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 spies?

>> well, i yield to no one in my faith and confidence in the great work of the men and women of the fbi but i will tell you that the -- the chinese counterintelligence threat is the greatest threat -- certainly the greatest counterintelligence threat we face as a country. >> right. >> and the sheer number of what we would refer to as non-traditional collectors -- working on behalf of the chinese communist party is something that is a massive resource challenge for the fbi. >> that was probably an unfair question. i'm not asking you to guarantee anything. in the few seconds i have left, and begging the indulgence of our esteemed chairman, who's doing a much better job than durbin, by the way -- oh, he's back. the horowitz report, can you tell me how many people you have referred for prosecution at the fbi's result of the horowitz report? >> for prosecution or for

discipline? >> for prosecution first. just give me numbers. because i don't want to abuse my time. >> you know, the prosecution issue related to anything to do with the horowitz report -- >> how many have you fired, i get it, how many have you fired? >> so all the people, most of the people involved in the horowitz report are former employees. of the ones who are current, every single one of them, even if mentioned only in passing, has been referred to our office of professional responsibility, which is our disciplinary arm. now, that piece, and this is important, that piece of it, because we're cooperating fully with mr. durham's investigation, at his request we slowed that process down to allow his criminal investigation to proceed. so at the moment that process is still under way in order to make sure that we're being appropriately sensitive to the criminal investigation. >> okay. so you've had to hold up as a result of the criminal investigation. i'm sorry i went over, mr.

chairman. and i'm sure glad you're here. booker was just screwing everything up. >> senator padilla, and i'm sure you'll do a better job than the previous questioner -- >> thank you, mr. chairman, i will do my best. director wray, other members of the committee have raised their concerns over the increase in hate crimes in recent years against latinos, african-americans, the lgbtq ia community and others. over the last year we've seen a significant increase in violence, specifically against asian-americans, including in my home state of california. no earlier in this hearing members raised the recent lethal attacks in san francisco and new york as some examples just last week in sacramento, california a man returned to the premises of an asian family run butcher shop

with a mutilated cat carcass for no apparent reason other than to stoke fear. the incident is currently under investigation as a hate crime. it's clear to me that this uptick in violence against asian-americans is the direct result of racist rhetoric used by political leaders with intentional regard to the coronavirus pandemic. such as when former president donald trump has used offensive references to the coronavirus. indeed on march 2020 fbi assessment conducted by the fbi's houston office and distributed to law enforcement across the country, and i'll quote, well, it predicted a future surge in hate crimes against asian-americans due to the spread of coronavirus. i want to quote from that assessment. the fbi makes its assessment based on the assumption that a portion of the u.s. public will associate covid-19 with china

and asian-american populations. so i know senator hirono already raised the topic but i wanted to ask a couple more specific follow up questions. to what extent, director wray, do you believe the increase in violence of asian-americans has been influenced by reckless rhetoric concerning the pandemic, two, what steps is the fbi taking to address the increase of hate crime against asian-americans and three, part of that i hope is an update on how the fbi is proactively working to overcome trust issues in immigrant communities and communities of color? >> so, senator, let me try to take all three questions in turn. first, i want to be careful as fbi director not to start to get in the business of kind of weighing in and characterizing rhetoric because as you know, you know, we focus on the violence, not on the ideology or the motivation. so i would largely on that issue

just reaffirm the intelligence assessment that's already been produced through the appropriate channels. on the second two questions, in terms of trying to be proactive, a number of things that we're doing. so in addition to our investigations, on which we work closely with state and local, in some cases tribal and other federal law enforcement agencies, and that -- we have some cases we'll be able to bring federal cases, working with our civil rights division counterparts, the prosecutors, in other cases even if it's going to be a state or local charge, which sometimes may be the best charge available based on the facts we are trying to provide forensic support, other kinds of expertise and experience to help support the state and local prosecution. we're also trying to do a lot more public outreach, which is both with the community itself, but also with state and local law enforcement.

