Jamie Raskin asked FBI why it Dismissed Threat of White Supremacists

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A Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin has called on the FBI to explain why the agency ‘Dismissed’ the threat of white supremacists looking to invade law enforcement at a time when its own investigators were internally raising the alarm. Raskin is chairman of the house civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee. He wrote to FBI chief Christopher Wray to request a briefing following the leak of an internal agency report. The report said the extremists were trying to invade law enforcement and the US military. Raskin wrote, “I am deeply concerned that the bureau dismissed this threat last year and instead characterized the threat of white-supremacist infiltration of law enforcement as a hypothetical problem that has not materialized”. He was supposedly referring to a 2020 committee hearing on the subject.

Raskin added, “The Bureau repeatedly told this Subcommittee during my ongoing investigation into this problem that there was no evidence of a significant threat”. ABC News first reported the leaked investigation, which says the FBI had failed to level with the American people and called for a hearing to take place before the end of the month to address what he claimed was a discrepancy between the FBI’s earlier position and its own internal findings. The investigation found that white supremacists and other extremists would very likely seek affiliation with military and law enforcement entities in order to carry out violence against minority groups. The leaked document was titled “Siege-Inspired Actors Very Likely Seek Military and Law Enforcement Affiliation, Increasing Risk of Tradecraft Proliferation and Color of Law Offenses in the FBI San Antonio Area of Responsibility”.

It is noteworthy that the report was authored by agents and analysts in the FBI’s San Antonio division. The report also said that racially motivated violent extremists almost certainly will gain access to non-public tradecraft and information, enabling them to enhance operational security and develop new tactics in and beyond the FBI San Antonio region. It also found evidence that extremists had expressed a desire to join the military and law enforcement primarily to obtain tradecraft to prepare for and initiate a collapse of society, specifically by engaging in violence against the US government and specified racial and ethnic groups. Last week, Wray said before testifying to the senate judiciary committee that domestic terror was a top concern for the FBI. There were currently 2,000 ongoing investigations into domestic terrorism.