[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 116-63]
ALARMING INCIDENTS OF
WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE
MILITARY--HOW TO STOP IT?
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 11, 2020
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-962 WASHINGTON : 2021
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
JACKIE SPEIER, California, Chairwoman
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr., LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
California, Vice Chair PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico MATT GAETZ, Florida
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia
Craig Greene, Professional Staff Member
Glen Diehl, Professional Staff Member
Danielle Steitz, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Kelly, Hon. Trent, a Representative from Mississippi, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Military Personnel..................... 3
Speier, Hon. Jackie, a Representative from California,
Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel................. 1
WITNESSES
Beirich, Heidi L., Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer,
Global Project Against Hate and Extremism...................... 4
Brooks, Lecia J., Chief Workplace Transformation Office, Southern
Poverty Law Center............................................. 8
Ethridge, Joe E., Jr., Chief, Criminal Intelligence Division,
U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command....................... 28
Grabosky, Robert S., Deputy Director, Law Enforcement, Strategic
Programs and Requirements, U.S. Air Force Office of Special
Investigations................................................. 31
McMahon, Christopher J., Executive Assistant Director, National
Security Directorate, Naval Criminal Investigative Service..... 29
Miller, Stephanie, Director, Accessions Policy, Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness......... 24
Pitcavage, Mark, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Center on
Extremism, Anti-Defamation League.............................. 6
Reid, Garry, Director for Defense Intelligence
(Counterintelligence, Law Enforcement, and Security), Office of
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence................ 26
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Beirich, Heidi L............................................. 51
Brooks, Lecia J.............................................. 107
Ethridge, Joe E., Jr......................................... 135
Grabosky, Robert S........................................... 142
McMahon, Christopher J....................................... 139
Pitcavage, Mark.............................................. 85
Reid, Garry, joint with Stephanie Miller..................... 127
Speier, Hon. Jackie.......................................... 49
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Ms. Speier................................................... 149
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Ms. Speier................................................... 155
ALARMING INCIDENTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE MILITARY--HOW TO STOP IT?
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Military Personnel,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:35 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jackie Speier
(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JACKIE SPEIER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
Ms. Speier. The Military Personnel Subcommittee will come
to order. The hearing today is to discuss a very important
issue and one that hopefully we will get some important answers
to.
This issue could not be more urgent. Three weeks ago, a New
York Times article revealed that the FBI [Federal Bureau of
Investigation] had arrested seven members of an organization
called The Base, a dangerous White supremacist group.
They aren't your parents' neo-Nazis. The Base is an
accelerationist, paganistic, anarchic group whose name speaks
to the admiration for al-Qaida and ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria]. They hate Jews and African Americans, but they
don't like President Trump or the United States either. Their
goal is to use terrorism to start a race war and collapse the
United States.
Triggering societal collapse may be a sick fantasy, but the
reality is that domestic terror has claimed more lives than
international terror since 9/11.
Last week, FBI Director Wray told the Judiciary Committee
that he had, quote, ``elevated racially motivated violent
extremism to a national threat priority at the same band with
homegrown violent extremism and ISIS,'' unquote.
Our enemies, especially Russia, exploit these racial
tensions to divide and weaken American society. The head of The
Base lives in Russia. Russia likely supports White supremacist
groups in the United States and Europe, and Russia targets our
service members with disinformation.
When our enemies take advantage of our vulnerabilities, our
national security is threatened and dependent on a sufficient
response.
The threat also has specific implications for the Personnel
Subcommittee.
First, White supremacist terror groups and communities
value military skills that would enable them to commit
terrorism or fight a race war. They recruit vets to join and
train their members, seek to infiltrate sympathizers into the
military, and many members claim to have military experience.
This doesn't make White supremacist terror groups unique. Al-
Qaida also recruited members of the Egyptian and Saudi
militaries.
Second, there are several warning signs that individuals
with White nationalist and supremacist tendencies are, in fact,
serving in our military. Recent high-profile examples include a
Marine attending the 2017 Charlottesville rally, a Coast Guard
officer arrested with a cache of weapons, and a West Point grad
espousing hate on social media.
Last week, a Military Times survey showed that the number
of troops who have witnessed evidence of White supremacist and
racial ideologies in the military increased from 22 to 36
percent from 2018 to 2019.
Like in previous decades, as supremacist activities, marked
by events such as Charlottesville, have increased in recent
years, it has likely increased in the military as well. And
supremacists in the military put service members' safety,
recruitment, and retention at risk.
Third, I am concerned that the military doesn't take this
threat seriously enough, have the tools it needs, or dedicates
sufficient resources to the threat.
Our accessions and vetting enterprise lumps White
supremacist activity in with gang affiliation rather than treat
it as a national security issue on par with foreign terror.
That lack of urgency and focus trickles down to commanders and
enlisted leaders, who don't appear to be sufficiently apprised
of this threat or taught how to deal with it.
Even if they are dealing with it, the military lacks
statistics to prove it, in part because of the absence of a
standalone UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] extremism
article. This raises hard questions about whether military law
enforcement needs additional authorities to combat this terror
threat.
Today we will be joined by two panels. The first will
consist of experts from organizations that study, track, and
educate on extremism. On the second, we will have DOD
[Department of Defense] officials responsible for the
accessions policy for the military, counterintelligence, law
enforcement, and security, and the military criminal
investigations agencies.
I would like to focus on three main concerns today.
First, what is the scope and magnitude of this threat, and
what are its impacts?
Second, what is being done to prevent these individuals
from entering the military and then find, investigate, and
prosecute them? Do military leaders take this issue seriously
enough? Some of the testimony will suggest that many of them
are just administratively discharged; nothing further is done
about them. That is inconsistent with our need to make sure
that the country is secure as well.
Third, what additional tools might we need to give the
military to combat this threat?
Before I introduce the first panel, let me have Ranking
Member Kelly have his opening remarks.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Speier can be found in the
Appendix on page 49.]
STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Chairwoman Speier.
I wish to welcome both of our panels to today's hearing.
I have dealt with White supremacy on the front lines as a
district attorney. From murders to rapes, to assault, to
intimidation, to officer shootings, I have dealt with all those
things in my district in Mississippi during my time as a
prosecutor and a district attorney there.
But I have also served in the military for 34 years. No
group is more diverse or culturally integrated than our United
States military--none, anywhere. We must keep it that way. It
should be a cultural site where people can go to know what
right looks like. And we have to keep it that way, which means
this is an important hearing to make sure that we keep us at
the basis that we are.
I think extremist activities of any kind are unacceptable
and cannot be tolerated in the military. They cut to the very
core of what the military was founded on: good order and
discipline. George Washington once wrote, ``Discipline is the
soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures
success to the weak and esteem to all.''
The thought of extremist activities like White supremacy
pervading the military is in direct contrast to the foundation
of what the military stands for. As a former brigade commander
and a battalion commander in combat, I can tell you from
experience that soldiers must and do trust each other with
their lives, regardless of their backgrounds or the colors of
their skin. Service members are judged based on their ability
to perform their job and the content of their character, and
any other distinctions have no place in the military or in
society.
I am interested in understanding the true magnitude of
these issues from today's witnesses. As I was preparing for
this hearing, I realized we don't have a lot of reliable data
on this. Aside from a recent newspaper poll on racist behavior
in the military, we have few solid statistics on extremist
behavior in the military.
The definitive data we do have comes from the Department of
Defense, where there have been 21 criminal cases involving
White supremacy over the last 5 years amongst all four services
and components. DOD is now tracking investigations into White
supremacy, as well as other extremist activities, and sharing
this information with the FBI.
This is a step in the right direction on the law
enforcement side, but I think data is a huge key to unpacking
the issue. We need to define the problem and get reliable data
on how prevalent it is in the military.
On panel one, I would like to understand the magnitude of
extremist and White supremacy activities all across society and
what data is being tracked outside of the military. I am also
interested in your recommendations specifically as they pertain
to training and data collection for the military.
