FBI Chief Chris Wray Spends Whole Day Playing Whack-A-Mole With Trump/GOP Lies About Capitol Attack
Yesterday, the Senate held a hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray, the first we've heard from him since the Capitol terrorist attack. And he had some things to say! First of all, Wray said what happened on January 6 was domestic terrorism, that the FBI is very much looking at it that way, and that the threat of it is "metastasizing across the country." Indeed, he said there have now been 2,000 domestic terrorism investigations at the FBI since he became the new James Comey. He said three times as many white supremacists were arrested last year as in 2017, when he started the job.
And Democrats weren't going to let Wray — or Republican senators — get away with trying to pretend that pretend threats from "antifa" are somehow on the level with the actual white supremacist terrorist threat. "Let's stop pretending that the threat of antifa is equal to the white supremacist threat," said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.
In response to a question from Durbin, Wray confirmed that NO, DONALD TRUMP, and NO, REPUBLICAN ASSCLOWNS LIKE RON JOHNSON READING ARTICLES FROM THE FEDERALIST INTO THE SENATE RECORD, there is zero evidence the January 6 terrorist attack was committed by "fake Trump supporters" or "antifa" or anything like that. "That doesn't mean we're not looking," Wray said later.
In other words, if they find out it was secretly an antifa mission, they'll let us know. Until then, buttercups, the terrorists were who they said they were, and they were there for Trump.
Indeed, Wray said it over and over again, because Democrats just wanted to make sure he had a chance to say it 90 times:
"While we're equal-opportunity in looking for violent extremism of any ideology, we have not, to date, seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to 'antifa' in connection with the 6th," Wray told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) early in the hearing. [...]
Later in the hearing, asked by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) if there was any evidence that the riot had been organized by people "simply posing" as Trump supporters, Wray said "we have not seen any evidence of that."
What about "antifa" or Black Lives Matter? Coons asked.
"We have not seen any evidence to that effect thus far," Wray said.
Wray did say, though, that "More and more, the threat that we face as a country is what I would call the 'inspired attacks,'" people who aren't official members of a violent group like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers. Seems to us like he's describing the process by which Donald Trump helped radicalize a hell of a lot of people who before this probably wouldn't have done any attacks on the Capitol at all.
ISIS would be proud.
In response to a question from Democratic Senator Cory Booker, Wray said, NO, DONALD TRUMP, the election was not stolen, there was not fraud, especially not on the level that it would have changed the outcome of the election, and you are a full-of-shit fascist. (He didn't say Trump is a full-of-shit fascist, we did.)
"We are not aware of any widespread evidence of voter fraud much less that would have affected the outcome in the presidential election."
He said he agrees with Bill Barr on the subject, because we all remember that time Barr betrayed Trump by refusing to make up evidence that the election was stolen and then Barr got quit-fired.
Booker's entire questioning with Wray was worth watching:
Elsewhere in the hearing, seditionist GOP Senator Josh Hawley asked defensive questions about how the FBI is gathering evidence, pushing a conspiracy theory about how their collection of metadata is somehow improper, and whining that the FBI is saying "just trust us." We don't know if Hawley is worried the FBI might have evidence he or other seditionist GOP members of Congress collaborated with the terrorists, or whether he even thinks it's proper for the FBI to be investigating white supremacists, but we are comfortable saying Josh Hawley is an un-American piece of shit.
Wray assured Hawley that however the FBI is collecting evidence about that day, it is doing it lawfully. He did not add, "Why are you asking? Why are you asking, Senator? Why are you asking? Are you scared of what we might find? You scared?" Check out the full transcript of Hawley's questioning, it is bizarre.
And finally, here's some dumb shit. GOP Senator Tom Cotton had some questions about MS-13, we guess because that's a thing the people who watch Fox News shit their nests about, and it distracted from how this was a hearing about terrorist Trump supporters.
"In your professional opinion today, is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement deporting too many or too few MS-13 gang members?" [...]
"When it comes to MS-13, it won't surprise you to know that I support the 'lock 'em up' policy — but I also support the 'deport them' policy," Cotton said.
Cool story, buddy. Thanks for your contributions, as always.
Today officials from the Pentagon are in front of the Senate, the first time they've been before Congress since the attack. Maybe we'll finally get some answers on why they lied about Charles Flynn, the brother of disgraced seditionist and admitted criminal Michael Flynn, being part of the Pentagon's delayed reaction response that day, or if any of the morons Trump shoehorned into Pentagon leadership after he lost the election might be in any way culpable for what happened at the Capitol.
Been curious about those things!
[New York Times / Talking Points Memo / ibid.]
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