FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday the bureau made about 90 domestic terrorism-related arrests since October, with the majority of those race-related cases having ties to white supremacy.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committeee, Wray said the FBI is "aggressively" investigating domestic terrorism and hate crimes, noting it is focused on the violence, not the ideology behind the attacks, The Hill reported.
"I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we've investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well," he said.
He also distinguished between homegrown violent extremism, wording he said the FBI uses to refer to people in United States inspired by global jihadists, and domestic extremism, which he described as including racially motivated extremists, anarchists, and others.
"In terms of number of arrests, we have – through the third quarter of this fiscal year – had about, give or take, 100 arrests on the international terrorism side, which includes the homegrown violent extremism," Wray testified.
"We've also had just about the same number — again, don't quote me to the exact digit — on the domestic terrorism side."
The Washington Post reported an FBI spokeswoman later clarified the bureau had recorded about 90 domestic terrorism arrests and about 100 international terrorism arrests.
The official also fine-tuned Wray's assertion a "majority of the domestic terrorism cases we've investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence," the Post reported.
The official told the Post that Wray meant only that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases involving a racial motive were believed to be spurred by white supremacy.
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