On panel two, I would like to hear about the Department's
screening processes and the ongoing monitoring of extremist
activities. My understanding is there may be a gap in the
reporting of the noncriminal cases that have been handled
administratively by commanders that resulted in an
administrative discharge. I would like to understand DOD's way
forward on this issue and whether we also need to have
standardized training across the services.
I want to thank our witnesses and our chairwoman for being
here today. Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Ranking Member Kelly.
Thank you, witnesses, for joining us today. You will have 5
minutes to present your testimony.
I would also like to ask unanimous consent that non-
committee members be allowed to participate and ask questions
after all the committee members have had the opportunity to ask
questions.
Without objection?
Mr. Kelly. Without objection.
Ms. Speier. So ordered.
Okay. Our first panel starts with Dr. Heidi Beirich, co-
founder and chief strategy officer of the Global Project
Against Hate and Extremism; Dr. Mark Pitcavage, senior research
fellow at the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation
League; and Ms. Lecia Brooks, chief workplace transformation
officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
We will take a short recess and switch out to our second
panel at the end of the first panel.
So would you like to begin?
STATEMENT OF HEIDI L. BEIRICH, PH.D., CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF
STRATEGY OFFICER, GLOBAL PROJECT AGAINST HATE AND EXTREMISM
Dr. Beirich. Yes. I would like to thank the esteemed
members of the subcommittee for inviting me to testify today.
It is a great honor.
My name is Heidi Beirich. I have a Ph.D. in political
science from Purdue University, and I am the co-founder of the
newly established Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
For the last two decades, I have researched extremist
activity in the United States and monitored White supremacists
in the military, often forwarding that information to military
investigators. I also argued, as I will today, for more
vigilant practices and stronger policies to root out extremists
from the ranks.
Nothing I say in my remarks today should be taken to impugn
the honorable men and women who serve in the Armed Forces,
whose efforts I applaud.
Barring White supremacists from the military is of the
utmost importance. As my written testimony documents, the
problem of White supremacists in the ranks is a serious and
growing one. Many of us know of former soldiers with extremist
views who have gone on to commit serious acts of terrorism.
Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City is the one that most people
usually think of, but this isn't an old problem. Just in this
past year, Active Duty troops have been found to be involved in
White supremacist groups responsible for murders and domestic
terrorism plots and, in some cases, international terrorism.
And White supremacy and the terror associated with it is on
the rise--in fact, bucking the trend of declining rates of
terror globally. We have a growing White supremacist movement
both in the United States and abroad. Some of these folks are
training White supremacists in other countries on military
tactics. This is a significant threat to our troops, to the
American public, and folks in other countries.
The armed services' own soldiers know that White supremacy
is a problem. It has already been cited. The Military Times has
done a poll 3 years in a row that shows between one in four and
one in three soldiers are aware--have encountered White
nationalism or racism in the Armed Forces.
So here are just my top-level recommendations to deal with
White supremacy in the Armed Forces.
It is very clear that screening measures need
strengthening. The military doesn't have a tattoo database, for
example, that shows extremist tattoos. It doesn't have clear
procedures to investigate social media accounts, which is where
you find most extremism nowadays.
It might be wise to consider how the online activities of
Active Duty troops are monitored. The recent arrest of a Coast
Guard lieutenant who had all this kind of horrible stuff online
tells us what this could lead to if we are not paying
attention.
Military recruits do fill out questionnaires that ask
whether they have been a member of an organization dedicated to
terrorism, but this process relies on self-reporting, and it is
unclear how much that self-reporting is verified.
There is need for more rigorous enforcement procedures and
data, as has already been mentioned by the ranking member. The
regulations against racism and White supremacy are generally
strong, but if they are not enforced, they are paper tigers.
Current regulations have penalties that are largely left up to
commanders often at the unit level.
There appears to be no process to track people expelled for
ties to White supremacist groups. There is little data in the
public domain to know how serious this problem is. All of these
are serious issues, as well as it being unclear how information
on extremists in one branch are shared with other branches or
the Guard or the FBI.