in some cases field offices are bringing them together. so it's a group discussion. which i think has a lot of value. we're also providing training. so we're doing a lot of training. we're doing hundreds of seminars, workshops for both law enforcement and community groups, religious organizations, so forth. and that includes hate crimes training, not just for the hundred special agents at the fbi, but for thousands, thousands of police officers. when it comes specifically to the last part of your question, the trust issues, you know part of that is demonstrating through our work that we're going to do the right thing in the right way and that we're going to respond just as aggressively and professionally to crimes against them as victims as they see with other kinds of crimes and we have done, just since march of 2020, i think we've done 60 -- over 60 liaison events or

trainings specifically geerd towards the asian-american pacific islander community and we've also tried to put out intelligence reports like the one you referenced that call out the issue. >> great. i think just another example of the value of increased improved diversity, not just throughout the ranks of the agency but especially amongst agents and amongst leadership. now your examples of collaboration with local law enforcement is actually a great transition to my next question. some of the most striking revelations in the aftermath of the january 6th insurrection here in the capitol were reports that some members of the capitol police were sympathetic to the insurrectionists, that they posed for photos, provided directions and may have even expressed support for those attacking the very building they're sworn to protect. i understand that six capitol police officers have been suspended, and at least 29

others are under investigation for their alleged role in the attack. we've also learned that among those participating in the insurrection were numerous off duty law enforcement officers from around the country. rooting out white supremacists and right wing extremists is a challenge that local law enforcement agencies, and even united states military is facing across the country. director wray, how is the fbi assisting law enforcement agencies across the country to root out white supremacy or other forms of extremism, and do you believe there's a concerted effort by right wing extremists to infiltrate law enforcement agencies? >> so i guess a few things i would say on this topic. certainly it is true that in some instances, as we continue to investigate the january 6th attack there have been some instances of current or

particular former military or law enforcement who participated and we want to pursue those cases just as aggressively as we would anybody else. we are also, though -- which may go more to the heart of your question, when appropriate, referring individuals to their -- the department that employs them for possible administrative or disciplinary action under their rules as appropriate. we work very closely with both our law enforcement partners and our military partners in their efforts to address any kind of violent extremism that may be in their midst. we view that as in effect a kind of insider threat if you will and they do too and i want to be clear that in my experience, and i'm dealing with our law enforcement partners and our military partners every single day, a vast, vast majority of

the men and women in uniform, both in law enforcement and the military, are brave selfless professional high integrity individuals but when there are bad apples in the midst we work with our partners to try to get ahead of it. >> i agree with that final statement but the threat -- the danger that those few bad apples presents are to be taken very seriously, i understand, so i hope to work with you possibly to develop further best practices and protocols to be shared with agencies around the country. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator tillis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director wray, thank you for being here, for your years of service, and for the great work that so many of the people in the fbi do every single day. before i ask you a question, though, i think it's very important, i was the last member to leave the senate chamber, and i observed the capitol police doing an extraordinary job in shepherding every single member,

and every single staff to safety. so i hope as they're reviewing some of the officers we should go through a review, i hope that we're tracking their entire pattern of movement that day. i think you'll see many of them were doing -- putting themselves between us and violence and we need to make sure that we treat them fairly. but back on the rioters on january the 6th, can you give me a rough idea of the crimes that many of them are being charged with or being pursued through investigations? >> well, we're using a variety of statutory weapons. there's certainly assault charges, a number of charges, by that i mean assault against, you know, federal law enforcement, including the capitol police, the brave men and women of the capitol police that i think you rightly credited there. there's also various charges related to destruction of federal property, things along those lines. we are now starting to begin to

see, as we sort of taken care of the most immediate easiest to prove -- i hate to use the word like low hanging fruit charges. but now we're starting to get more of the more advanced charges, if you will. we've had conspiracy charges recently. some of the people that are more involved with different forms of planning or coordination or preparation. and some of those charges are starting to happen and i would expect to see that continue. >> and incidentally, mr. chair, i want to associate myself with senator graham's comments earlier, i think your threats are going up and we've got to match that with additional resources. so i look forward to the committee continuing that. would you see any difference between the charges, the investigations that you're pursuing, in the events on january 6th and charges that should be pursued against federal buildings and federal law enforcement officers being harmed in seattle or portland,

are there active investigations for those two events and would they be treated any differently. >> as i said in response to an earlier question we are equal opportunity and so by that i mean we don't care what ideology motivates you. if you're engaged in violence that violates federal law we're coming for you, and that's just true for the events over the summer and some of the domestic terrorism that occurred -- >> are there active investigations related to those events? >> yes. >> thank you. i feel like you mentioned in response to one of the members' questions about this just increasing the volumes increasing. i introduced in the last congress and i intend to reintroduce the bill called protect and serve which increases penalties for rioters for assaults on federal officers and more significant consequences, do you think that those would be helpful tools for law enforcement? >> certainly -- >> and for prosecution. >> sorry, didn't mean to

interrupt. >> go ahead. >> i think, while i'm not familiar with the specific bill, i want to enthusiastically support the idea of looking at everything we can do to protect the men and women in law enforcement. the threats, the violence against law enforcement in this country is one of the most tragic and sometimes least talked about challenges we face. this year alone, this year alone an officer is shot and killed in the line of duty at a rate of more than one a week. and when you think about what it takes for someone to be willing to sacrifice his or her life for a total stranger, and how unusual that is, just to begin with, and then you add on top of that somebody who's willing to do that, get up and do that every single day, day after day after day and they never know

when that day might be the day that they don't come home to their families. and so then you put that in the context of the way in which some violent opportunist or domestic terrorist high jacks these protests, whether it's the ones over the summer or the ones on the 6th and now you've got some of the same selfless individuals who are in many cases killed but for every one who's killed there's someone who's survived, thank goodness, but whose family and whose family's life is forever altered. i don't think we can ever and should ever take for granted those people because they protect all of us. >> i agree. i'm curious. with all the discussion of defund the police and systemic racism and all law enforcement agencies, some of the dialogue that's out there, have you seen any measurable decrease in the number of people who are trying to apply to come in to the fbi? i know i'm seeing it in state

troopers who are telling me their applications for academies are down by over 70%. we see people accelerating their retirements. do we have any potential threat out there, either within the fbi, or for law enforcement in general, of having fewer people willing to get into this profession? >> so certainly when it comes to state and local law enforcement, because i talked to many of the same chiefs and sheriffs you do, the recruiting challenge is a real concern and it comes up all the time. that's something we need to be concerned about and all of these trends we're talking about will have -- i think reone the risk of that, just making that trend worse. at the fbi, happily, because we can all use some good news from time to time, last year and the year before we tripled the number of people across the country applying to be agents. when i took the job it was

11,000 or so, in 2019 it was about 36,000. and then last year, even with the pandemic it was even higher than that and that's the highest number of people applying to work at the fbi, as special agents, to put their lives on the line in about a decade. so we'd like to think our work is earning people who want to come work for us and we're grateful for that and hopefully we can do our part to try to encourage more people because we can only take so many of them, to pursue law enforcement jobs in other agencies. >> that is good news. i just wish you all the best of luck. in prosecuting every single person that you can that breached the capitol, and every single person on the grounds who assaulted or threatened a police officer. if there's anything that we can do to help. and i will follow up with the department to get your perspective as to whether or not you think the protect and serve act would be helpful. i think that it will be but i'd like your profgtal judgment. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, senator, senator

ossoff. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and director wray, greetings from your home state of georgia. >> thank you. >> thank you for your service. there's been a significant increase in shootings and violence crime nationwide over the last 18 months. there were at least ten people shot in atlanta, georgia on sunday. what does the fbi assess is driving this crime wave? >> well, certainly i am following the same trends you are with concern not just in atlanta but in other cities around the country. i'm not sure there's any single factor there's driving it. i think it's a variety of things. we are seeing, you know, some of it may be, you know, the pandemic itself in its own way has had an impact. you know, there are people who are -- maybe not at jobs or not, you know, not in school or not otherwise available and there's

more potential for wrongdoing to occur. we talked about some of the challenges with local police departments and some of the issues there in terms of their recruiting and staffing. a lot of them are understaffed in addition to the recruiting challenge. so that's a problem. so there are a variety of drivers that we think contribute to it but the violent crime problem over the last year in particular, 2020, is something that is a great concern and that we are very warily keeping our eye on. it doesn't get the same kind of headlines as some of the other threats we've talked about today but as your question, i think, quite rightly implies, it's a subject that's near and dear to the hearts of all the people we know back home. >> with that many shootings in atlanta on sunday alone, this increase in violent crime is of grave concern to georgians and people across the country. will you work with this committee and my office to try to refine that assessment of the

