>> thank you. last, senator feinstein asked you a series of questions about the record number of nix denials last year. this is when someone goes in, tries to buy a gun, is run through the background system and is denied. they're a person prohibited often because they're a convicted felon. i'm soon going to be introducing a bill with a colleague on this committee that would simply require that when there is an attempt to buy that is denied because somebody is a person prohibited that notification be given to state law enforcement. that is the law in some states. it is not the law in the majority of states. does that seem to you something that would be a good additional tool in the tool kit to allow state and local law enforcement to act on the tip that someone who is a person prohibited has just lied and tried to procure a weapon? >> certainly i think the lied and tried information is often a valuable tool from an investigative perspective in

preventing more serious conduct. and we'd be happy to meet with you or engage with you to provide a better seasons of how all this works from an operational perspective. i know that the key consumer of the information here, as your question alluded our state and local law enforcement, so i would to make sure we do it in a way we work with them as to what they would find most useful. as i said in response to senator feinstein, the volume of nix checks overall and as a small subset of denials has exploded over the curse of the last year. so i am mindful of the resource burden that it puts on everybody in the law enforcement system. but we'd be happy to talk with you more about it. >> thanks. i look forward to working with you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator sass. >> thank you, chairman. thank you, director, for being here and being available to us on this committee and on the intel committee. we've always been grateful for

your work and availability. we've talked a good bit about the intelligence failures around january 6th, but some of it is how did we sort signal from noise, and some of it is the handoff from the fbi and other entities to the capitol police. as you do an after-action, how much of the problem is the challenge of navigating a social media world where any drunk guy in a bar now has amplification that he can be heard around the world and lots is just drunk guy in a bar ranting, and some of it is more particular threats because people can find communities of kind of warped belief with other people if they're planning something wicked on social media. how much of it is the fitters of social media to make sense of it and how much of the january 6th failure, wz the handoff from the fbi to capitol police? >> senator, as i said, when it comes to the handoff, a lot of the attention has been about this norfolk s.i.r., which i uf talked about al at some length,

provided the information to our partners in three different ways, and as it was the information was raw, uncorroborated information at the time, certainly. i think the other part of your question, the filter, the social media piece of it, is a huge issue. it's something we and everybody in law enforcement struggles with right now. you know, you use the drunk guy example. i guess sometimes i refer to it -- used to be some angry demented guy living in mom's basement, not that there's anything wrong with that, you know, in one part of the country is now able to communicate with the similarly angry guy in grandma's attic in another part of the country, and they get each other spun up now, and how to separate who's being aspirational versus who's being intentional, it won't shock you to learn, hopefully not other members of the committee, that the amount of angry, hateful,

unspeakable combative violent rhetoric on social media exceeds what anybody in their worst imagination is out there. so trying to figure out who's just saying -- you know what we ought to do is x or everybody ought to do x versus the person who's doing that and actually getting traction and getting followers and of course that's assuming they're not communicating through encrypted channels about all that stuff is one of the hardest things there is to do in today's world with the nature of the violent extremism threat we face. social media companies play a huge role in helping us with that, but you often hear us say if you see something, say something. to me the refinement here would be if americans see something on social media that seems to have crossed that line, they need to say something, because that's going to be our best source of information to prevent this. >> so it's helpful. i've heard from law enforcement before at one level they don't

know what to do if you see something, say something, because it's not clear where they hand that information. let's talk a little more about the handoff between state and local law enforcement but also about platform content information. but first inside the bureau, give us comfort that we're getting a lot better at this, because i don't think we're giving you enough resources to get the right kind of human capital you'll need, but i'd love to be wrong. go from three years ago, to a year ago, to now, how are we getting better at filtering signal from noise and what kind of new human capital are you hiring that should give us confidence we'll get better in this world that is exploding with online rant? >> there are a number of things we're trying to do better. we're making progress. but all of it like you said requires reresources. there's data analytics piece

because the volume is so significant that we need to get better being able to analyze the data we have in a timely way to separate the cheat from the chaff and that requires both tools, analytical tools, and we've had requests for those in the budgets the last couple years, but also people, data analysts, who can devote their time to that and have the experience. so that's part of it. i think a second part of it is as i think i referenced in response to an earlier question, all these investigations that we do, all these arrests we make are important not just from a disruption perspective but putting my intelligence hat on, they allow us to learn more about where people communicate, how they communicate, what the magic words are, all that kind of stuff so we get better and better at anticipating from that reason. but make no mistake, we have a long way to go. this is an incredibly hard problem. i know from communicating with

my foreign counterparts, especially the five eyes, that they're struggling with it too. as to your point about people knowing where to go, you know, i will tell you that our tip line, our public access tip line, both the email tips and the phone tips, have exploded in volume, and we're doing things to kind of get that information out to state and local law enforcement much more quickly. and certainly the social media companies, some of them have gotten better at providing us more realtime information when they see something because they have a lot of resources to devote to this problem in terms of policing their own platforms. so the more we can incentivize them to do that, that's big part too. >> so i'm a high school teacher, a high school principal and some kid comes to me and says, these kids have always seemed to be online bullies but now it seems like the things they ear saying sound more violent. what do you tell them to do? >> contact your local fbi field office. >> not the local police

department? >> they could also contact state and local law enforcement. we all now work so closely together i think we view a call to one as a call to us all. if we get the information we're nine times out of ten going to be pushing it to state and local law enforcement as quickly as we can. we do a lot of outreach to the high schools like you're talking about, meeting with teachers, meeting with students, meeting with parents to try to get them to understand better what to be on the lookout for, what might be that indicator. because the one thing we know whether it's any kind of domestic violence extremism we've talked about this morning or frankly just the horrific active shooter, school shooter situation, is that when you look back on the path to the key moment, almost every single time there was a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a classmate, a co-worker, something, somebody who knew the person well enough to know this is their baseline, they've now changed in a way that's scary to me and no one

knows better than the person who knows them well. that's the person we need to come forward. when they do and they're doing its more, we're able to get in front of it. >> i'll flag a question i want to continue talking with you about. i would love to hear your big national pitch for these data analysts because we need more great human capital serving their country in this way. i want to be sure our training for these data analysts have 1st amendment sensibilities about what they're there to do. they're looking for violence, not to be the national speech police. so look forward to continuing that conversation. thanks for your work. >> thank you, senator sass. senator blumenthal? >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you director wray for being here today. i want to join in expressing my condolences for loss of those two agents, and my thanks to the thousands of agents who work day in and day out to make america safer.

when you last appeared before this committee in july of 2019, i expressed my concern that donald trump's attacks against members of congress and his other rhetoric, quote, might ignite white supremacists and nationalist organizations and encourage hate crimes. i asked you whether you were concerned about this increasing number and intensity of is attacks on public officials and what the fbi was doing both proactively and responsively about them. and you said, quote, i think we are very concerned about any threats of violence against any americans but certainly that would prominently include our elected officials." we've seen increasing attacks by the president and others against public officials. when the rioters who came to the

capitol stormed the citadel of democracy on january 6th were inside, they boasted proudly and loudly that they were doing what donald trump wanted them to do. we have warned specifically about qanon in a letter dated december 8th, 2020, a number of us, members of the senate, warned that qanon specifically was a threat. i would like to ask you whether the threat posed by qanon, and as you well know, adherence of qanon, were among the rioters, very prominently, who stormed the capitol, whether the continuing threat is worsened when prominent elected officials, including members of

congress, endorsed the qanon they ary. >> certainly we are concerned about the qanon phenomenon, which we view as a sort of loose set of conspiracy theory, and we've certainly seen domestic violent extremists of the sort you're describing who cite that as part of their motivation. so that's something that we do -- >> but i apologize for interrupting. as you know my time is limited. when members of congress, as has happened, endorse the qanon theory, doesn't it worsen the threat of violence? >> well, again, our focus is on the violence and on the plans to commit violence, the threats to commit violence, less on the rhetoric and the ideology. obviously, the folk who is engage in this kind of violence draw inspiration from a variety

of sources and we're concerned about any source that stimulates or motivates violent extremism. >> i'll follow up in another setting. but i am strategist frankly disappointed you're not discouraging one of the sources of incitement, which is prominent public officials endorsing a theory that in turn resulted in storming the united states capitol. let me turn to hate crimes. hate crimes are underreported. we're seeing a rising trend of hate crimes particularly directed at asian-american pacific islanders. i have a bill called the no hate act that would require more reporting, provide both incentives and requirements. wouldn't you think that kind of

measure is a good idea? >> so certainly we share your goal of both deterring and reducing hate crime but also particularly relevantly in promoting better reporting, more complete reporting of hate crime. and we are specifically concerned about hate crimes against asian-americans as well. i'm not directly familiar with the bill, but i think we share the goal of trying to figure out how to improve reporting. as you may know, we have a new system that we're rolling out, trying to get to 100% on that, and we'd be pleased to work with you on figuring out how this bill might help advance that goal. >> well, the no hate act would, in fact, lead to better reporting if 87% of hate crimes are unreported now.

that is a searing indictment of the present system. we need to know more and particularly about asian-americans and island pacificers being victims of them. i know you don't want to be a, as you said, armchair quarterback, but you're going to be armchair quarterback by the american people. and i think the american people listening to these past ten days of hearing and knowing how much information there was out there on social media, in other forum, about these thugs and rioters coming to washington, organized groups, 3% proud boys and others, are wondering why didn't the fbi sound the alarm? i know there was a communication through that threat assessment.

