Remarks as Delivered
Oh, this is the whole, the whole place is filled.
This is good. The Great Hall is beginning to look like a great hall
again. This is really good. Well, good morning. I am very happy to be in
the Great Hall today with representatives of the FBI, the ATF, the U.S.
Marshals Service, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys; and with
representatives of the National Security Division, Civil Rights
Division, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Justice Programs.
I am pleased to announce that the Administration is today releasing the first National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. Each of your components will play an important role in ensuring its success.
The National Strategy is designed to coordinate and
provide a principled path for the federal government’s efforts to
counter the heightened domestic terrorism threat, using all available
tools. It is the culmination of an effort undertaken at the President’s
direction by federal agencies all across the government – from the
Justice Department to the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense,
State, Health and Human Services, and others.
As part of this effort, our law enforcement and
intelligence agencies examined the evolving threat that faces us today.
From that base of understanding, we developed this National Strategy to
guide the work of a broad set of federal actors.
At the Justice Department, the Deputy Attorney
General and I have already begun implementing a range of measures. Among
other things, we have begun to reinvigorate the Domestic Terrorism
Executive Committee, and we will convene that interagency body in the
coming days and months.
Attorney General Janet Reno originally created the
Executive Committee in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The investigation of that bombing, which required an enormous commitment
of resources from agencies across the federal and state governments,
had demonstrated the importance of such a coordination mechanism.
Our current effort comes on the heels of another
large and heinous attack – this time, the January 6th assault on our
nation’s Capitol. We have now – as we have then – an enormous task
ahead: to move forward as a country; to punish the perpetrators; to do
everything possible to prevent similar attacks; and to do so in a manner
that affirms the values on which our justice system is founded and upon
which our democracy depends.
The resolve and dedication with which the Justice
Department has approached the investigation of the January 6th attack
reflects the seriousness with which we take this assault on a mainstay
of our democratic system: the peaceful transfer of power.
Over the 160 days since the attack, we have arrested
over 480 individuals and brought hundreds of charges against those who
attacked law enforcement officers, obstructed justice, and used deadly
and dangerous weapons to those ends.
That would have not been possible without the
dedication of our career prosecutors and agents, as well as the critical
cooperation of ordinary Americans, who in acts large and small have
shown that they are our best partners in keeping America safe. Within
the very first week following the attack, members of the public took it
upon themselves to submit over 100,000 pieces of digital media to the
FBI.
Unfortunately, we know from experience that domestic terrorism and violent extremism comes in many forms.
Six years ago, nine Black men and women were shot and
killed while praying at their church in Charleston. Four years ago this
week, an attacker shot four people at a Congressional baseball
practice, after confirming that the players were Republicans. Two months
later, a man drove his car into a crowd of peaceful protesters against
white supremacism in Charlottesville, murdering one and injuring many
more.
In 2018, 11 Jewish worshippers were shot and killed
at their synagogue in Pittsburgh. And two summers ago, 23 people, most
of whom were Latino, were gunned down while shopping at a Walmart in El
Paso.
Such attacks are not only unspeakable tragedies for
the victims’ loved ones; they are also a tragedy for our country, an
attack on our core ideals as a society. We must not only bring our
federal resources to bear; we must adopt a broader, societal response to
tackle the problem’s deeper roots.
*****
This effort begins with taking a rigorous look at the problem we face.
During President Biden’s first week in office, he
directed the Administration to undertake an assessment of the domestic
terrorism threat, and then to use that assessment to develop the
National Strategy being released today.
Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies
undertook that assessment in the first several weeks of this
Administration. In March, they concluded that domestic violent
extremists “pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” Our
experience on the ground confirms this. The number of open FBI domestic
terrorism investigations this year has increased significantly.
According to an unclassified summary of the March
intelligence assessment, the two most lethal elements of the domestic
violence extremist threat are “racially or ethnically motivated violent
extremists, and militia violent extremists.” In the FBI’s view, the top
domestic violent extremist threat comes from “racially or ethnically
motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the
superiority of the white race.”
