The Washington Post - 06.08.2019

A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 , 2019

100 domestic terrorism arrests in

the past nine months and that “a

majority of the domestic terror-

ism cases we’ve investigated are

motivated by some version of

what you might call white su-

premacist violence.”

But others said the almost sin-

gular reliance on the bureau to

disrupt far-right networks — with

little or no involvement of other

agencies — underscores the ex-

tent to which the government has

failed to adapt.

Nicholas Rasmussen, who

served three years as director of

the National Counterterrorism

Center, said that attacks linked to

al-Qaeda or the Islamic State —

including the Boston bombings

and the night club shooting in

Orlando — were invariably fol-

lowed by “all-hands” meetings at

the White House. Among those

assembled were often the heads of

the Pentagon, the CIA, and the

Treasury and State departments.

“But I suspect that didn’t hap-

pen this weekend at the White

House,” Rasmussen said. “If it had

happened in the Obama or Bush

White Houses, I’m not sure it

would have either. Because as

soon as you hear ‘domestic,’ every-

body reverts to ‘Well, the FBI has

the ball.’ ” He added: “The FBI is

hands down the best investigative

law enforcement agency in the

world, but asking them to take on

this problem on their own makes

no sense.”

A National Security Council

spokesman declined to say wheth-

er any Cabinet-level meetings had

taken place at the White House in

the wake of the latest shootings,

citing policy against such disclo-

sures.

Even as the FBI has turned

greater attention to domestic

threats, federal investigators lack

some of the legal tools they have to

combat Islamist terrorism.

In cases involving al-Qaeda or

the Islamic State, federal prosecu-

tors can turn to a statute that

makes it illegal to provide any

“material support,” such as money

or training, to a designated for-

eign terrorist group.

There is no comparable statute

for domestic groups such as far-

right extremists.

[email protected]

Ellen Nakashima contributed to this

report.

ists.

A social media study by re-

searcher J.M. Berger concluded

that far-right networks online are

dominated by intersecting

themes: “support for U.S. Presi-

dent Donald Trump, support for

white nationalism, opposition to

immigration (often framed in

anti-Muslim terms).”

The latter is an area in which

the response to 9/11 — with its

wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and

multibillion-dollar investments

in border security aimed at block-

ing entry to radicalized Muslims

— may have fostered xenophobic

attitudes that contributed to the

rise of the far right.

There are indications that U.S.

national security agencies are be-

ginning to shift toward the far-

right threat. FBI Director Christo-

pher A. Wray recently testified

that the bureau had made about

tion more necessary and inter-

feres with that mobilization,” said

Dan Byman, a terrorism expert at

Georgetown University and a for-

mer staff member of the 9/11 Com-

mission. Trump’s words and ac-

tions, he said, amplify the danger

by emboldening those with radi-

cal, racist views, while his signals

of tolerance toward such groups

— including his comments after

violence in Charlottesville — un-

dermine his subordinates’ ability

to agree upon and organize

around the threat.

Trump’s refusal to acknowl-

edge Russian interference in U.S.

politics has also contributed to the

far right’s rise, experts said. Since

at least 2015, Moscow’s destabili-

zation efforts have included

sweeping online operations

aimed at sowing racial division in

the United States by promoting

the positions of white national-

viser in the White House no longer

reports directly to the president.

The administration has also

curtailed or disbanded a Depart-

ment of Homeland Security pro-

gram that had been created to

counter violent extremism by

working with regional authorities

and organizations to identify

those vulnerable to radicalization,

whether by Islamist groups or the

far right.

The main obstacle to mobiliz-

ing against the white supremacist

threat, officials said, may be politi-

cal. Trump on Monday denounced

the alleged white nationalist sen-

timents of the suspected killer in

El Paso. But his presidency has

come to be defined by policies that

are aligned with aspects of the

white nationalist agenda and his

penchant for fanning racial ani-

mus.

“This both makes the mobiliza-

ism have begun to converge.

The numbers of people killed in

attacks linked to Islamist radicals

or the far right in the United States

since 2002 are virtually equivalent

— 104 versus 109, respectively, ac-

cording to data compiled by the

think tank New America.

Protecting the public from the

most pressing terrorist threat

“has been our governing principle

for many years now,” said Lisa

Monaco, who served as the top

counterterrorism adviser to Presi-

dent Barack Obama. Given the

surge in attacks linked to the far

right, she said, “we need to priori-

tize our resources and focus on

this threat.”

In some ways, the opposite has

occurred under President Trump.

Last year, the administration

downgraded the position that Mo-

naco previously held, meaning

that the top counterterrorism ad-

wounded in Texas and Ohio over
the weekend, a roster of former
high-ranking counterterrorism
officials issued a statement Sun-
day saying that domestic terror-
ism should be treated “as high a
priority as countering interna-
tional terrorism has become since
9/11.”
Many experts say that the mobi-
lization in the wake of the attacks
on New York and Washington was
effective and that the number of
Americans killed by Islamist mili-
tants would be considerably high-
er were it not for the far-reaching
measures adopted after 9/11 — a
catastrophic al-Qaeda strike that
killed nearly 3,000 people and
whose impact still dwarfs any sin-
gle episode of violence that has
followed in the United States.
Still, the 22 people killed in El
Paso on Saturday — after authori-
ties allege the shooter posted a
racist screed online — extended a
series of at least five fatal attacks
over the past year directed at tar-
gets selected for racial or religious
reasons, including shootings at
synagogues in San Diego and
Pittsburgh. And 9/11 was preced-
ed by a series of smaller al-Qaeda
attacks and unaddressed alarms
about the group that analysts say
should caution current officials
about the dangers of inaction.
The prospects for a change in
course, however, appear limited —
complicated by legal constraints,
toxic American political currents
and the amorphous nature of an
adversary that has no discernible
structure or Osama bin Laden-
like leader and has burrowed into
corners of the Internet the way
al-Qaeda once hid in the moun-
tain redoubts of Afghanistan.
The grim statistics associated
with these two strains of extrem-

THREAT FROM A

mass shootings in america

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

A chart on the dangers of U.S. gun violence was on display Monday at the 15-story Crystal Palace at the Javits Center in New York.

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