determine the scope and extent of the investigation, if there 
are others involved, the motivation of the individuals that 
act. And there is nothing that keeps us from having a 
categorization that captures it both as a domestic terrorism 
act and also a hate crime as well. As far as if it falls on the 
crime side, it is more particularly motivated by that 
offender's bias toward a person, and the domestic terrorism 
side, more along social-political goals and views. Again, we 
see that sometimes those overlap, and the important thing is 
that the FBI never lets that victim fall through the cracks. 
They are covered by multiple layers of investigative resources 
and then in the outcome with what the United States Attorney's 
Office feels is the best charge aging mechanism, and then 
follows up on that.
    Mr. Wiegmann. If I could just jump in on that. That is 
absolutely right from the Department of Justice perspective. We 
in the National Security Division work very closely with our 
colleagues in the Civil Rights Division who oversee hate crimes 
charges. Some acts, for example, the Dylann Roof attack in 
Charleston several years ago, was both an act of domestic 
terrorism and qualified as a hate crime. I believe it was 
prosecuted under hate crimes charges because those are deemed 
the most effective way of addressing the threat. So we just 
decide on a charge based on what is going to be most effective 
in dealing with the threat. I also want to mention that the 
Attorney General has appointed a hate crimes coordinator to 
centralize all those efforts----
    Mrs. Lawrence. Oh, that's fantastic.
    Mr. Wiegmann. All of the Department's efforts to combat 
hate crimes, and starting October 1, so just in a few days, the 
FBI is elevating hate crimes and criminal civil rights 
violations to its highest national level threat priority. And 
we have also launched a national anti-hate crimes campaign 
involving FBI field offices all across the country to encourage 
reporting of hate crimes and hate crimes incidents. So I wanted 
to give you some updates on what we are doing in that area.
    Mrs. Lawrence. Just to give a personal analysis, for me, 
being an identifiable black woman in America, hate crimes are 
often, to me, not identified so, but when it is done for 
religious or other groups, it is immediately identified as a 
hate crime. And I would love to have some conversations with 
the new appointee on hate crimes. The last question is how can 
the Federal Government law enforcement work with community 
partners to combat white supremacy and hate crimes? To give you 
an example, our faith-based organizations often are immediately 
involved when there are hate crimes and when there are 
synagogues, and churches, or temples, because we are uniquely 
connected to our community. How can you better work with these 
community partners and give us some input on how we can combat 
white supremacy and hate crimes.
    Mr. Raskin. The gentlelady's time has expired, but please 
answer the question.
    Mr. Langan. Ma'am, I will answer it quickly. From the FBI 
standpoint, the building of trust between our government and 
communities that are affected by these horrible crimes is of 
utmost concern to the FBI. I know in every one of our field 
offices, we have community outreach specialists and extremely 
robust programs that conduct outreach to those exact groups 
that you are talking about, faith-based organizations, 
organizations that focus on at-risk individuals. And we have 
direct communication and contact with and strategies on how to, 
one, bolster that trust and also how to strengthen those 
relationships and reporting mechanisms. So it is of great 
concern, and I agree with you. Those are the avenues that we 
need to take to combine our efforts of government efforts along 
with social efforts.
    Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much for your questioning, Mrs. 
Lawrence. And I come now to Congressman Davis and recognize him 
for his five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you for 
holding this very important hearing. And I also want to thank 
certainly all of the witnesses for their testimony. I have been 
listening intently, and I can tell you that I think the 
information and concepts that are being shared are very 
important, and so I consider this to be a very important 
hearing.
    Racism and white supremacist ideologies are a cancer on our 
society and a clear threat to the Nation's security. Racism 
underlies much of the domestic terrorism that we face each and 
every day. I am deeply concerned that racially motivated 
extremists and militia and anti-government extremists are 
becoming inextricably intertwined into a form of ethno-
nationalistic extremism that this country has not seen since 
the fall of Jim Crow. I am pleased that combatting racism is 
one of the central tenets of the National Strategy for 
Countering Domestic Terrorism, specifically the fourth pillar 
which states, and I will quote, ``Tackling the threat posed by 
domestic terrorism over the long-term demands substantial 
efforts to confront the racism that feeds into aspects of that 
threat.''
    And so, Mr. Cohen, I hope you can provide some clarity on 
the Department's efforts to confront racism as part of the 
national strategy. Let me ask you what efforts, if any, has the 
DHS made to prioritize rooting out racism and bigotry in its 
programs and policies, and has DHS developed any programs to 
combat racism through education and research? And if so, how 
does this plan expect to be measured?
    Mr. Cohen. Thanks, Congressman. Very difficult question 
that you just asked. So a central element of our efforts to 
deal with domestic terrorism focus on the work of our Civil 
Rights and Civil Liberties Office that works with communities 
across the country in order to identify ways the Department can 
improve, one, the way it operates to ensure that we carry out 
our mission in a non-discriminatory manner. We also work 
closely with communities of color across the country to 
understand their concerns, to address their needs, to establish 
lines of communication, to start rebuilding a relationship of 
trust between the Department, the Department's operational 
elements, and those communities. One other way, real quickly, 
is the work that we are doing with regard to online activity. 
