The Department of Justice has been publishing incomplete and conflicting data on domestic terrorism, thwarting effective policymaking and accountability on an issue it claims to prioritize. In December, the Brennan Center sent a letter to the department urging it to augment its data collection methods to ensure more accurate reporting in the future.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that month, FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated what has become a Justice Department mantra since the al-Qaeda terror attacks on September 11, 2001: “Protecting the American people from terrorism remains the FBI’s number one priority.” Certainly, international terrorism remains a danger. But Congress and the American public have increasingly raised concerns about a seemingly deficient response to white supremacist and far-right militant violence, pointing to a series of white supremacist mass killings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Buffalo, New York, as well as white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Though the Biden administration in 2021 described domestic terrorism as “the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today,” the DOJ and the FBI have failed to provide accurate data regarding their use of counterterrorism resources to ensure they are targeting the greatest threats. In his testimony, for instance, Wray indicated that though the bureau has doubled the number of domestic terrorism investigations since 2020, primarily against groups the FBI categorizes as “racially motivated violent extremists” and “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists,” it still considers “homegrown violent extremists” — typically Muslim Americans it treats as foreign terrorists — as the greater threat.
In a report submitted to Congress last June, the FBI said it did not know how many domestic terrorism incidents occur in the United States each year, nor the total number of fatalities resulting from these attacks. The FBI further indicated it could not detail the number or type of successful domestic terrorism prosecutions that result from its investigations, producing instead a selective list of examples.
One might think that keeping complete and accurate data about domestic terrorism incidents, particularly ones resulting in fatalities, would be essential to assessing threats and ensuring that resources are distributed properly to address the most serious and deadly perpetrators. Tracking domestic terrorism prosecutions would ensure that investigative resources are properly targeted at genuine threats. But it has proven surprisingly difficult to detail the scope of racist violence in the United States and the Justice Department’s use of domestic terrorism resources.
Some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses.