The FBI is worried about a potential string of organized attacks on the American homeland similar to the recent attack at a Russian concert hall.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress on Thursday where he shared the concerns the department has over terrorism within the country.
“As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” the government official said according to Reuters.
“But that is the case as I sit here today.”
Wray alluded to a March 22 terrorism incident that took the lives of at least 144 Russian citizens.
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He feared that the same style of attack could be coming to the United States as radical Islamic groups become inspired by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“Now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall a couple weeks ago,” he warned Congress.
The FBI director spoke about these concerns in an attempt to persuade Congress to provide the department with more funding.
He also alluded to the increase in staff that the FBI has seen for more reasons to receive additional funding.
Will America be attacked by a coordinated group of terrorists?
“We have seen a substantial jump in threats towards FBI personnel and facilities from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023,” Wray said.
Republican members have already begun pushing back against Wray and his narrative, alluding to the tension that the party has had between it and the department.
Former President Donald Trump previously was investigated by the FBI to see if his 2016 campaign had connections to the Russian government, something that he pushed back heavily against.
“I’ll be honest with you, and this pains me to say this, but I don’t trust you,” California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia bluntly told Wray during the hearing.
I was very direct with FBI Director Wray: I don’t trust him, and he’s failing to protect Americans from the national security and humanitarian crisis at our southern border.
Under this administration there have been…
-7.5 million illegal crossings
-1.7 million known gotaways… pic.twitter.com/674LCaOF0Y— Rep. Mike Garcia (@RepMikeGarcia) April 11, 2024
“I don’t think that this is necessarily a funding problem that we have for your agency as much as a leadership problem.”
While the issue of a large-scale terrorist threat is undeniable, the question ultimately arises if the FBI itself is even up to the task of preventing it.
FBI leadership has been so keen on prosecuting the Democrats’ opposition in recent times it’s questionable if they even know what their primary purpose is anymore.
So when Rep. Garcia questions if the FBI would even succeed in doing better with more money, there’s good reason for it.
The country has been in a chaotic state for a while as an immense amount of notable threats to the country pour across the southern border — what has the FBI been doing all this time?
Is this even something the FBI can fix? Perhaps instead of giving the FBI more funding, the country could get a president with enough of a spine to scare away would-be attackers.