There need to be mandatory reports every year about the
levels of White supremacy in the military. There was a House
amendment that intended to add questions about White
nationalism to military climate surveys that was dropped out of
the National Defense Authorization Act. I would suggest that
this should be looked at again.
The Pentagon's, you know, investigatory task forces in each
branch should be looked at, how they look at extremist
networks, what level of investigatory resources exist there.
And then data should be generated so that we know how serious
the problem is.
There are also loopholes in the regulations for other kinds
of extremists. One example are folks involved in the anti-
government militia movement. These are people who believe in
war against the Federal Government and are increasingly anti-
immigrant and anti-Muslim. And some of these organizations have
thousands of members and specifically try to recruit from the
Armed Forces. So that is something I would suggest also needs
to be looked at.
The military needs to report hate crime statistics to the
FBI. Frankly, all Federal agencies need to. But this is another
piece of data that would be helpful for understanding these
problems.
And there also is evidence the existence of extremists in
the ranks is now contributing to worldwide terrorism. Members
of the most violent American neo-Nazi groups have recruited
veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as
Active Duty service members, and that military expertise is now
being shared with White supremacists in other countries. This
is something else that merits examination.
I also want to say that it is very important that everybody
in leadership speak out against White supremacy in the ranks.
This is a bipartisan issue. It has been for a long time. And it
should really be a no-brainer that this has to be done by
everybody from the Commander in Chief on down.
So, in closing, I want to just say that I agree with former
Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford, who said, ``There
is no place for bigotry and racism in the U.S. military or the
United States as a whole.'' I hope the policy suggestions I
provided here and in writing can bring us closer to eradicating
these ideas from the ranks of our incomparable Armed Forces.
It has been an honor to speak here. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Beirich can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Dr. Beirich.
Next is Dr. Pitcavage.
STATEMENT OF MARK PITCAVAGE, PH.D., SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW,
CENTER ON EXTREMISM, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
Dr. Pitcavage. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, good afternoon. I am
Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with ADL's [Anti-
Defamation League's] Center on Extremism. It is an honor to
appear before you today to address the issue of White supremacy
in the U.S. military.
For decades, ADL has fought against hate, anti-Semitism,
and extremism in all forms by exposing extremist groups and
individuals who spread hate and incite violence. Today, ADL is
the foremost nongovernmental authority on domestic terrorism,
extremism, hate groups, and hate crimes.
The issue of extremism in the military is one ADL's Center
on Extremism has tracked for years. We alert the services about
military members tied to extremism, provide assistance upon
request to recruiters and investigators, and offer training on
extremism and related subjects. For example, ADL provides
annual training to the command staff of the Army Criminal
Investigation Command and Provost Marshal General.
In 2009, ADL wrote then-Secretary of Defense Robert M.
Gates, urging him to take measures to deal with White supremacy
in the Armed Forces. The problem has only grown in urgency
since then.
In my testimony, I would like to share important context
about the nature of extremism in the Armed Forces.
Our Active and Reserve Components are large enough,
numbering over 2 million men and women, to reflect broader
American society in key ways, including the presence of
extremism. Each time the White supremacist movement has surged
in the U.S., that surge has been mirrored by a similar increase
within the Armed Forces. It happened during surges in the
1980s, the 1990s, and in 2008 to 2011.
Today, it is happening again, as the U.S. is experiencing a
surge in White supremacy propelled by the rise of the alt-
right, which has brought many young, newly radicalized White
males into the White supremacy movement. This is aggravated by
the spread of hate online.
With each surge, the military incurs not only an increase
in extremists but also increases in crime and violence that
accompany that. Extremists in the military have planned
terrorist acts. They have engaged in murders and hate crimes
and stolen weapons and military equipment. And they provided
information to other extremists. The current surge of White
supremacy is no exception.
Less than 2 weeks ago, Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher
Hasson was sentenced in Federal court to 13 years in prison in
connection with a plot to commit domestic terrorism.
