Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said on Wednesday that neither Attorney General Bill Barr nor FBI Director Chris Wray have responded to his Senate committee’s questions asking how they plan to combat domestic terrorism.
Johnson, who chairs the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told Fox News host Sandra Smith that he and committee ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) first sent a letter to the FBI, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security on May 8 inquiring about the agencies’ response to “evolving domestic terrorism threats.”
According to Johnson, the committee only got a response from DHS, not Barr or Wray.
“So on Monday, we sent them another letter asking them to respond,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
“I’m not sure you’ll ever have enough resources in terms of what people will be requesting,” he continued. “This is a serious issue, though. And we expect answers out of the FBI director and the attorney general.”
In the followup letters sent to Barr and Wray on Monday, Johnson and Peters point out how the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio “make it clear that the federal government has more work to do in preventing domestic terrorism.”
“As we emphasized when we wrote to you in May, concerns persist that the DOJ has failed to accurately track data on domestic terrorism and that federal law enforcement has been slow to respond to changing domestic threats,” the senators wrote.
Current and former Trump administration officials told CNN under the condition of anonymity that the White House has been rejecting DHS’ officials’ attempts to combat threats of domestic terrorism for over a year.
Watch Johnson on Fox below:
Sen. Ron Johnson says Bill Barr and FBI haven't responded to Senate's questions about how they're addressing domestic terrorism pic.twitter.com/s3mekt12IB
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) August 7, 2019
Read the committee’s letters sent on Monday to Barr and Wray below:
