By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that white supremacy is behind an increase in domestic terrorism cases this fiscal year.
In the past nine months, the FBI has recorded about 100 domestic terrorism arrests, which is an increase over previous years.
“A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence,” Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The number of domestic terrorism cases now rivals the number of international terrorism cases, Wray said, contradicting President Trump’s claims that white nationalism was not on the rise.
The increase comes amid concerns that President Trump’s rhetoric is fueling white supremacy.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Wray whether the bureau is taking the domestic terror threat seriously in light of Trump’s rhetoric.
“There is a concern that this is not being taken as seriously as it should be as one of the real threats in our country,” Durbin told Wray.
“We take domestic terrorism or hate crime, regardless of ideology, extremely seriously, I can assure you, and we are aggressively pursuing it using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources and partnering closely with our state and local partners,” Wray responded.
Another concern is that a vast majority of the domestic cases are not leading to terrorism charges.
