FBI Director Christopher Wray: Ongoing discussions about adding ‘domestic terrorism statute’

Wray made the comments during a Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday to address domestic and foreign terror threats.

“I’m aware of ongoing discussions about the possibility of a domestic terrorism statute — there is not a domestic terrorist crime as such,” Wray said, noting the FBI refers to domestic terrorism as a “category” as a means to dole out agency resources.

However, there is no federal crime of domestic terrorism to charge a suspect.

Wray explained the FBI treats domestic terrorism much like international terrorism: “We’re going to use all the tools at our disposal.”

“We also work a lot with state and local law enforcement who can sometimes bring sometimes straight forward very easy to make cases,” Wray said, adding the FBI “can always use more tools” than the ones they already have.

The FBI has faced pressure to make domestic terrorism a federal crime following a Charlottesville, Va., car attack on August 12 by a white supremacist that left one person dead.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions labeled the car attack as “domestic terrorism” and said the Department of Justice would pursue the most serious charges against the suspect, James Fields. The Justice Department has also opened a civil rights investigation into the incident.

“You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought, because this is an unequivocally unacceptable and evil attack that cannot be accepted in America,” Sessions told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Aug. 14.

According to current federal law, domestic terrorism is defined as an act that is “dangerous to human life” that violates state or federal U.S. criminal law, and is intended “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,” or “affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”