On Tuesday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray concerning the Jan. 6 insurgency and the threats posed by domestic terrorism. Right from the beginning, the hearing was marked by a remarkable video of Jan. 6 events, using first-person testimony from members of the Capitol Police as well as congressional staffers. Then came a opening statement from committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin, who made it clear that events on Jan. 6 were not just connected to the incitement produced by Trump’s “Big Lie” about the election, but were the latest example of a specific form of domestic terror.
“The hate on display that terrible day is not a new phenomenon in our country. The nation’s first domestic terrorism organization, the Klu Klux Klan, was born in the aftermath of the Civil War to terrorize formerly enslaved African Americans.”
Durbin drew what should be a bold line in the sand making it clear that there is a distinct difference between that particular class of threats and everything else that falls under the category of domestic terror. “Let's stop pretending that the threat of antifa is equivalent to the white supremacist threat,” said Durbin. “Vandalizing a federal courthouse in Portland is a crime. It should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But it is not equivalent to a violent attempt to overthrow the results of elections, nor is it equivalent to mass shootings targeting minority communities."
And then, Republicans went on to ignore this.
Following up on Durbin, and reading as though his speech was being delivered to him one word at a time by carrier “pidgin,” Grassley stated that he agreed with everything Durbin said. Then immediately contradicted it 100% with a rambling claim that violence on the left was just as bad, and that the attack on the Capitol was in some way connected to antifa and protests over the police murder of George Floyd. Grassley was momentarily lost in wonder over the idea that there had been an attack on Democratic Party offices in Portland, even though Biden had won the election.
"Antifa rioters attacked the Oregon Democratic Party headquarters,” Grassley read in a halting drone. “You'd think the results of the election ought to satisfy them, if that's what they wanted to accomplish in an anti-Trump manner. Can you believe this?"
As might be expected, several of the Senators’ questions came back to the FBI report that was issued on the evening of Jan. 5, but which Capitol Police claimed never reached leadership. Wray insisted that the situational report from the Norfolk field office hadn’t just come by email, but “in three ways.” That included a statement at a daily briefing, and by being put on a bulletin board. Durbin and others insisted that Wray should have been more aggressive in sounding the alarm, in light of the language that the report contained. However, Wray continued to insist the information was handled property and if anything, suggested the FBI might have been better off not saying anything.
“It was unverified,” said Wray. “In a perfect world, we would have taken longer to figure out whether it was reliable.” Wray also said that the failing in terms of passing the information wasn’t with the FBI, but with the agencies who received the report. “The whole idea is they’re supposed to go back and pass it up their chain of command,” said Wray.
At multiple points during the hearing, Republicans wandered afield onto other topics. That included multiple questions about the deployment of the National Guard (a line of questioning that went on long after Wray made it clear it wasn’t his area and he didn’t know). Included in this was a Republican push to blame a failure to deploy the guard on D. C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that seemed to deliberately confuse decisions made on Jan. 6 with those made days or weeks earlier.
However, in response to Republican efforts to confuse the causes of the insurgency, Durbin and others brought Wray back to one topic again and again: There was, and is, absolutely no evidence that there were “fake Trump supporters” involved in the assault on the Capitol. Instead, Wray made it clear that the two largest groups involved were terrorists associated with the militia movement, and those associated with white supremacist movements. Wray said he had seen no evidence of antifa, or any other leftist involvement, in the events of Jan. 6.
If Republicans were frustrated that Wray insisted on popping every trial balloon attempting to insinuate there was anyone to blame for Jan. 6 except for the white supremacists, militias, and violent extremists that now make up their base, Democrats expressed some frustration in how Wray refused to assign any blame for those who incited the actions. Not only would Wray not call out Donald Trump, but under questioning from Sen. Richard Blumenthal the FBI director also refused to take a stand against QAnon or the politicians promoting a conspiracy that paints their colleagues as baby-eating monsters.
In addition to Wray making clear that the people who attacked the Capitol while waving Trump banners were exactly who they seemed to be, there was one other moment of the hearing that was particularly memorable. That came when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse displayed his anger over years in which the FBI has been openly sharing supposedly secret material with Republicans in both chambers, while at the same time refusing to respond to requests from Democrats.
In between, Republicans wandered into areas such as Lindsey Graham attempting to get Wray to weigh in on whether he thought the National Guard should still be deployed around the Capitol. Josh Hawley expressed a great deal of concern about whether the FBI was violating privacy by looking into records, including phone records, of people involved in the attack (so odd that Hawley would be concerned about people looking into phone records on Jan. 6). And Louisiana’s John Kennedy asked Wray the most probing question of the day. "Director, have you ever been to Hong Kong?"
As this was going on, the House Sergeant at Arms issued a statement downplaying the threat of violence on March 4—the day on which Trump’s truest believers think that he’ll be revealed as the 19th president (it’s complicated). The Sergeant at Arms indicates that they don’t believe people will come to D.C. to protest or cause violence on that date.
Let’s hope they’re right this time.