WASHINGTON – FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday repeatedly rejected claims by former President Donald Trump’s Republican allies and others that antifa activists participated in the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill.
“To date, we have not seen any evidence of violent anarchist extremists or antifa subscribers in connection with the 6th,” Wray said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing to address concerns about the intelligence that led to the riot and the threat domestic terrorism more broadly. “It does not mean that we are not looking and will continue to look, but at the moment we have not seen it.”
Wray explained that those who participated in the violation of the Capitol fell into two main groups of violent extremists – those associated with militia groups, such as Oath Keepers, and those who defend white supremacy.
Wray’s comments came after Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s top Republican, spent much of his opening remarks not focused on the right-wing extremists who attacked the Capitol in January, but on left-wing extremists like the anti -fascist, or antifa, movement. Grassley referred to how far-left protesters vandalized a federal court in Portland, Oregon, in the summer and the Democratic Party’s state headquarters during President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“We must examine the issue of domestic terrorism broadly, very broadly, to include all forms of political extremism, domestic terrorism, wherever it falls on the political spectrum,” said Grassley. “No serious oversight activities and no other political decisions can be made. taken without doing both. “
Trump and many of his allies have repeatedly claimed that antifa activists were responsible for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. At a hearing last week, Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Read an article that falsely blamed Antifa for Capitol violence, “false Trump protesters” and “bullies”. A recent Suffolk University / USA Today poll found that 58% of Republicans believe the Capitol riot was “mainly an antifa-inspired attack that involved only a few Trump supporters.”
Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in his opening statement that violence across the political spectrum, including vandalism in the federal court in Portland, “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “
“But it is not equivalent to a violent attempt to overturn election results, nor is it equivalent to mass shootings against minority communities,” he said. “This false equivalence is an insult to the brave policemen who were injured or lost their lives on January 6, as well as dozens of others who were murdered in attacks by white supremacy.”