i know you've talked about the agencies that were hearing that assessment. but here we have the united states capitol, where a key function of democracy, enabling the peaceful transition of power was taking place and a threat of violence and even death to them. why didn't you go to the gang of eight? why didn't you sound the alarm in some more visible and ringing way? >> well, senator, i guess a couple things. one, over the course of 2020, we repeatedly, repeatedly put out intelligence products on this very issue. domestic violent extremism, tied to the election, violent extremism tied to the election and continuing beyond the election up through the inauguration, and specifically in december of 2020. in addition to that, in connection with the one piece of raw intelligence that's been

discussed so much here today, we did pass that on to the people in the best position to take action on the threat, not one, not two, but three different ways. now, more broadly in terms of what's out in social media, as a number of the questions here today have elicited, it highlights one of the most challenging jobs for law enforcement in today's world with social media. there is so much chatter often unattributed to somebody in a neatly identifiable way where people are saying unbelievably horrific, angry, combative things using language about beheading and shooting and explosives an all kinds of things like that, and separating out which ones are getting traction, which ones reflect intention as to posed to aspiration, is something we spend an enormous amount of time trying to do. sometimes we don't have the luxury of time and the ability to make those judgments.

i can assure you that as i said i think to senator klobucar, my standard is we're trying to bat a thousand. we want the thwart every attack. anytime there's an attack that's not thwarted we and our partners want to make sure we figure out how to do even better sprenting that. we're pleased that the inauguration, for example, went smoothly, notwithstanding threats and chatter we were seeing not just near in the national capital region but state capitals across the country. our focus was on engaging with all of our partners, our state and local partners. i did a conference with like 1,000-plus police chiefs around the country about the state capitols. that's the kind of thing we were doing to try to make sure we're doing the grind, the hard work, to get in front of the threat. and we're going to keep working at it every single day. i understand your response. what i don't understand is why this chatter, raw intelligence,

didn't prompt a stronger warning, an alarm going to the very top of the united states congress, because clearly, the united states congress was under severe threat. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator holley? >> director wray, thanks for being here. i want to go back to questions from senator lee. he asked you about the geolocation and metadata aspects and gathering related to investigation of january 6th riots. you said you weren't familiar with the specifics. can i just clarify your responses to him? so when you say you're not familiar, are you saying that you don't know whether or not the bureau has scooped up geolocation data, metadata from cell phone records, from cell phone towers? do you not know? are you saying that the bureau maybe or maybe hasn't done it? just tell me what you know about this.

>> when it comes to geolocation data specifically, the use of it, i would not be surprised to learn but i do not know for a fact that we were using geolocation data under any situation in connection with the investigation of the 6th. but, again, we do use geolocation data under specific authorities and specific instances because this is such a sprawling investigation that would not surprise me. when it comes to metadata, it's a little different obviously than geolocation data. i feel confident that we are using various legal authorities to look at metadata under a variety of situations, but, again, the specifics of when, under what circumstances, with whom, that kind of thing i'm not in a position to testify about with the sprawl and size of the investigation and certainly not in a congressional hearing. >> what authorities do you have in mind? you say you're using the relevant authorities.

what authorities are they? >> well, we have various forms of legal process we can serve on companies that will allow us to get -- >> and that's been done. >> we're using a lot of legal processes in connection with the investigation, so yes. >> but specifically, serving process on companies using, invoking your various legal powers to get that data from companies, that's been done in the case of gathering this data? >> in gathering metadata? >> yeah. >> again, i don't know the specifics, but i feel confident that is happening because metadata is often something we look at, and we have a variety of legal tools that allow us to do that under certain circumstances. >> what about the cell tower data that was reportedly scooped up by the bureau on the day, during, in fact, dwhil ray ottawa was under way? what's happened to that data? do you still have it? has it been retained? do you have plans to retain it? >> again, whatever we're doing with cell phone data i'm confident we're doing it, you know, in conjunction with our

appropriate legal tools and working -- >> here's what i'm trying to get at. i think it's what senator was trying to get at. how are we going to know what you're doing with it and evaluate the bureau's conduct if we don't know what authorities you're invoking, what precisely you're doing, what you're retaining? you said to him repeatedly you weren't familiar with the specifics. you've said it to me. i'm not sure how the committee is supposed to evaluate -- you're saying trust us. do we have to wait until the end of the investigation to find out what you've done? >> certainly i have to be careful about discussings an ongoing investigation, which i'm sure you can appreciate. all the tools we have are done in conjunction with prosecutors and lawyers from the justice department. now, if there's information we can provide you before an investigation is completed that goes through what some of the authorities we have, the tools we have, et cetera, we can