Prosecutors described Hasson as a man inspired by racist
murderers, who intended to exact retribution on minorities and
those he considered traitors. Had law enforcement not caught
him, they noted, we would now be counting the bodies of the
defendant's victims.
Internet searches Hasson made included ``where do
Congressmen and Senators live when they are in DC [District of
Columbia],'' ``how to rid the U.S. of Jews,'' and ``most
liberal Federal judges,'' among others. Hasson wrote, ``I can't
strike just to wound. I must find a way to deliver a blow that
cannot be shaken off.''
Other extremists in the military in recent years have
distributed information related to explosives and WMDs [weapons
of mass destruction], assaulted people during White supremacist
rallies, acquired bombs and explosive materials, and used a
firearm to threaten members of a mosque. Even more have been
exposed attending White supremacist events, joining extremist
groups, distributing racist propaganda, and posting to White
supremacist chat rooms and forums online.
The presence of extremists in the Armed Forces is dangerous
to service members, their families, and others, and harmful to
the good order, discipline, morale, and effectiveness of our
troops. It is a problem that the military cannot afford to
ignore.
ADL's experiences working with the services have caused us
concern that policies and regulations are not always widely or
uniformly implemented, nor are key personnel always trained in
systematic fashion. We encourage you to work with the
Department and the services to ensure uniformity and clarity of
regulations, to provide proper training for those involved in
recruitment, discipline, and military justice on how to respond
to evidence of extremism.
We offer our expertise and experience to help the services
tackle this issue, including developing curricula or train-the-
trainer events. Most importantly, we encourage all DOD and
military leaders, as well as you, to speak out against hate.
Setting an example from the top is essential. We must protect
the men and women who protect our Nation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pitcavage can be found in
the Appendix on page 85.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Doctor.
Next is Ms. Brooks.
STATEMENT OF LECIA J. BROOKS, CHIEF WORKPLACE TRANSFORMATION
OFFICE, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
Ms. Brooks. Thank you. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member
Kelly, committee members, thank you so much. My name is Lecia
Brooks. I am the daughter of a veteran of the Korean War. I am
the mother of a son who proudly served the U.S. Army for two
tours. This issue is deeply personal to me.
The White nationalist movement in the United States is
surging and presents a serious danger to our country and its
institutions, including the U.S. Armed Forces. Recent
investigations have revealed dozens of veterans and Active Duty
service members who are affiliated with White nationalist
activity.
This is far from a new problem. In fact, the Southern
Poverty Law Center has been documenting White nationalists and
White supremacist infiltration of the military and urging
officials to take action since 1986. In that year, we wrote
Defense Secretary Weinberger and exposed the fact that Active
Duty Marines at Camp Lejeune were participating in paramilitary
Ku Klux Klan activities and even stealing military weaponry for
Klan use.
In December 2019, as was mentioned, it was reported that
the National Defense Authorization Act was altered in the U.S.
Senate to remove the mention of White nationalists in the
screening process for military enlistees.
According to the 2019 poll that was referenced by the
Military Times, 36 percent of Active Duty service members who
were surveyed reported seeing signs of White nationalism or
racist ideology in the U.S. Armed Forces. In the same survey,
more than half of the service members of color reported
experiencing incidents of racism or racist ideology.
A number of plots by White nationalists have been thwarted.
The arrest of Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, a 49-year-old
serving in the Coast Guard, provides a recent example. Hasson,
who had also spent time in the Marine Corps and the Army
National Guard, was recently sentenced to more than 13 years in
prison. He explicitly identified as White nationalist and
advocated for the establishment of a White ethnostate.
SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] has identified dozens of
former and active military personnel among the membership of
some of the country's most dangerous White nationalist and
White supremacist groups. Those groups include the Atomwaffen
Division, a neo-Nazi group whose members have allegedly been
responsible for five murders since 2017.
Brandon Russell, who launched Atomwaffen in 2015, served in
the Florida Army National Guard. After his roommate Devon
Arthurs killed two other roommates, who were also members of
Atomwaffen, police found explosive materials. A framed photo of
Army veteran and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was found
in Russell's bedroom. He also possessed fliers that read,
``Don't prepare for exams, prepare for a race war.'' It appears
Russell joined the National Guard in order to receive the kind
of skills he would need to prepare for that potential race war.