drivers of this violent crime wave? >> we'd be pleased to do that. i commend you for your interest in the violent crime problem in our home state. >> i appreciate that, director wray. next week will be the first anniversary of the shooting death of breonna taylor, a young woman who died when police officers louisville, kentucky entered her home with a battering ram executing a no knock search warrant connected to a narcotics investigation. ms. taylor was not the subject of that warrant. there's obviously been deepening and grave concern about equal justice, due process, the extent of brutality, harassment, discrimination faced by black americans in the criminal justice system. growing over the last year, given incidents such as this one. without commenting on the specifics of the late ms. taylor's case, is the fbi prioritizing investigations of cases involving color of law

violations under 18 usc 242 and what resources have you instructed your field offices to commit to those investigations? >> so as you say i can't discuss the taylor case specifically. we have an ongoing federal investigation there but we are definitely trying to push forward on color of law cases. we have through our civil rights division within our criminal investigative division we -- in addition to the investigations we're pursuing and we have quite, quite a number around the country, we're also trying to contribute by doing different forms of training and outreach to local and state police departments so they understand better kind of where the lines are and where we fit into it so that's a -- you know part of it as well. we're also trying to contribute to the situation by encouraging better reporting.

we've had a lot of conversations this morning in other contexts about statistics and reporting. and when it comes to use of force we are trying to build out a use of force database that involves use of force by police departments, law enforcement agencies around the country. it's voluntary. we can't mandate all these local police departments to supply the information. but we are doing a lot to encourage them to submit their data. and my pitch to them has been we're going to be talking about these issues no matter what, and we should all want the conversations to be based on the actual facts and the actual data as opposed to what some random person thinks the facts or data are. we've reached one of the thresholds where we can start doing some of the reporting related to this effort. we need to get to a certain threshold statistically. i think it's like 80% or

something of police departments before the data is considered statistically reliable. investigations, training and outreach, more complete statistical reporting on use of force. >> thank you, director, and i know the committee is working on legislation to make that available to you for local agencies. will you provide to my office an accounting of the fbi's investigations over the last two years, color of law violations, title 18 usc 242? >> happy to see if we can provide you more information on that. >> look forward to that. >> thanks. >> director wray, is the recently revealed solar winds breach, major cybersecurity breach, a failure, a counterintelligence failure by the u.s. government? >> i don't know that i would describe it that way. certainly the solar winds

intrusion is something that reflects a trend that we've been calling out for some time but it takes it to the next level. so for years we've been warning of both china and russia, efforts to inject malware and to undermine our trust in software that organizations all rely on. we've also called out the intrusions into managed service providers which allow our adversaries to reach a far greater number of networks through single entry points. the solar winds intrusion essentially takes this to the next level, purposely infecting a product that's widely used to manage networks. and so the scope, the scale, the somewhat indiscriminate nature of the intrusion is something we take very seriously with our partners. >> director wray, by time being limited, if i might. surely for malware to be embedded on sensitive u.s. networks at that scale and with

that duration must constitute a counterintelligence failure. >> well, i think it's a cybersecurity issue. i think of counterintelligence a little bit differently than just the kind of context you're talking about. but as i said in some ways it's analogous to what i said about some of the earlier threats. you know, we -- our goal is to try to bat a thousand. and any time we don't bat a thousand, we're obviously looking hard to see at what we can do better to prevent that from happening again. when it comes to cyberintrusions in particular, though, we have long passed the world where it's a question of if an organization is going to be the victim of cyberintrusion. we're in the world of when. the question is not whether somebody was the subject of a cyberintrusion, but how fast does it get detected, how well does it get mitigated, et cetera. the scope, the scale, the range of attack methods, the number of

adversaries involved in sophisticated cyberattacks dwarves what it was when i was in law enforcement and national security before and a huge amount of the information, a huge amount of the information for america in particular is in the hands of the private sector. and so unlike in some of the other kinds of threats we've been talking about here this morning the partnership between the intelligence community, other federal agencies and the private sector is at the heart of the issue. >> thank you, director wray, thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator ossoff. i'm glad you brought up solar winds. i think it's the first reference at this hearing. i'd like to follow up before i recognize senator blackburn. so what do we do about it? we know that we don't have an extradition agreement with russia. so even finding and naming the hackers doesn't lead to any punishment of them. what is our response as a deterrent to future

cyberintrusion? >> so, mr. chairman, i think discussing the response in any detail is probably something that would be better done in a classified setting. that by itself might give you a little bit of a hint. but speaking more generally what we have found over the last couple years in the cyberarena in particular is that we are at our most effective when we have joint sequenced operations that essentially -- think of it as having the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts. you mentioned a few of the things that can be done. any one of those things by themselves ain't going to get the job done but if you start putting some of those things together in a way where each amplifies the effect of the other, we have actually seen some pretty good results with some of our adversaries. so it's everything from not just the law enforcement piece, it's foreign partner participation, it's private sector hardening,

