President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency in charge of curbing domestic terrorism told senators that White supremacists have become the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the U.S. from within the country. “White supremacist extremists, from a lethality standpoint over the last two years, particularly when you look at 2018 and 2019, are certainly the most persistent and lethal threat when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” said Chad Wolf, who has been heading the Department of Homeland Security in an acting capacity since late last year. The response is notable considering that Mr. Trump and Attorney General William Barr have sought to portray the nation as besieged by left-wing agitators fomenting violence in protests over racial injustice. After a series of attacks blamed on racism and bigotry in 2019, Mr. Trump told reporters that he doesn’t consider white nationalism to be a growing problem. Mr. Wolf also told senators that the U.S. faces threats of election interference from Russia, China and Iran and that “Russia looks to denigrate former Vice President [Joe] Biden.” Mr. Wolf said there’s no current intelligence proving that Iran or China have yet carried out attacks. That, too, reflects independence from Mr. Trump, who responded to a similar assessment from FBI Director Christopher Wray last week by scoffing in a tweet that China “is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia.”
via post-gazette: White supremacists are top terrorist threats within U.S., Homeland Security’s Wolf says
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