probably provide information like that that might be useful to you to help answer the question. >> that would be helpful. thank you. i'll hold you to that. let me ask you about other things that have been reported in the press, particularly there have been a series of reports that the bureau has worked with banks in the course of the investigation into the january 6th riot and both before and after and that some banks, particularly bank of america, may have handed over data for 200-plus clients who may have used their credit or debit cards to make purchases in the d.c. area. what do you know about this? has bank of america voluntarily turned over information to the bureau about its customers? >> i don't know any of the specifics. i'd have to look into that. >> so has the fbi requested similar information from any other companies to your knowledge? >> again, sitting here right now, i do not know the answer to that question. i do know that we work with private sector partners including financial institutions in a variety of ways all the time in a variety of investigations, but the specifics of what may or may not

have happened here, that i don't know sitting here as we're talking today. as i'm sure you can appreciate my concern here, is that 12 usc 3403 prohibits financial institutions from turning over confidential client records unless of course they have reasonable suspicion there's a crime being committed. now, the news reports on this have indicated that the financial institutions were doing this in cooperation with the bureau without any such indication of a crime. they're just turning over reams of consumer data. that would be a major legal problem, a major legal concern. can you try and get me some answers to these questions? i appreciate you saying you don't know today, not ai ware of what's going, but can you look into this and follow up? >> i'd be happy to see if there's more information we can provide. we have a variety of ways in which we engage with financial institutions in particular, and as you referenced, there's a number of legal authorities that describe when you can and cannot do that and how that's supposed to work. so i don't want to get out as i say over my skis and try to

characterize what may have happened in this specific instance, but i'm happy to look into it and see if there's more information we can provide. >> what about some of the technology companies, facebook, google, twitter, apple, amazon? has the fbi had contacts with those tech platforms following the events of the 6th? >> we've certainly had contact with a number of the social media companies in connection with the 6th. so that much i know. >> has the bureau sought to compel any of those companies to turn over user data related to the 6th? >> well, again, i can't tell you the specifics here, but what i will tell you is that i feel certain that we have served legal process on those companies which we do with some frequency. and we have received information from some of those companies. whether that's true of every single one of the companies you listed, i can't say for sure, but i suspect it is because we work with the social media companies quite a lot. >> are you ai ware of any of the companies voluntarily turning

data over to the bureau in relationship to the 6th? >> sitting here i can't say for sure. >> one more question, mr. chairman. time is almost expired. are you currently pressuring any of these platforms, these social media platforms or tech platforms to include back doors in their software that would help defeat end-to-end encryption? >> are we pressuring -- >> are you encouraging, pushing for, are you -- is it your desire to get such access? >> we are not trying to get back doors. that is i think a criticism that gets leveled our way by people who don't understand our position often. so i appreciate the opportunity to address it here. we are concerned about end-to-end encryption, especially default end-to-end encryption with a lot of these platforms, and we are concerned that if these companies continue to move in the trajectory that they're moving, and we are going to find ourselves in a situation where no matter how bulletproof

or ironclad the legal authority, no matter how compelling the facts and circumstances, no matter how horrific the crime or heartbreaking the victim, we will not be able to get access to the content that we need to keep people safe. what we have been suggesting, and the cryptologists i talk to say this is doable, is for the companies themselves to build in a way to have legal access when confronted with a proper legal authority so that they can get access to information and provide it in response to a warrant or a court order. we're not going to have a key. we're not asking for a back door. that's a myth, an urban legend that has been directed our way. but this is a subject that i think the american people need to understand, because decisions that affect the life and blood of americans all over this country, which normally are made by our elected representatives, are in effect getting made in corporate offices and big

technology companies. different people can come down in different places on that balancing, but i would submit that's a balancing that should be made up here and not by one company based on its business model. in the context, for example,exp and to facebook's great credit, we get millions, millions of tips on child exploitation through nick-nick every year and help us rescue hundreds of kids every year. if they move forward in the direction they're moving, a direction apple already went, we'll be in a position where those tips, those leads, that content, that information will drop into the abyss, so the tips will be gone, the victims, all those kids will still be out there. the pedophiles that are exploiting them, they'll still be out there. the only thing that will be different is neither the company nor we in law enforcement will know who they are, where they are, or what they're doing. and i don't think that's the situation that we want to find

ourselves in. so we would welcome the opportunity to work with the companies, perhaps encourage or incentivize through congress to get to a situation where we can balance strong cybersecurity absolutely. it's a key part of our mission as well at the fbi. along with strong flesh and blood security, especially for america's children. >> thank you, senator. can you hear me, senator? >> thank you, mr. chairman. director wray, following the january 6th insurrection, you and other senior law enforcement officials were missing from public view, and the people who were providing the briefings to the public were the d.c. acting u.s. attorney and the assistant director of the fbi's washington field office. i hope you agree that at a time like this, it would be very

important for high-level law enforcement people like you and others to have briefed the public to limit the spread of misinformation about what happened and who was behind what happened. wouldn't you agree? >> certainly i agree. it's important to prevent misinformation. >> part of the misinformation that happened was that you've testified that so far there is no evidence of fake trump supporters committing or provoking violence during the january 6th riot of the capitol. that's part of the misinformation that got out. were you ai ware of these false claims? >> well, certainly along the way, we've seen a whole variety of claims from a variety of people about the investigation into the january 6th attack, just like with a lot of other high-profile attacks.