it's treasury sanctions, it's a whole host of things. but when you put them together sequenced, while i would never suggest to you and you would never believe me if i did suggest to you that that's going to somehow just eliminate the problem it does push the adversary back and slow their progress. but this is going to be a long, hard slog. >> thanks, director. i believe that senator blackburn is on remote. senator? technical difficulties. i want to -- she's waited patiently so i'll give her another minute. see if that helps. >> yes, mr. chairman, i'm here.

>> okay, senator, you have the floor. >> oh, thank you, sir. i appreciate that. and yes, i think i don't have enough bandwidth -- something's wrong with the video transmission. we'll just go with audio. and to the chairman's follow-up, director wray, i would just like to add, i think it would be excellent, and mr. chairman, i would offer to you, as we're looking at what is happening with cryptocurrencies and with the growth in that marketplace and how this currency could be used when it comes to cybercrimes and to terrorism, i think a briefing from you all on what you are tracking and what you're seeing would be very helpful to us. so i would just -- i would

commend that as a second place to go. and director wray i would like to say thank you to you for being here and thank you to the fbi and the u.s. attorney's offices in tennessee for the work they did after january 6th, striking down and catching the rioters from tennessee that had taken part in those activities. and there are a lot of questions that still remain. one, and i know senator kennedy mentioned this, but the national guard and the timeline that was there. i'd like for you to speak to that, if you can, the day of timeline. because i understand that mayor bowser spoke with the secretary of the army twice. at 1:34 and at 2:22. and with chief sund. he spoke with the guard, the d.c. guard commanding general at

1:49. and the guard began to mobilize at 3:00 and the troops did not arrive until 5:40. is that your understanding of the timeline? >> senator, i appreciate the question. and i'm glad you tied me back to my exchange with senator kennedy because i fear that i may have contributed to a little bit of a muddle here. first let me say that my understanding is that on the question of authority is that the d.c. mayor and the u.s. capitol police can ask for the national guard, that the secretary of defense has the authority on federal land, the secretary of the army has authority on, in effect, d.c. or -- when it's not d.c., state land. i really don't have the specifics on exactly who requested what and when. and i understand why it's topic of keen interest, but i as fbi director am not intimately involved in that process and so

i don't want to add to any confusion that's out there. >> okay. so then it would be appropriate that we direct that first of all to the guard command and to the secretary of the army. is that what i'm hearing you say? >> i think so, yes. >> okay, all right, that sounds great. thank you for that clarification. because i do think that we do need some clarification there. let me go to some of the riots that have taken place around the country. and the crime that has seemed to spike this year. and previous to this the fbi participated in operation legend, of course memphis, tennessee was a part of that effort so we thank you for that. but let me ask you, is the fbi tracking extremist groups like

antifa or other radicalism that are connected to violence in cities across the country, the violence and the looting that has taken place? and we know operation legend wound down and ended in january. so how is the fbi going to continue assisting local law enforcement in these cities where you have these riots that have taken place? >> well, senator i appreciate the question. i think you've touched on two very, very important but distinct topics. so one is the violence on our streets in a lot of our major cities, including memphis, that operation legend was designed to address. and the other is the violence that's occurring amidst protests where otherwise peaceful

protests are hijacked by people who engage in violent criminal behavior. so on the first, the more traditional violent crime side, in effect operation legend side, if i can just use that as a shorthand we do think that was a successful operation but it was by its very nature finite in duration. what we're doing since then is trying to work with our safe streets task forces which have representatives of state and local and other federal agencies, and to try to bring a strategic intelligence driven approach to the violent crime problem. what i have found and i've talked with state and local police chiefs in all 50 states is that each city has its own idiosyncrasies. there's usually some kind of in effect tail wag in the dog that's contributing to the

violent crime problem in that community. if everybody can be working together in an intelligence driven way they can prioritize the impact and dismantle the enterprise as opposed to just kind of pushing the problem around. >> okay, let me -- not to cut you off, but to jump in there because you're correct, there are different sets of issues around the different types of crime. i understand that. and i appreciate that. but i think part of the frustration is let's take july 4th last year with the hatfield federal courthouse in portland with the fire that was started and how did the fbi and federal and local law enforcement agencies attempt to track down those that were responsible, where was this an extremist group or groups or was it individuals, like a lone actor

