The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Christopher Ray said that the office believes that supporters of former US President Donald Trump stormed the Congress building as a terrorist attack carried out by supporters of the idea of the supremacy of the white race, adding that this trend represents the greatest threat to the security of the country.
In his testimony he gave today, Tuesday, to the US Senate Judicial Committee regarding the storming of Congress on January 6, Ray said, "I was as amazed as you by the violence and destruction that we saw that day. I was horrified that you, the elected leaders of our country, fell victim here." In these halls. "
"That attack ... that siege was a clear and direct criminal behavior, and it is behavior that we, the FBI, consider domestic terrorism."
Ray denied allegations made by Trump supporters that some congressional rioters were people who falsely claimed to be supporters of the former president but were in fact affiliated with the left-leaning "Antifa" movement.
He said, "To this day, we have not seen any evidence that violent extremists, anarchists, or those affiliated with Antifa are related to the sixth of last January."
This is the first testimony of the FBI director before Congress since those events in which 5 were killed, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol (Congress compound) to disrupt the confirmation hearing that Joe Biden won the presidential election.
Ray stressed in his testimony the danger of extremism motivated by racial and ethnic motives, noting that in June 2019 the FBI raised the level of that risk to the highest priority in security threats on a par with ISIS and the locally emerging violent extremism.