whether i can recall exactly when the first time i've heard that specific claim, i don't know for sure. >> this is part of the kind of false information narrative that got out, blaming others such as antifa for what happened. so that is why i think it's really important for you and others like you to be up front. you've been asked some questions about hate crimes, and you acknowledge that this is a rise in hate crimes against the asian-american pacific islander community. wouldn't you agree that calling the covid-19 the kung flu or the china virus adds to the targeted hate crimes we are seeing ai rise against the asian pacific community? >> i don't know it's my place as fbi director to start weighing in on rhetoric, but i can assure you that's not language i would

ever use, and hate crimes against asian-americans and pacific islanders is something we are concerned about, we take seriously. we are investigating where we have facts sufficient to do that. we're also engaged in a forms of outreach to the public. i think we've done, you know, 60-plus training or liaison events with the asian-american pacific islander community since march of last year. we've put out intelligence reports to our partners about hate crimes in that community in particular. it's something we take very seriously. i commend you for working with i assume local and state law enforcement entities as well as community advocacy groups to deal with the rise in hate crimes against asian-americans, and in fact just a few weeks ago there were lethal attacks --

there seems to be a targeting of senior asians, so lethal attacks in san francisco and in new york. these are totally unprovoked attacks. and so i think that we need to continue to focus on what the community can do and what law enforcement can do to make sure that these crimes are prosecuted as the hate crimes that they are. and i think it's also important for leaders to not fan the flames by calling covid-19 the china virus or kung flu. you also testified that you were asked questions about the role of social media by these extremist groups. you said that terrorism moves at the speed of social media. senators warner, klobucar, and i recently introduced a safe tech

act which would pull back section 230 immunity from tech companies for things like civil rights violations and wrongful death suits. do you think that exposing these companies to civil liability would force them, basically, to take extremist content off of their platforms or take this kind of content more seriously and do something about it? >> well, senator, i want to be careful not to get out ahead of the rest of the administration in weighing in on specific pieces of legislation. but having said that, i think there are a few things i could say. you know, one is while the immunity under section 230 has obviously helped the evolution of the social media industry, it's also allowed it to ai void burdens and risks that other brick-and-mortar companies have had to face. it means that important

decisions that affect many aspects of society that would normally be made by the people's elected representatives are now being made in corporate offices in the industry. and so while i can't comment on specific legislation, i certainly can tell you that i see the value maybe is the best way of putting it of incentivizing online platforms to address both illicit content on their platforms and to assist law enforcement in bringing to justice criminals who use those platforms to victimize americans. >> and then there is also the concern that as entities such as facebook and twitter do more to control, modify this kind of content, that i know this could encourage driving extremists to use encrypted platforms like telegram and signals. that's another area we'll need to address.

i wanted to turn briefly to your testimony that identifies lone wolf actors as a concern for you. with regard to that, we need probably a whole society approach. so what can we all do to deal with the problem of lone wolf extremists? >> i appreciate the question. we do consider that, the lone actor. i've sort of stop using the term wolf because i feel like it gives them too much credit. but the lone actors, whether they're domestic violence extremists is a real threat because one of the -- a, because it's so pervasive, but b, because unlike somebody who's working as part of a large group, somebody act eight loan has fewer people they're in contact with, which means fewer dots to connect, et cetera. it makes it that much harder for us to get in front of it. what we desperately need is more

and more situations where the members of the public who know that person, who see the transformation, who see things starting to change in a way they know is different and has become much darker and more dangerous, those people to speak up to contact law enforcement, whoever they trust in law enforcement, to alert people to the threat. and the good news, if there's any good news in this, is we are seeing that happen more and more in this country. we've had lots of people, as heartbreaking as it must be, turn in family members when they see this transformation because they know that having us or our partners intercede may not only prevent that person from committing an attack against an innocent american, but also may in some instances result in that person being off-ramped to get help as opposed to potentially being killed by law enforcement or incarcerated or something