All together, investigators have found seven members of
Atomwaffen who have served in the military. Because of their
sophisticated weapons and explosives training, those members
significantly increase the group's potential to carry out
deadly attacks.
Russell has since been sentenced to 5 years in prison on
charges related to the explosive materials found in the
apartment. From prison, he has attempted to send instructions
for building explosives to another member of the neo-Nazi
group.
The recent arrest of two trained soldiers, one from the
United States and one from Canada, who belong to a terroristic
White nationalist group called The Base have heightened our
fears that they are now forming paramilitary cells.
In 2006, the SPLC released a report highlighting the
continuing presence of White nationalists in the military and
once again reached out to ask the Department of Defense to
implement a zero-tolerance policy on White supremacy. And again
in 2008 and 2009, we wrote letters to the DOD urging
investigations.
Today, the SPLC offers the following recommendations.
One, adopt and rigorously enforce a zero-tolerance policy
on White nationalists and supremacist activity across all
branches of the military.
Two, require an annual report from military leadership that
includes an audit of all investigations and resolutions of
White nationalist and White supremacist activity.
Three, blunt the reach and impact of White nationalist and
supremacist ideology by offering support services that work to
deradicalize Active Duty service members and veterans exposed
to hateful and violent messages.
We urge this committee and this Congress to use its powers
to purge from its ranks those who would mar the reputation and
courageous work of our dedicated U.S. service members.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brooks can be found in the
Appendix on page 107.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Ms. Brooks.
Thank you for your testimony. It is jarring, to say the
very least, and is a very important wake-up call for all of us.
You have offered a number of recommendations. I would like
to maybe use Lieutenant Hasson, to the extent that there is
public information. Was there social media--maybe I should ask
this of the next panel, actually.
Let me ask you this. We have the dark web. So individuals
can gravitate to the dark web to engage in their social media
if they are so inclined. How would you recommend that the
military do the kind of monitoring that is necessary?
Doctor.
Dr. Beirich. Well, honestly, oftentimes, to find social
media accounts, you don't really have to go into super-secret
areas to find them. It is material that tends to be oftentimes
on everything from Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, or in
places like 4chan, which are searchable. That is not to say
that there aren't areas of the web that are hidden and hard to
get to to find this information, but people are shockingly open
about their extremist views.
And it is the kind of material that should be easy for
investigators or people talking to potential recruits to
verify, especially if they are self-reporting that they are not
involved in terrorist organizations or extremist organizations.
You can find a lot of this material without too much
difficulty.
And I would advise that that seems like the first screening
mechanism that should be done. A workplace would do the same
with employees, right? And this is the military. So you can
find a lot. That doesn't mean it is all there, but there is a
lot.
Ms. Speier. All right.
Anyone else?
Doctor.
Dr. Pitcavage. Thank you. I agree with what my colleague
Dr. Beirich said. There is extremist material on the dark web,
but the dark web is dark to extremists as well, and it is
easier for them to find other extremists and other extremist
material on the regular internet. And, unfortunately, there are
many places and many platforms online, from large mainstream
social media platforms and other tech platforms to more obscure
ones, where they can do that.
And a lot of this is actually accessible to people who want
to investigate this or want to monitor this if they are
educated on where to look and what to look for. And so this is
not necessarily an insurmountable problem. This is something
that can be tackled to at least a certain degree.
Ms. Speier. You each identified Active Duty and former
service members in the ranks of extremist organizations. Are
you able to distinguish how many are Active Duty and how many
are former?
Ms. Brooks. I don't have that listing. I could get that for
you, though, Chairwoman.
Ms. Speier. That would be helpful. Thank you----
Ms. Brooks. Okay.
Ms. Speier [continuing]. Ms. Brooks.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Ms. Speier. Anyone else have any comments on that?
