Congress urges the Trump administration to develop a plan for extremist extremism right: NPR

Legislators of the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee this week questioned senior FBI and Homeland Security officials about their response to supremacist violence.

The latter was the latest in a series of Democrat-led hearings, aimed at gauging the Trump government's commitment to the fight against the threat that federal agencies see as the most deadly form. and the most active national extremism.

There was no bombshell, but lawmakers got some details on some key issues.

Here are five takeaways:

There is no national policy to fight the threat of the far right

Representative Jamie Raskin, the Democrat of Maryland who led the hearing, began by asking what he called the fundamental question: "Do we have a comprehensive strategic plan to counter and prevent the threat of violence?" white supremacist? I'm afraid the answer is no. "

Raskin was right. After more than two hours of questions, it was clear that, unlike the government's swift and radical response to Islamist militant groups, there is no comparable national strategy to fight white supremacist and whitewash. other movements of the far right.

Elizabeth Neumann, Senior Homeland Security Threat Prevention Officer, told lawmakers that the federal authorities continue to adapt to the evolution of right-wing extremists and Islamists: Self-radicalize online, with little or no guidance from organized groups like al-Qaeda, who had a clear hierarchy and organized attacks that took months or even years to plan.

"Our post-9/11 prevention capabilities, as robust as they are, have not been designed to deal with this type of threat," Neumann said.

She said that Homeland Security was developing a "prevention framework" to be implemented in the coming years, but gave no details. Raskin, the legislator, said that it was "very late in the game" to still be at the stage of developing a national strategy, given the deadly attacks from the far right to Charleston, SC, Pittsburgh, Charlottesville, Virginia and elsewhere.

Neumann explained that the delay is partly due to the fact that "things have not been institutionalized" through legislation, a decree or a presidential memorandum on national security focused on national terrorism. She noted that the Obama administration also lacked these tools.

"We know we do not do enough," Neumann said.

Federal agents make take it seriously – even if the White House does not do it

President Donald Trump constantly downplays the threat of white nationalist extremism, which he termed "small group of people".

Michael McGarrity, deputy director of the FBI's anti-terrorism division, bristles when lawmakers have suggested that, given the summit's apparent disinterest, federal authorities might not take the far-right threat seriously enough. . McGarrity has bluntly stated, more than once, that racially motivated violent extremists are the deadliest and most active terrorists.

"We do not play with numbers here," McGarrity said. "We stop more domestic terrorism topics [before they stage an] attack in the United States as international terrorism ".

He added that the FBI had used many of the same tactics historically used to thwart international groups such as the Islamic State: sources of work, organization of infiltration operations and petitions to courts of law. 39, allow wiretapping. McGarrity added that the FBI viewed racially motivated extremists as a transnational threat and that the agency was sharing information with counterterrorism partners abroad.

Homeland Security does not say much about its prevention effort

In 2015, Homeland Security opened a small office dedicated to a "CVE" approach to counter violent extremism. The idea is to use community partnerships and other tools to interrupt the process of radicalization before it escalates into violence. Critics call this ineffective and say it leads to the stigmatization and surveillance of ordinary Muslims.

Under the Trump administration, the CVE office has lost about 90% of its old budget and about half of its staff, and has been twice renamed to report abandonment of work in partnership with communities. (Some Muslim activists jokingly say that removing CVE was the only decision the Trump administration made that they supported.)

But it may be premature to declare the CVE government program dead. Neumann said the prevention work at the CVE would be part of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy that Homeland Security plans to develop here this fall. But she gave little details about the program or what is happening with the restructured office that is supposed to manage it.

"There are more questions than answers at this stage," Raskin complains. "What are the specific functions of the office? Who is responsible? How many staff will be assigned to the prevention of violence of white supremacy?"

The debate is heating up around a national terrorism law

If a US-based suspect is accused of involvement in an international terrorist organization such as the Islamic State or Al-Qaida, prosecutors have a series of charges to consider that are not available in most cases involving suspects of white supremacism.

According to McGarrity of the FBI, without a law on national terrorism, the authorities are limited to the extent that they can control the offensive remarks and behavior, but protected by the First Amendment.

"The FBI is not investigating rallies or demonstrations that there is a credible belief that violent criminal activity could take place," he said.

In some circles of Congress, a national terrorism bill is being supported, supposed to correct the double standard in extremist prosecutions. But several advocacy groups have already rejected this idea, saying it was better to enforce existing laws rather than giving even more powers to federal authorities.

This debate is to be watched in the coming months.

It's official: black identity extremism is no longer a thing

In the early months of the Trump administration, a leaked FBI report announced a new type of local threat: extremists of black identity.

The warning would have occurred after six non-police-related attacks in the country; the FBI described the threat as "an increase in premeditated lethal violence and in retaliation by law enforcement" by people with "perceptions of police brutality against African Americans".

This claim has been widely endorsed by the conservative media, but viewed with equally widespread skepticism as a gesture reminiscent of the FBI's demonization of black activists in the civil rights era.

Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked McGarrity if a single murder that the FBI could kill would be related to Black Lives Matter or similar activist groups. McGarrity's answer: "To my knowledge, for the moment, no."

Pressley continued his attack on "this absurd designation" until McGarrity revealed that the category had been removed from the FBI.

"The designation does not exist anymore?" Asked Pressley, looking skeptical.

"It's not been 17 months since I've been here," McGarrity replied.

To recap: The FBI created a new category of threats and quietly abandoned it two years later without explanation.