The March assessment concluded that the militia
violent extremist threat, which it describes as those who “take overt
steps to violently resist or facilitate the overthrow of the United
States Government in support of their belief that the United States
Government is purportedly exceeding its Constitutional authority,” also
“increased last year and . . . will almost certainly continue to be
elevated throughout 2021.”
Particularly concerning is the March assessment’s
observation that the threat from lone offenders or small cells poses
“significant detection and disruption challenges because of those
actors’ capacity for independent radicalization to violence, ability to
mobilize discretely, and access to firearms.”
The domestic violent extremist threat is also rapidly
evolving. As FBI Director Wray has noted, we continue to observe actors
driven by a diverse set of violent motivations — sometimes personalized
and developed from a mix of violent ideologies.
Developments in technology exacerbate the overall
threat. Today, people may be drawn to social media and then to encrypted
communications channels.
There, they may interact with like-minded people
across the country, and indeed the world, who want to commit violent
attacks. And they may then connect with others who are formulating
attack plans, as well as mustering the resources – including firearms
and explosives – to execute them.
Technology has amplified and enabled transnational
elements of the threat. In earlier days, foreign terrorist groups had to
board airplanes to conduct attacks in America. Now, they take advantage
of technology to inspire others already located in the U.S. to
violence.
The same is true for domestic violent extremists, who
increasingly take common cause and inspiration from events and actions
around the world, indicating an important international dimension to
this problem.
The man who allegedly killed one person and injured
three in an April 2019 attack on a synagogue in Poway, California, cited
as inspiration an attack that took place a month before halfway across
the world in Christchurch, New Zealand. That attack killed 51 people and
injured dozens more at two mosques.
*****
In response to these many and serious challenges, the
National Strategy today seeks to confront the threat from all angles.
The Strategy rests on four “pillars,” each of which is essential to
support the whole:
“First are efforts to understand and share
information regarding the full range of domestic terrorism threats.
Second are efforts to prevent domestic terrorists from successfully
recruiting, inciting, and mobilizing Americans to violence. Third are
efforts to deter and disrupt domestic terrorist activity before it
yields violence. And finally, the long-term issues that contribute to
domestic terrorism in our country must be addressed to ensure that this
threat diminishes over generations to come.”
The National Strategy recognizes that we cannot
prevent every attack. The only way to find sustainable solutions is not
only to disrupt and deter, but also to address the root causes of
violence.
We have not waited until completion of the National Strategy to begin implementing it. At the Justice Department, for example:
- The FBI has increased the domestic threat information it
provides to our state, local, Tribal, and territorial partners; is
enhancing training provided to these important partners; and continues
to work closely with them in our Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
- Through the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Councils that we have
established in every U.S. Attorney’s Office across the country, we are
strengthening our domestic terrorism-related prosecutorial resources and
expertise.
- Our Civil Rights and National Security Divisions are working more
closely than ever in determining whether a given investigation should be
handled as a hate crime, an incident of domestic terrorism, or both.
This will ensure that we consider all appropriate criminal offenses and
that, whenever we encounter domestic terrorism, we treat it for what it
is.
- Through a directive we issued earlier this year, we are ensuring
that we carefully track investigations and cases with a domestic
terrorism nexus.
- And our grant-making components are dedicating additional resources
to helping states, localities, and others focus on the threat. The
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, for example, has started
prioritizing grants to local law enforcement agencies committed to
community-based approaches to combating racially motivated violence and
domestic terrorism.
And we will seek to determine whether there are
any gaps in our capabilities that should, consistent with our needs and
our shared values, be addressed through legislation.
To support these efforts, the President’s
discretionary budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 seeks over $100
million in additional funds for the Justice Department to address the
threat of domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism.
*****
The actions that agencies are taking in support of the National Strategy are held together by several core principles.
First, we are focused on violence, not on ideology.
In America, espousing a hateful ideology is not
unlawful. We do not investigate individuals for their First
Amendment-protected activities.
In 1976, Attorney General Levi established the
guidelines that form the foundation for a detailed set of rules that
continue to govern the FBI’s conduct of investigations today. In doing
that, he made clear that “Government monitoring of individuals or groups
because they hold unpopular or controversial political views is
intolerable in our country.”
As the National Strategy makes clear, safeguarding
our country’s civil rights and liberties is itself a vital national
security imperative.
We do not prosecute people for their beliefs. Across
the world, “extremist” or “terrorist” labels have at times been affixed
to those perceived as political threats to the ruling order. But there
is no place for partisanship in the enforcement of the law. This Justice
Department will not tolerate any such abuse of authority.
The National Strategy explains that “it is critical
that we condemn and confront domestic terrorism regardless of the
particular ideology that motivates individuals to violence.” Although we
often describe violent extremist motivations by reference to different
violent ideologies, the purpose of those characterizations is to help us
categorize and understand motivations.
That is why, even as we’re here today to discuss
domestic terrorism-related violence, we are addressing violent crime
more broadly, including through a directive to reduce violent crime that
the Deputy Attorney General and I announced last month in the form of a
new initiative.
It is also why, even as we augment our efforts
against domestic terrorism, we remain relentless in our focus on
international terrorism perpetrated by foreign terrorist organizations
like al-Qa’ida and ISIS.
Our focus, as members of the Department of Justice – and as a federal government – is to prevent, disrupt, and deter unlawful acts of violence, whatever
their motive. As the National Strategy makes clear, there is no place
for “violence as a means of resolving political differences in our
democracy.”
The second principle is that we need, not
only a whole-of-government, but also a whole-of-society approach to
domestic terrorism. Implementation of the National Strategy will
therefore occur across the federal government and beyond.
The State Department will focus on the transnational
aspects of domestic terrorism, including mapping links between foreign
and domestic terrorists. And, with the Department of the Treasury, it
will assess whether foreign organizations and individuals linked to
domestic terrorism can be designated as terrorists under existing
authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its
intelligence analysis, production, and sharing. It is prioritizing
relevant grant funding to support state and local partners. It is
enhancing its collaboration with community-based organizations, and
state, and local, and industry partners, to address domestic terrorism
threats while protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. And
is working to support the development of resources that enhance
critical thinking and media literacy as a mechanism to strengthen
resilience to misinformation and disinformation.
The Department of Homeland Security is also focused
on community-based violence prevention programs in order to empower and
revamp support to community partners who can help to prevent individuals
from ever reaching the point of committing a terrorist attack.
The Department of Defense will train service members
on the potential targeting of current and former military members by
violent extremists in order to help prevent radicalization.
The Department of Health and Human Services will work
with the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and Justice to
develop a website that aggregates and publicizes information on federal
resources – including grants, training, and technical assistance – that
can assist state and local authorities and the general public in
identifying the resources they need to implement their own counter
domestic terrorism programs.
And those are just a few examples.
We have a track record of successful collaborative
approaches to the challenges posed by terrorism – not just at the
federal level, but also with our state, local, Tribal, and territorial
partners.
The Justice Department’s first Joint Terrorism Task
Force, for example, was established in New York in 1980. At the time, it
was staffed with just 11 FBI investigators and 11 members of the New
York City Police Department.
Today, our approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task
Forces have over 4,300 officers from more than 550 local, state and
federal agencies, who work together every day as our first line of
defense against terrorist attacks. The work that we do to support and
enhance the resource and capabilities of our local partners, who are on
the front lines of our counterterrorism efforts, is vital to our
success.
Nearly every day, I get a briefing from the FBI
Director and his team. In those briefings, I am struck by the frequency
with which a critical tip or lead in an investigation comes from a state
or local law enforcement member or from a member of the public. The FBI
reports that roughly 50 percent of our cases originate from tips and
leads from law enforcement or private sector partners and private
citizens, who identify potential threats and report them to the FBI or
our partners.
