New focus on terror at home

The US Justice Department is forming a new domestic terrorism unit to help combat a threat that has intensified dramatically in recent years.

Matthew Olsen, the head of the department’s National Security Division, announced the unit yesterday in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said the number of FBI investigations of suspected domestic violent extremists – those accused of planning or committing crimes in the name of domestic political goals – had more than doubled since early 2020.

His testimony came just a few days after the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, an event that some lawmakers say showed the FBI underestimated the threat posed by domestic extremists and violence-prone members of far-Right groups.

The committee’s hearing has been convened to assess the threat of domestic terrorism a year after the January 6 attack. It has often devolved into partisan bickering over the riot and the violence at some racial justice protests in 2020.

Olsen said authorities had charged more than 725 people, including more than 325 facing felony counts, for their roles in the attack. The FBI was seeking to identify and arrest more than 200 additional suspects.

Jill Sanborn, the head of the FBI’s national security branch, said it had opened more than 800 cases in connection with the 2020 riots, and arrested more than 250 people.

The bureau had assessed racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism and antigovernment violent extremism as being the most ‘‘lethal’’ terrorism threats, Sanborn said.

She said the FBI had recently elevated anti-government violent extremism as a priority, on par with racially motivated violent extremism, homegrown violent extremism, and extremism planned or inspired by the Islamic State terror group.

The Justice Department and the FBI have faced criticism for not focusing as intensely on domestic terrorism as they do internationally inspired threats. From 2016 to 2019, the number of domestic terrorism suspects arrested per year fell from 229 to 107, before jumping to 180 in 2020.

– Washington Post