else. so we need the people -- we always say if you see something, say something, and most people picture the abandoned backpack in a greyhound bus terminal. obviously, we want people to see something and say something there. but if people see something about somebody to say something, and the more of that we can have and the more members of congress as key voices in their communities in your home states can encourage people to do that, that's one of the key weapons we have as a country, to use your phrase, the whole of society defense against this threat. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator cobb. >> director wray, thank you. i was deeply saddened by the loss of the special agents, and i want to extend condolences to their families and the agency and the entire bureau. my wife and i know many of your agents across the country and

we're extremely grateful for the work they do. turning to your written testimony, you say that the fbi assesses homegrown -- or homegrown violent extremists as the greatest threat to the homeland. they're u.s.-based individuals located in and radicalized primaily in the u.s. not receiving individualized direction from global, jihad-inspired foreign terrorist organizations but are inspired largely by isis and al qaeda to commit violence. so what you're saying there, director wray, if i understand it directly, is dangerous to the threat as from other kinds of extremists like racial supremacist groups or anarchist groups. the most dangerous tlelts we have in the country from extremism remains jihadists. is that correct? >> the key word there was international. i don't have the written statement for the record in front of me. but what i would say is we view the -- let me step back. what we view as the most dangerous threat to americans

today is largely lone actors, in some cases small cells, if you will,y radicalized online, in the united states, attacking soft targets using crude readily accessible weapons motivated either by jihadist inspirations or by a variety of domestic inspirations. so we have the hves, the homegrown violent extremists jihadist inspired and the dve, domestics, who are inspired by sources. that buck etc., which have a lot in common with each other, is the greatest terrorism threat we face as a country. >> i would turn to another kind of potential terrorist threat. we talked about domestic terrorism, obviously international terrorism remains a serious threats, an important part of the federal government's counterterrorism work remains trying to prevent foreign terrorist from reaching our shores. >> yes. >> and part of the screening is

checking databases. but providing about terrorist ties and documents so terrorists can't obtain fake i.d.s. is that correct? >> certainly that's a part and part of kind of hardening our homeland defense. >> your predecessor testified to congress in 2015 that without cooperation from those governments if the terrorist is not in our own databases we could, quote, query our database until the cows come home but there will be nothing to show up unless foreign government work with us. is that the case? >> we depend heavily on cooperation from foreign governments to make that kind of defense effective. >> let's turn to the foreign governments. is it still the case syria and iran are nations that share little, if any, information with the united states about potential travelers or immigrants coming to our country? >> i will confess i'm not sure i know the answer sitting here today, but i would be flabbergasted if the answer was anything other than yes.

>> still the case a syria and iran -- sorry, that libya and syria are both countries that lack effective control over significant parts of their territory and therefore cannot provide information from people coming from those parts of their country? >> i believe that to be the case. >> what about myanmar, also known as burma, where there's a military coup last week. is it true that the united states now faces serious obstacles to vet individuals coming from burma? >> i'm not sure i know the answer on burma, but i suspect the answer is the same. >> and finally, in this, what about north korea? is it true that north korea remains uncooperative in providing us information about north korean nationals that might try to come to the united states? >> i have rarely heard north korea come up in the context of cooperativeness. >> thank you. i just want to note before we close on this topic that all of those nations -- syria, iran, libya, burma, north korea -- were among the nations from which president biden lifted travel restrictions by executive order on his first day in office without any plan in place to

improve security for these travels. another kind of threat we face is crime and gang violence in particular. unfortunately, drug trafficking and violent crime are on the rise in the united states. are street gangs driving a significant part of violent crime on streets across america? >> well, certainly when i go around and i've talked with state and local law enforcement in all 50 states i think the number-one issue you would hear from maybe all of them is violent crime. what drives it in each city, state, town is different, but it's not just the national gangs. you know, the ms-13s, the 18th street gangs, et cetera. a lot of times it's the neighborhood gangs that are top of mind when you talk to chiefs and sheriffs around this country. >> and those gangs of whatever type, they often use violent crime as a way to expand their territory and exert more control

so they can use money-making enterprises like drug trafficking, property crimes like robbery? >> yes. >> so let's talk about ms-13 since you raised it. ms-13 has gained notoriety for brutal crimes across the country in recent years and continue to expand their influence in the united states. is that right? >> well, i know we've made significant strides against ms-13 over the last six months or so, but it is a very significant gang threat. and the brutality, the savagery, and the level of kind of organization that exists there is something that has to be taken essex treatmently seriously. >> it remains central american and el salvadoran gang, is that correct? >> certainly from the triangle, the so-called triangle, but yes, el salvador is one place from which a lot of them come. >> they don't exactly handle out membership cards, i'm sure, have a membership directory.