Creating and maintaining an environment in which
individuals, community groups, and others continue to come to us depends
on the extent to which we can continue to merit their trust. This
includes making sure that our determinations are made free from bias. So
that, too, must be part of our long-term approach.
Equally important is our work with private industry
and with international partners. The National Strategy emphasizes that
the government should continue to enhance the domestic terrorism-related
information it offers to the private sector.
The technology sector is particularly important to
countering terrorist abuse of internet-based communication platforms to
recruit, incite, plot attacks, and foment hatred.
Along with more than 50 other countries, the United States has joined the Christchurch Call to Action to
collaborate with each other and relevant stakeholders – including tech
companies, NGOs, and academics – to tackle the on-line aspects of this
threat. The Christchurch Call is just one example of the many productive engagements we have had with our international partners.
Our third principle is that we build upon, and learn from, the past.
A look at our past efforts to combat terrorism
teaches valuable lessons about what can go right and what can go wrong.
It should also give us hope about our ability to rise, and adapt, to the
challenge.
I am personally struck by three events that occurred not far from each other at different points in the last one hundred years.
When I visited the Greenwood District in April of
this year, where Black Wall Street once thrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I
was struck by the failure to do justice after the 1921 Tulsa Race
Massacre. Over 1,250 homes were burned down; some 10,000 people were
left homeless; businesses, schools, houses of worship, and 35 city
blocks were destroyed. The number of people killed is estimated in the
hundreds.
All that destruction and death, and not a single person was prosecuted for it.
Almost 75 years later, just over 100 miles southwest
of Tulsa in Oklahoma City, after an attack that resulted in the deaths
of 168 people, the Justice Department successfully apprehended,
prosecuted, and convicted the men responsible for the bombing of the
Murrah Federal Building.
And five years ago, across Oklahoma’s northern border
in Kansas, federal authorities disrupted a plot to bomb an apartment
complex and its mosque and to kill its residents – immigrants from
Somalia. Working with Joint Terrorism Task Force partners, the
government prevented the bombing. No one died, and those who sought to
commit it were convicted of their crimes.
Since the tragedy of 9/11, we have changed our
intelligence community infrastructure, created national mechanisms for
coordinating counterterrorism efforts across the government, and
disrupted and prosecuted hundreds of terrorism-related offenses through a
legal system that has proven resilient and just.
We cannot promise that we will be able to disrupt
every plot, defuse every bomb, or arrest every co-conspirator before
they manage to wreak unspeakable horror. But we can promise that we will
do everything in our power to prevent such tragedies. And we can
further promise that we will never again fail, as we did after Tulsa, to
pursue justice.
Finally, the long-term issues that
contributed to domestic terrorism in America must be addressed to ensure
that this threat diminishes over generations to come. To defuse the
underlying causes of domestic terrorist attacks, we must promote a
society that is tolerant of our differences and respectful in our
disagreements.
*****
The Justice Department remains acutely aware of the
continuing threat posed by international terrorist organizations. We
will never take our eyes off the risk of another devastating attack by
foreign terrorists. At the same time, we must respond to domestic
terrorism with the same sense of purpose and dedication.
Attacks by domestic terrorists are not just attacks
on their immediate victims. They are attacks on all of us collectively,
aimed at rending the fabric of our democratic society and driving us
apart.
To confront the menace they pose, we must: (i)
understand and share information regarding the full range of threats we
face; (ii) prevent domestic terrorists from successfully recruiting,
inciting, and mobilizing Americans to violence; (iii) redouble and
expand our efforts to deter and disrupt domestic terrorism activity
before it yields violence; and (iv) address the long-term issues that
contribute to domestic terrorism in our country.
The National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism is
a key step in our efforts. We have much work ahead. Thank you all for
joining me today and for the work you will do to put this Strategy into
action. Thank you.
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