The FBI views the January siege of the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism,” according to Director Christopher Wray, who assured senators on Tuesday that the bureau is working hard to investigate anyone who stormed the halls of Congress.
“I was appalled, like you, at the violence and destruction that we saw that day. I was appalled that you, our country’s elected leaders, were victimized right here in these very halls,” Wray said during his opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “That attack — that siege — was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we — the FBI — view as domestic terrorism. It’s got no place in our democracy, and tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation’s rule of law.”
“Our greatest partner in this investigation has been the American people,” Wray said, as he pointed out that the bureau had received 270,000 digital media tips so far. “Some have even taken the painful step of turning in their friends or family members,” he added.
Wray said the FBI had identified hundreds of suspects and opened hundreds of investigations in all but one of the FBI’s field offices and that the bureau had arrested more than 270 on federal charges, with more than 300 arrests total when including state and local partners.
“Jan. 6 was not an isolated event. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away any time soon. At the FBI, we’ve been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now,” the FBI chief said, adding, “We viewed it as such a critical threat that back in June of 2019, under my leadership, we elevated racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism to our highest threat priority, on the same level as ISIS and homegrown violent extremists, where it remains to this day.”
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The FBI director said some of those arrested were classified under “militia violent extremism,” pointing to members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Others were “racially motivated violent extremists, specifically advocating for the superiority of the white race,” Wray said.
Wray said as more arrests were made, the bureau was gaining a “richer and richer understanding of people’s motivations.” Members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia and right-wing Proud Boys group have been hit with conspiracy charges by the Justice Department for their alleged roles in the Capitol siege.
The FBI director said he has not seen evidence that the Capitol siege was orchestrated by fake Trump supporters nor had he seen antifa involvement in the Capitol violence.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died on Jan. 7 after responding to the Capitol riot, and a homicide investigation is underway. Among the others who died amid the mayhem was Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter who was fatally shot by an officer while trying to climb through a broken window as a crowd tried to break down a barricaded door in the Capitol.
U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin, the federal prosecutor leading the Capitol riot investigation, said during a Jan. 26 press conference that “specialized teams” were still investigating the deaths of Sicknick and Babbitt.
Investigators have not yet publicly identified a suspect believed to have planted pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee’s and Democratic National Committee’s headquarters the night before the Capitol riot.
George Washington University’s Program on Extremism released a study on Tuesday detailing the 257 federal cases it had been able to review. The report said the 257 alleged siege participants charged in federal court thus far were “a heterogeneous group” with people as young as 18 and as old as 70, with 221 men arrested while 36 were women. The report said the charged participants came from 40 states and that 33 of those charged have known military backgrounds. The report contended that the alleged participants of the Capitol siege “include more established neo-Nazis and members of armed militias, but also individuals who belonged to ideologies more difficult to classify, like the Boogaloo movement, or had simply been enthralled by various conspiratorial cults like QAnon.”
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Wray stressed Tuesday that the problem is bigger than just the Capitol siege, though, and that the FBI was concerned with violence of all kinds.
“The FBI will not tolerate agitators and extremists who plan or commit violence. Period. And that goes for violent extremists of any stripe. As I’ve said many times, we do not investigate ideology, but we focus on acts of violence and violations of federal law. And when we see those, we will bring to bear the full weight of our resources, our experience, and our partnerships,” he said. “And when domestic extremists use explosive devices, when they attack government facilities and businesses, when they assault law enforcement officers, when they use violence to interfere with the lawful operation of our government, they should expect the FBI to come knocking on their door.”
