'Pour Gasoline On The Fire': FBI Head Wray Warns Of Foreign Adversaries Sowing Racial Tensions In US

4 months ago

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) spoke about foreign adversaries inflaming racial tensions in the United States to sow division.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much, Director Wray, for being with us yet

00:05again.

00:07As you know, we've seen a disturbing rise in domestic terrorism and far-right extremism

00:13across the United States, and we've heard from you several times about this.

00:19White supremacist and far-right extremist groups continue to outpace all types of terrorism

00:26and domestic violent extremism, according to the National Institute of Justice report

00:33from this past January.

00:35Part of this dramatic rise in extremist violence and threats stems from malign foreign actors

00:42who are actively working to sow division in American democracy.

00:47They're desperately trying to inflame extremists and deepen divides, all to support far-right

00:55agendas and candidates that will erode our democracy.

00:59The DHS Threat Assessment has warned, we expect the 2024 election cycle will be a key event

01:07for possible violence and foreign influence targeting our election infrastructure, processes,

01:14and personnel.

01:15Microsoft has warned that the 2024 election may be the first presidential election during

01:23which multiple authoritarian actors simultaneously attempt to interfere with and influence election

01:31outcomes.

01:33National security officials and experts have warned that foreign governments, mainly Russia,

01:39China, and Iran, seek to destabilize the United States via its elections by sowing further

01:46division in the American electorate.

01:49This is happening, and happening in the current context of increased political violence in

01:55our country against a former president, election workers, judges, members of Congress and their

02:02families, and other public servants.

02:05I cannot emphasize enough that this is a national security threat.

02:12Director Wray reports have found that these propaganda campaigns will sometimes target

02:18racial groups.

02:20Why would countries like Russia, China, Iran, seek to inflame racial tensions via social media?

02:27Well, of course, it may vary from adversary to adversary, but the playbook for authoritarian

02:35regimes in today's world is to try to sow divisiveness and discord, to turn us against

02:42each other, to capitalize on existing social tensions that they perceive, and to try to,

02:53in effect, pour gasoline on the fire and intensify those conflicts that may already exist in

03:00our domestic, you know, political scene.

03:04So rather than, you know, if you're a foreign adversary, that means us no good.

03:10Rather than try to come up with some completely brand new issue or theory or narrative to

03:16turn us against each other, you look for things where we're already, at the very least, quarreling

03:23with each other, if not fighting with each other, and then they try to capitalize on

03:26that and amp it up.

03:28And of course, that can then sometimes, as we've seen all too tragically, boil over or

03:33bubble over into outright violence.

03:36And so how has the FBI worked to combat this propaganda and infiltration on our social

03:43media networks?

03:45So our focus is on the foreign actor, China, Russia, Iran, and on their efforts.

03:54And so we work with the intelligence community, we work with our foreign partners, our friendly

03:59foreign partners, to try to uncover what those countries, Russia, China, Iran, are up to.

04:07And we try to share information about the hidden hand of the foreign actor where it's

04:12appropriate.

04:13We also engage in efforts to disrupt those foreign actors.

04:18The most recent example with the Russians, for example, is a Russian government-linked

04:25generative AI social media bot farm, where they were posing as, among others, U.S. persons

04:34and not, in fact, U.S. persons, and trying to, again, sow various narratives.

04:39In that case, very heavily focused on the issue they picked there was, you know, the

04:44war in Ukraine.

04:45And again, trying to kind of get everybody turned against each other.

04:50We've also seen that, though, from China and Iran.

04:53I mentioned China before.

04:55We've had a case where they, we charged, I think it was 34 Chinese Ministry of Public

05:01Security MPS officers for much the same kind of behavior, creating false personas, pretending

05:08to be Americans, and then trying to kind of sow narratives.

05:12In that case, in the Chinese case, their narratives were trying to, for example, undermine any

05:17suggestion that COVID was the product of a lab leak or attacking U.S. law enforcement

05:24at the anniversary of George Floyd's death, for example.

05:28And then Iran, in 2020, we saw them undertake similar kinds of efforts that were disrupted

05:36in the, I think, October of 2020.

05:39Thank you, and I yield back.

'Pour Gasoline On The Fire': FBI Head Wray Warns Of Foreign Adversaries Sowing Racial Tensions In US

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