In today's age, much of the fuel that drives the spread of 
racist ideological beliefs occurs online, and building 
resilience, particularly amongst our young people, to those 
hateful messages of racism is another part of the efforts under 
way at the Department.
    Mr. Davis. Well, let me ask you quickly, are there other 
agencies inside the government that DHS is working with to help 
facilitate movement of these plans and actions?
    Mr. Cohen. On confronting racism, it is a discussion that 
is being driven by the White House through the Domestic Policy 
Council. We work with the rest of the government. What I would 
like to be able to do, with your indulgence, is to get back to 
your office with some more specificity on how exactly we are 
doing that.
    Mr. Davis. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your 
testimony. I appreciate your answers. And, Mr. Chairman, again, 
I do think this is a very important hearing, and I thank you 
very much for your leadership.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, and, Mr. Davis, thank you for your very 
thoughtful questioning and for your comments. I just have a few 
final questions I would like to ask Mr. Cohen, and I am happy 
to yield to the ranking member of she had any lingering 
questions she wanted to clean up.
    First of all, Mr. Cohen, in May, we as a subcommittee 
requested documents and information from the Department of 
Homeland Security about how it has analyzed the threat of far-
right militia extremism, including its connection to white 
supremacist groups. We still have not heard back on this 
inquiry. I am wondering if you could commit to working with us 
to get a response as quickly as you could.
    Mr. Cohen. Yes. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Raskin. I appreciate that. And then I wanted to ask you 
a final substantive question, which is, I guess all of you 
witnesses have remarked upon the linkage between disinformation 
and propaganda and the incitement of terrorist activity and 
violence. And I am just wondering if you would speak to the 
problem of mainstream political leaders, or leaders identified 
with the mainstream of American political culture, trafficking 
in disinformation or propaganda that gives aid and support to 
the movements of violent white supremacy.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chairman, that is an important question, and 
if you will indulge me for a moment I would like to place my 
answer into context. As I look at the threat environment after 
spending over 35 years working in this field, I equate it to a 
perfect storm. On the one hand, we are a Nation that has become 
deeply divided, polarized. People tend to view those who hold 
opposing opinions to their own as the enemy. We have far too 
people who are angry about their plight in life or angry about 
how they view the state of the Nation, and we have far too many 
people in this country who view violence as a legitimate way in 
which to express that anger. The fractures in our country run 
deep, whether it is on immigration, our response to COVID, 
issues of race, the role of government, the integrity of our 
election process, and credibility in our government. These are 
issues that our Nation is deeply divided about.
    Our adversaries know this, and they seek to exploit those 
fractures in our society by spreading false narratives, 
conspiracy theories, disinformation in an effort to sow 
discord, inspire acts of violence, undermine confidence in our 
government structure, weaken our relationship with our friends 
and allies abroad, and destabilize our Nation. So when public 
figures, and this is really important because these narratives 
are typically introduced on discreet, small platforms, whether 
it is by a foreign intelligence service, an international 
terrorist group, or domestic terror organization. They will 
introduce these narratives onto small platforms in discreet 
discrete communities in the hopes that they will be amplified 
and eventually introduced into the mainstream ecosystem.
    So when public figures, whether they be in the media, or 
they are elected officials, or former elected officials, 
amplify and spread those narratives, they validate them. And 
when they validate them, they increase the potential that an 
individual who is vulnerable to being influenced, vulnerable to 
being influenced to commit an act of violence, will see this as 
a legitimate rationale for committing an act of violence. So in 
a sense, when these disinformation narratives are amplified by 
public figures, it not only supports our adversaries, but it 
brings more volatility to the threat environment.
    Mr. Raskin. I appreciate very much the lucidity of your 
response there. I assume there is not too much that you as law 
enforcement officials can do about that, but you are at least 
blowing the whistle on a really important and disturbing trend. 
If I am reading you correctly, we do have foreign adversaries 
who try to exploit political and social fractures in our 
country by injecting disinformation and propaganda that then 
can be picked up, and further deepen and exacerbate those 
conflicts. I appreciate that. And I don't know, Ms. Mace, if 
you had any final questions you wanted to ask?
    Ms. Mace.[Inaudible.]
    Mr. Raskin. Well, with that then, I want to thank all of 
our witnesses for a really tremendous hearing, and I want to 
thank all the members of the committee for participating.
    Members will have, let's see, how many days? Without 
objection, all members have five legislative days within which 
to submit additional written questions for the witnesses to the 
chair, and we will forward them to the witnesses for their 
response. We ask you to respond as quickly as you can if you 
would.
    And I just want to thank you all for your service to the 
country. At this moment of democracy under threat in many 
different ways, your work is absolutely essential, and we look 
forward to continuing to work closely with you in the future to 
further fortify and solidify America's democratic institutions.
    With that, the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    
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