which you mentioned earlier, or -- and of course in nashville, on christmas day we saw the actions of a lone actor. and separately at some point i would like to get an update from you on that. but let's talk about what you're doing to track those groups that are there, like in seattle with the capitol hill autonomous zone where they're just really flouting the rule of law and trying to abolish a police presence. so how are you tracking these anarchist groups who are planning attacks, who are occupying public spaces, and what type work are you doing to help protect communities from this? >> so, sure. so that's the second topic of the two that we touched on. so we do have a number of

domestic terrorism investigations. we would call them anarchist violent extremism investigations into individuals, some of the most dangerous individuals involved in some of the conduct in particular over the summer. we are looking at everything from tactics to funding to logistics and we're pursuing all available charges against them. i think i may have mentioned in response to an earlier question that last year, in 2020, we arrested more anarchist violent extremists than the prior three years combined. but in addition i would say in a in some of the activity that you've described from over the summer when it's targeting federal buildings there are certain charges that may be available there as was true with the courthouse in portland and as was true with the capitol on the 6th.

but when it comes to non-federal facilities sometimes the charges end up being state and local charges where we work closely with and support our state and local partners as they bring charges. so we are continuing to move full speed ahead. we've increased significantly the number of investigations into the kind of activity you're describing and we're going to keep at it. >> thank you so much, thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator blackburn. as we conclude the hearing in the area of shameless self-promotion, i'd like to send you a copy of my domestic terrorism act, you may suggest changes to make it more effective. it's been a while since you've been before the committee and we've certainly tried your patience today but you've been excellent in your presentation and i just want to thank you and the men and women of the federal

bureau of investigation for the sacrifices they make to keep america safe. this meeting of the judiciary committee will stand adjourned. >> thank you, mr. chairman. hello there. welcome to tuesday. in a truncated "meet the press daily," i'm chuck todd. you've been watching fbi director christopher wray receive publicly in front of the judiciary committee. the first time he's testified since the january 6th siege on the capitol. wray was grilled befbi's intelligence failures surrounding the attack. he said the agency quickly communicated to law enforcement authorities in three darcht ways, raw and unverified intelligence about a threat to congress on january 6th. perhaps more importantly wray also warned that the threat of domestic violent extremism the kind this fueled the siege remains buffet biggest security threats to this country and pe paint add portrait of an fbi

that's struggling to wrap its arms around the extent of what he admitted was a metastasizing threat. the agency has 2,000 investigations into domestic extremists under way. that's a big number. while wray said the fbi is determined to bat a thousand at thwarting future attacks it was fairly clear from his testimony the agency still does not fully understand why it missed the warning signs on january 6th. despite hundreds of criminal cases and countless investigations about what did happen there seems to be lingering concerns that something like it could happen again. joining me now, we've got garrett haake on capitol hill for us. pete williams, our justice correspondent, also with us is andrew wiseman, an nbc news legal analyst, and paul butler, former federal prosecutor. pete williams, i want to start with you. i have to say, i think

perhaps -- well, i'll need to ask you the biggest revelation that you took away from this, is it the 2,000 cases, is it him admitting how much white supremacist groups are sort of at the top of all of this racially motivated violence? what stood out to you, pete? >> yeah, not the white supremacist part because that's been very clear from the beginning as the fbi began to file these charges, and they're now up to well over 200 cases that have been charged -- i'm sorry, approaching 300 cases that have been charged and many more under investigation. the 2,000 number was a revelation. that's double what it was a year ago. and that's a huge increase. that's an enormous commitment of manpower. so i think for the fbi director to say, look, we were, you know, we were warning people, expect violence around the election, it could be around the election, or something afterwards, or the inauguration, and then we had this specific one specific piece of intelligence from norfolk

about the possibility of attacking the capitol. he did say that it's clear that people were engaged in planning but chuck, i have to say, having looked at all the court documents the fbi says in criminal complaints and in affidavits, and in indictments in the sort of narrative section that there were plans to attack the capitol on january 6th. i have yet to see a specific piece of evidence in any of these charges who was actually talking about storming the capitol. there was lots of talk about violence in the streets, make members of congress, hear our roar. but i don't think they've yet cracked the code on exactly whose idea this was, when it came -- when it was finally formulated, how much of this was a come as you are party, how much of it was people arriving in washington with the intention of doing exactly what we saw on the 6th. i think that's still a big unresolved question. >> garrett haake, i think if there was any agenda items you

