In a Senate committee briefing yesterday, the new FBI director told lawmakers that the FBI has about 1,000 open cases involving domestic terrorism, a catchall phrase used by the bureau that includes white supremacist organizations and right-wing terrorists.
According to The Hill, Christopher Wray, in his first Senate briefing since becoming the director of the bureau, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the FBI has as many investigations into domestic terror as it does into Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS ...
And that’s where the fuckery began.
As I travel around the country as a writer and performer, I meet all kinds of Americans, including racists. Some are blatant, and some are not. But you know who I have yet to run into? Someone from the Islamic State, or, as my mother, who unnecessarily pluralizes everything, calls them: “the ISISes.”
Where are all the ISISes that were supposed to be coming over here attacking us? You know who we see all over the news actually attacking America and “hating us for our freedoms?” Nazis.
Apparently, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) agreed. McCaskill said government reports show that attacks by white nationalist are “almost triple” those of Islamic fundamentalists, and wondered why the Senate has yet to hold a full hearing on far-right extremists (or, as they call them in Alabama, “Senator Moore”).
Even before the terrorist incident at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., the FBI had been warning lawmakers about the threat of white nationalism. A May bulletin said that white supremacists carried out 26 acts of terror since 2000, killing 49 people, more than any other type of domestic terrorism.
In cases of international terror, federal laws allow agencies to charge people who “provide material support” to terrorists, allowing them to stop many incidents before they happen and arrest suspects.
Wray explained how it is more difficult in cases of domestic terrorism because there is no corresponding law for domestic terrorism: “A lot of the [domestic terrorism] cases we bring, we’re able to charge under gun charges, explosive charges, all manner of other crimes,” Wray told the senators. “We also work a lot with state and local law enforcement who can sometimes bring straightforward, easy-to-make cases—homicide cases, things like that.”
All the while, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) listened intently with a look that said, “Whose mans is this?” After Wray finished, Harris called on the full Senate to launch an investigation into white supremacists, but we all know it would never happen because ... well ... how can they investigate themselves?
Read more at The Hill.