On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will be forming a new unit that will focus specifically on domestic terror threats. Matthew Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security, made the announcement in his opening remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
According to Olsen, the number of domestic terrorism cases that the FBI is currently investigating has more than doubled since March of 2020.
“The threat posed by domestic terrorism is on the rise,” Olsen noted, bringing up the 2015 mass shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina, church; the 2017 shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others in Alexandria, Virginia; the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting; and the 2019 shooting at an El Paso Walmart.
Olsen then signaled the true reason that he and the DOJ believe a new domestic terrorism unit is necessary.
“Last week we marked the one year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol on January 6. In the wake of that attack, the Department of Justice has undertaken an effort unprecedented in scope and complexity, to hold accountable all of those who engaged in criminal acts,” Olsen said.
“The attacks in recent years underscore the threat that domestic terrorism continues to pose to our citizens, to law enforcement officers, to public officials and to our democratic institutions.”
Despite already having a group of attorneys specializing in both domestic and international terrorism, Olsen apparently decided unilaterally to create a new unit specializing in only domestic threats.
“I decided to establish a domestic terrorism unit to augment our existing approach,” Olsen said. “This group of dedicated attorneys will focus on the domestic terrorism threat, helping to ensure that these cases are handled properly and effectively coordinated across the Department of Justice and across the country.”
In his opening remarks, Olsen completely left out the anarchical summer of 2020 when neo-Marxist groups led by Antifa and Black Lives Matter took over a portion of the city of Seattle and literally burned parts of Minneapolis, Kenosha, and other cities to vent their left wing, anti-police rage.
Also testifying before the Judiciary Committee was FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director Jill Sanborn, who warned of the danger of small groups or lone-wolf terrorists.
“The greatest terrorism threat facing the United States today remains that posed by lone actors or small cells, who are typically radicalized online and look to use easily accessible weapons to attack soft targets,” Sanborn said.
The beginning of the hearing was marked by a battle of two videos, with committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) showing a video of the January 6 unrest at the Capitol. Durbin attacked Republicans saying, “They are normalizing the use of violence to achieve political goals.”
The committee’s top Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, countered with a video showing segments of the nearly 600 violent riots in the summer of 2020, complete with out-of-control fires, the attacking of police officers and the use of explosive devices.
“These anti-police riots rocked our nation for seven full months, just like the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol rocked the nation,” Grassley said.
“Rocked the nation” even more than January 6 did, one might point out.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) angrily denounced both Olsen and Sanborn for their unwillingness to answer whether any of the misdeeds of January 6 were actually fomented or even caused by FBI agents acting undercover.
“Your answer to every damn question is ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,’” Cruz complained to Olsen.
Cruz asked Sanborn directly about the federal government’s possible involvement in the events of January 6.
“Ms. Sanborn, a lot of Americans are concerned that the federal government deliberately encouraged illegal violent conduct on Jan. 6,” Cruz said, before asking if those allegations were true.
“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Sanborn answered.
Olsen’s omission of the onerous deeds of Black Lives Matter and Antifa in his rundown of recent instances of domestic terrorism is troublesome. It signals that “domestic terrorism” to him is a matter of opinion instead of an objective fact. If those instances of burning, looting, and pillaging don’t qualify as politically motivated domestic terrorism to Olsen, he shouldn’t be in charge of such investigations.