saw from the -- on the political side of the aisle it was -- it seemed -- and i'm curious where you saw this. it seemed that democrats wanted to make it clear of antifa's role or lack thereof in the capitol siege and it seemed as if particularly at the end you could hear from john kennedy and marsha blackburn, they were looking at any other issue. >> oversight hearing, the january 6th element was the focus, members hadn't had wray in front of that panel in something like 20 months, there was a lot of interest in other topics here but that said you saw it early on from chuck grassley, the leading republican on this panel, tried to introduce the idea of what about antifa violence in places like portland and seattle, and wray wasn't really willing to take the bait on that. he said, you know, we don't look at this on a left/right ideological spectrum. we don't care about your politics, we care about the violence. that's the kind of thing we're

investigating. a lot of other republican senators took different tacts on this. you mentioned blackburn, tillis brought this up again there at the end but republican senators also focused on their pet issues, you had josh hawley and mike lee talking about, you know, was cell phone tracking data used, perhaps, inappropriately to track down some of these suspects here as a way to talk about january 6th adjacent issues that are more politically comfortable to them than the actual issue of, you know, prosecuting these domestic terror cases but again wray i think sort of steered things back in that general direction in part talking about what a huge commitment of resources this is for the bureau. the thing i wrote down, 55 fbi field offices, all but one are involved in investigating different elements of the january 6th attack. >> andrew wiseman, i want to jump off on that point to you which is 2,000 cases. considering -- and frankly where christopher wray admits that the

threat is metastasizing, and, you know, you can't always discern what's real and not on social media, which requires even more resources here, what kind of strain is this putting on the fbi based on your experience? >> i don't think this is a strain on the fbi. they have a lot of agents across the country and internationally, this is a question of priorities. what i was struck by is that this was really a hearing with a lot of kid gloves. january 6th was such a huge failure and, you know, the fbi director certainly has to perry away criticism that's unfair. there's to question there's a place for that. but he also has to own up to the places where there is a failure. and i was struck by this -- the questioning was not sharp on

that. and i don't think he was particularly humble or contrite about looking at the bureau in terms of what it needed to do better in that situation. i thought that was a failure by the people asking the questions and the person giving the questions there. for instance, when he said we're an equal opportunity agency, i personally would have pounced on that. i would have said, really, then why is it on the same day, in the spring of last year, when there were black lives matter protesters in new york city, people are arrested the same day, and you are not doing that in connection with january 6th, what is the reason for that? how equal opportunity is that? >> well, you bring up another point, paul, and andrew, and paul i want you to address this, and this is -- it's something you and i have talked about before, paul butler, which is, is the problem sort of a failure

to believe their own raw intelligence? but i want to play one christopher wray clip on the issue of white supremacy terrorism. take a listen. >> we the fbi over the course of 2020 put out a number of intelligence products, specifically warning about domestic violent extremism, including specifically warning about it in connection with the election, including specifically warning about that threat in relation to the election, continuing past election day itself and up through the inauguration. and including a product that i think we put out with dhs in december of 2020. so we have tried to push out information. i'm reluctant to armchair quarterback anyone else in their jobs but we at the fbi are determined to do our part, our part to make sure that what happened on january 6th doesn't happen again. racially motivated violent

extremism specifically of the sort that advocates for the superiority of the white race is a persistent evolving threat, it's the biggest chunk of our racially motivated violent extremism cases for sure, and racially motivated violent extremism is the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio, if you will, overall. i will also say the same group of people we're talking about have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last, say, decade. >> so paul, it's that last comment, it's that last bite about -- the way he spoke. i'll be frank with you, i feel like he spoke like a bureaucrat, trying to use too many words to describe the threat when basically he could have done it in short. this issue of essentially white nationalist groups becoming violent, or white supremacist groups becoming violent is a