unless they're named by another gang member, you still use methods like gang tattoos to identify who belongs to ms-13? >> that would be one piece of information that would be relevant. we're talking to human sources, witnesses, informantinformants, collecting information from partners, et cetera. >> i know your safe streets task forces and national gang intelligence center often work together with the department of homeland security and state and local law enforcement to find and prosecute and deport these gang members. in your professional opinion today, is immigrations and customs enforcement deporting too many or too few ms-13 gang members? >> well, i don't know that i've tracked the deportation rate to ms-13 members. when we come across them in this country, our focus has been locking them up and putting them in federal prison as much as we can, which is where we like to

have them. in addition to the units that you listed off, i think correctly, i would also cite our tag, our transactional group, which is a task force that we have in el salvador, because we actually have pretty effective results with u.s. law enforcement working with el salvador law enforcement to a somewhat lesser extent the other two countries in the triangle to take down some of the ms-13 members in their home country as well. so it's the two pieces together. so i can't say sitting here right now anything about the immigration posture, but certainly when we find ms-13 gang members here, we want to put them in orange jump suit where is they get to spend a lot of time in our prisons. >> thank you. when it comes to ms-13, i support the lock 'em up policy but also the deportment policy. that thank you, senator cotton. director wray, hello.

it's been a long day and i appreciate you here on the tail end of the questioners, so i appreciate your endurance. i first just want to associate myself with maybe not the heat that you receive from senator whitehouse but definitely the spirit of what he was talking about. i appreciate your commitment to meet his concerns, which are concerns i've heard on both sides of the aisle. it's very hard to play our role, our constitutionally mandated role if we don't have the oversight of the agency. i appreciate your commitments. i also want to join what i think as you've seen a really bipartisan condolences for loss of daniel alfin and lauren schwarzenberger. that is the greatest sacrifice anyone can make for this nation, which is to die in the line of duty protecting others. i'm ai ware other officers were injured, other agents injured. i hope they're recovering well? >> they are. they are. i've had the opportunity the

morning after the shooting to go down not just to meet with laura and dan's families but to visit the hospital. the four injured agents should make a full recovery. >> would you please express from the entire committee not only our condolences to the families but our robust concern for their recover and well-being. if they need anything, you have allies here in their well-being. >> thank you, senator. >> you and i have had a treasuried conversation, frankly, you showed me the honor of the coming to visit me before you sat with me in my office before you stepped into that job. i really appreciated our conversation about the challenges we still have in this country around racial issues and the urgency for the fbi, which has abused it power before, whether investigations of martin luther king or other ways to really set an example for the largest driver in many ways as

we pledge ai lee i can't answer to the flag, this driver of being a just nation. i just want to ask you, though, about your team. we know that diverse teams are better. everybody from harvard business school to every top business consulting agency has shown study after study diverse teams are stronger teams but especially ones in law enforcement that have such a mandate that you have, having diversity is really important. so i guess my first question is, how diverse is the fbi's workforce now in terms of relig diversity? >> so, senator, this is a top that i can as you may recall from our prior visit is very important to me personally and something i've tried to make as a priority. we're addressing it in a variety of ways. but in terms of results, there is i guess i would characterize it as cautiously optimistic. so on the racial diversity

front, our special agent class has been more diverse with each year over the past few years. in each case more certainly than the diversity percentage of the workforce that exists. and this year, thing is -- the racial diversity of our applicant pool is much higher than years past. on gender much the same. applications -- the diversity of applications is up significantly. the gender/diversity of our classes is up. i've set aggressive targets for our field offices and those targets are for the most part being exceeded. so we're doing a number of things to try to address the issue. we have what we call diversity agent recruitment events which were easier to do pre-covid. a lot of times i would go to in

different parts of the country myself and speak at. we have a very encouraging project we've started with 300 entertainment that's focused on historically black colleges and universities and trying to improve our recruiting pipeline there. >> can i maybe just ask you, could you share that data with the committee of the progress that you're making? >> sure. i think there's definitely information we could provide separately. >> and then your leadership team, could you provide the diversity of the leadership team that you have around you? >> sure. well, i will say -- yes is the answer. but i will say that on that front i've recently appointed -- you know, we have -- i'm not sure how much you may remember about our structure but we have at the very top of the fbi six eads, executive assistant directors, each one is over a branch that has multiple divisions. just over the last couple months, as people retire i've

replaced one of the eads with an asian-american woman who oversees our human resources branch and one of the other six eads with an african-american male who oversees our intelligence branch which includes not just our entire intelligence function but our private sector engagement and our law enforcement partner engagement as well. i also appointed the first -- >> i want to honor the time here. i look forward -- i know you'll be available to discuss that more and give me information. in the minute or so i have left i've really -- i think a lot of the questioning has been very illustrative of a lot of the challenges we face and i appreciate that from members of both sides of the dais here. i wanted to drill in something we've talked about, extremist groups at the capitol, talked about many others. as i've seen interviews of folks there were many people just saying i'm here because president trump -- now former

president trump wanted us here. and it seemed that this lie that was told over and over again, that many people felt like that their government had betrayed them, that the courts -- after court case after court case that republican official after republican official were all just dead wrong, really believed in the lie and felt like they were left with no choice but to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power. and so i guess i'd just ask to begin with, is it attorney general barr said that he had "not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election." do you agree with attorney general barr's statement that there is absolutely no evidence of voter fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? >> i agree with attorney general barr. >> and to be crystal clear on this, as fbi director, these would be federal crimes, you're aware of no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the

2020 presidential election? >> we are not aware of any widespread evidence of voter fraud much less that would have affected the outcome in the presidential election. >> well, i have great respect for senator kennedy and i see him as a friend. i'm not going to abuse the incredible power dick durbin has given me right now, although power is going to my head but i'm going to police myself and defer to the good senator kennedy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i didn't hear you, did you call me -- >> i called you mr. chairman. >> thank you, sir, thank you, sir. that sounds very good. >> thank you again, mr. chairman. mr. director, i've listened from my office to your testimony today. tell me who had the authority to call out the national guard on january 6th? >> my understanding -- well, my

understanding is that the decisions to call out the national guard in one sense are the responsibility of the secretary of defense. but in another sense -- >> okay, mr. director, i'm sorry to interrupt you. but i think we can agree that the fbi had credible information that there was likely to be violence on january 6th. can we agree on that? >> well, i don't know that we had assessed its credibility. we certainly had information that was concerning about the potential for violence in connection with the january 6th events. as we've discussed here this morning one piece of information that was most specific that i'm aware of was passed, you know, quite -- >> based on that information, and i'm sorry to interrupt. but we just keep nibbling at the edges and dancing around the issue. and i understand. i'm not asking you to throw

anybody under the bus, chris, i get it. but we need to find out what happened. now, if you were king for a day, based on the information that you had, maybe not at the time but later on, would you have called out the fbi? i mean the national guard. >> you know, senator, as you said i really want to be careful not to be armchair quarterbacking others. i think the national guard, we have seen, can play a very important role in crowd control. >> excuse me for interrupting. boy, i sure -- you know, i'm not trying to be rude, but my time's limited. well, who made the call not to, based on your information who made the call not to call out the fbi, whether they should have or shouldn't? >> not to call the fbi? >> i'm sorry, i'm tired. the national guard. >> well, i would defer to others who are more involved in that discussion. but from what i have heard, what i have read, my understanding is

that at one stage of the process the local government was of the view that it did not need the national guard's assistance. >> who do you mean by the local government? the mayor? >> yes. >> so the mayor didn't call out the national guard. >> at the beginning. >> what do you mean by the beginning? >> well, you know, in the day or two leading up to the 6th. >> okay. >> as to exactly how it played out on the 6th itself -- >> i understand. i mean, clearly our people were overrun. by the nut jobs. so we're making progress here, okay. so the mayor, or the city government decided not to call out the fbi -- the national guard ahead of time. what about the house sergeant-at-arms? >> i don't know what role the house sergeant-at-arms played

with respect to the national guard. >> okay. how about the senate sergeant? >> same answer. >> okay. how about the capitol police, the chief of capitol police, did the chief of capitol police make the call not to call out the national guard? >> i don't know the answer to that. my understanding is that the law enforcement officials here with responsibility over the capitol, that there were varying, differing views about whether or not the national guard was appropriate and when, at what level. all i really know on that is what i've -- same thing you've seen, in the press coverage of the events. >> okay. that's enough on that. i listened to your comments about diversity and i thank you for your good work there. i think any fair minded person has to conclude that diversity

is a strength, not a weakness. but this subject comes up a lot, and i think it's going to come a lot again, and that's not a criticism. that's just an observation. do you believe that the fbi is a systemically racist institution? >> no. now having said that, i do believe the fbi needs to be more diverse and more inclusive than it is and that we need to work a lot harder at that and we're trying to work a lot harder on that. >> do you believe that the fbi is a systemic -- a systemically sexist or -- institution. >> again, that's not how i would describe it but we need to be more diverse and inclusive and we need to work harder, progress

we're making to be satisfactory by my standards. >> fair enough. mr. director, have you ever been to hong kong? >> no. >> wonderful place, wonderful people. the chinese communist party is destroying it. if congress passed a bill and said to the good people of hong kong who yearn for freedom, come to america, we're going to follow our friends in britain, say come here, you want to get out from under the thumb of the communist party, come to america. we welcome you. do you think the fbi and law enforcement has the ability to screen for spies? one of the criticisms of the proposition i just stated is that, well, we would be letting in spies. do you think, based on your knowledge of security, that we could catch most of the