FBI Director Christopher Wray said white supremacy is a “persistent” and “pervasive” threat to the U.S. during a congressional hearing Thursday. “The danger, I think, of white supremacists, violent extremism or another kind of extremism is of course significant,” Wray told the House Appropriations Committee, according to CNN. “We assess that it is a persistent, pervasive threat. We tackle it both through our joint terrorism task forces on the domestic terrorism side as well as through our civil rights program on the civil side through hate crime enforcement.” When asked whether the agency was cracking down on the problem, Wray reportedly said the FBI was “aggressively” investigating the increase in cases that have been reported to the agency. He also noted that the increase in reports does not necessarily mean an increase of overall incidents. This comes after The Daily Beast reported that a Department of Homeland Security intelligence group focused on domestic terrorism was disbanded.