growing problem. he could have said it in about eight words. and i can't help but look at that, and it feels like the more he talks the more it sounds like it's getting watered down. i don't think that's his intent. but it comes across that direc on the defensive. the question is looking now less as a catastrophic intelligence failure and more like law enforcement didn't act effectively on the intelligence that it had. and so there's a lot of finger-pointing between the capitol police, the fbi, the military about who knew what when. and so he heard director taylor say -- director wray say that he's been on this case for years, that he's testified 12 times to congress about dangers posed by home-grown terrorists that white supremacists are as

great a threat to our national security as isis. but did they act like they knew? so when we look at the issue with this report that was received the day before the insurrection that warned of war coming and that these folks were going to try to take over the capitol and spill blood. the director says he communicated that three different ways. but he didn't call -- nobody called the d.c. police chief. and apparently none of the other officers acted on it in an effective way. so, again, i think that's either dis-counting the great threat polls by national security or incompetence. and the fbi remains the world's best law enforcement agency. so you kind of want to rule out incompetence and make it that they just don't understand the scope of the problem. >> andrew, this wouldn't be a

good excuse, but it could be the following. which is the passive sort of tone and sort of, i'd say, persona that the fbi director had today. how much of that is sort of after four years of getting brow-beaten by president trump and constantly having him undermine anything you try to do, particularly on this topic. it seems as if he was afraid to even talk about the threat of white supremacy over the last three days, which is something we can't help but notice now that trump is gone. >> well, there's an issue about why was there inaction. is it race, is it, you know, politics, the fear of the white house? but i don't want to make light of this. but if you're not willing to do your job, then you shouldn't be the fbi director. if you're sitting on information that there is going to be violence, you're the frigin head

of the fbi. you have a lot of power in terms of commanding your own people but also of talking to doj and getting people on board. and if that's going to lead to your being fired by a lame dumb president, so be it. people, as we know, people died as a result of the lack of preparation and action that was really striking in comparison to what happened in black lives matter protests. to say i had a lot of information and we were warning people, that's actually damning. that's not a good fact for the fbi and for the other law enforcement agencies. >> pete williams, how would the fbi -- how would christopher wray respond to this? how are they going to push back on this notion that they've been too passive on this issue?

will they lay this at trump's feet? how would they respond to this criticism? >> well, i think what they're saying here is -- you know, john cornyn made a point today that perhaps this is like the comment that was made after 9/11 that it was really a failure of imagination. any of these law enforcement agencies knew that, you know, remember, what the intel report was the night before the riots that was briefed by the capitol police. people are coming, there are violent extremists among them. they're armed. they're mad. they see this as their last hope, they're desperate. but, it said, we don't expect to see very much violence. so, that was the feeling. they knew these people were coming, but they had -- nobody thought that they were going to try to get into the capitol. and i think, to me, watching all these hearings so far, that's what i keep waiting to hear. where was that intelligence that this is what they were going to

do? because all the law enforcement people were ready for sort of maga 3 like the demonstrations, the two that we had in washington leading up to this with more pockets of violence. but where was the intelligence, or really was there any intelligence that said this is what they plan to do? you have to assume that some of them did plan it. they came with climbing equipment and weapons. >> sure. >> but where was that plan formed? >> pete, are they trying -- >> is it something that the fbi knew or was it knowable? >> do you get a sense they're trying too hard to connect all the dots? is it possible you basically had 20 different groups planning 20 different ways -- you know, they all agreed on the goal of storming the capitol, but they didn't coordinate with each other? >> so i think -- >> trying too hard to find one large? >> well, a good answer was from a study that came out from the center on extremism at george washington university, which says there were sort of three groups.

the largest group were sort of people kind of swept up in it, had no relationship to each other. they all came on their own. the second group had some sort of family connections. they were kind of like-minded into qanon, very much supportive of the president thinking the election was stolen. and then you have this hard-core group that were at the front of all the trouble. they were the first people to break through the lines. they were the first people to break into the capitol. they were the first people to assault police officers. the total number of them is about 33. so, you know, they are what this report calls the pointy end of the spear. but how much planning among them was there? we still don't know. >> pete williams, garrett haake, paul butler, andrew weissmann, thank you for helping us wrap up this three hour plus hearing today. that will be all for "mtp daily" today. msnbc coverage with katy tur

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good afternoon. i'm katy tur. and as we come on the air, the fbi director is under fire. what did the fbi know? when did the fbi know about it? and what is it going to do about it? christopher wray is facing a barrage of questions before congress just ended about missed or downplayed warning signs and intelligence before the january 6th insurrection at the capitol. and beyond that, questions on whether