Dr. Beirich. I was going to respond in the same way. I did
provide some of that in the written testimony, but I could
provide it for the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 149.]
Ms. Speier. In your estimation, as you have sought to
inform the military investigators of information that you have
uncovered, how have they responded?
Dr. Beirich. Well, for the years that I was working at the
Southern Poverty Law Center, this was one of my main areas of
work. And I would say that starting in some of the time period
that Ms. Brooks pointed out, in 2006, 2008, there was a
reluctance on the part of the military to take these issues
seriously.
I remember at one point myself and some of my colleagues
brought dozens and dozens of forum pages of Active Duty service
members from a website called New Saxon, a neo-Nazi website,
and showed that these people were praising Hitler, using racial
slurs, they were Active Duty, and something needed to be done.
And the military at that time was not very responsive to our
idea that prior regulations only required card-carrying members
of hate groups to be removed from the military.
But that changed in 2009. So the regulations were tightened
up and strengthened.
The question, I think, really, at this point, is things
about loopholes, like militia members who are in the service;
anything that sort of is more blatantly racist, as opposed to
hardcore White supremacist, how it is treated; and how the
regulations are enforced.
That would be my suggestion--screening mechanisms,
enforcement. And then there is just a lack of data--right?--for
the public to know exactly what is happening.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Would any of you like to respond further?
Ms. Brooks. To Dr. Beirich's list, I would add anonymous,
kind of, reporting and the continuous reporting, not just in an
investigatory manner but something that happens consistently,
that there is some way to monitor it regularly.
Ms. Speier. Do you think there should be a bystander
responsibility to report?
Ms. Brooks. I do. I mean, the ranking member mentioned that
our military is our shining star, and we need to do everything
that we can to ensure that it remains that way. I think that
the oath that folks take when they join the military demands
it. Yes.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Ranking Member Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. You can only swear a true allegiance to one
cause. You either are--the United States of America or whatever
organization that is. And I think you are exactly right.
Ms. Brooks. Uh-huh.
Mr. Kelly. I have been the direct target of an
assassination attempt by an extremist. Not of the same line,
but I have been a direct target. A guy tried to shoot me from
here to you, tried to shoot me in the chest for no reason other
than he didn't like my political views, but he didn't know me.
We have to stamp this out. One is too many. And it is easy
to look at it as a small issue, unless you are the one who the
small issue is over. And so every single person who violates
the oath and allegiance to the United States of America and to
the military of America should be rooted out, because they
can't have an allegiance to both.
So, that being said, I want to ask you, what can we do in
the current military to either train or change cultural ideas
or issues to identify people who are violating that oath and
allegiance to our United States of America? What can we do to
train that better or to change the culture better?
Yes, sir.
Dr. Pitcavage. Thank you.
So one of the axioms of fighting extremism and terrorism
is, if you see something, say something. So, first, we need to
encourage people to say something when they see something.
But the fact is we also have to give people educated eyes.
We have to give them the training, the ability to be able to
recognize signs, whether those signs are online, whether those
signs are in the real world, manifestations that appear in the
real world, of this sort of extremism.
Military recruiters need this. Initial-entry trainers need
this. Advanced trainers need this. Company-grade officers and
noncommissioned officers need this training. EO [equal
opportunity] folks need this training.
So, if you establish a foundation where people are educated
on what to look for, the signs, and then there are
expectations--clear regulations as well as expectations on how
to report, how to investigate, how to deal with problems that
emerge, then you are allowing people to see things and say
things and do things.
Mr. Kelly. You know, I joined the military in the 1980s, so
I have seen a significant culture change from the 1980s until
today, 34 years, and it is gotten better every year. Now, that
doesn't mean there haven't been blips where it has gotten worse
and better, but I can tell you, we are a lot better today than
we were in December of 1985, when I joined.
But I think, what can we do--like, when someone makes
sexist jokes, that can lead to sexual harassment, which can
lead to sexual assault, because it creates a culture where that
is okay. And the same thing with, when someone makes a racist
joke or a racist comment, it can lead to racism, which leads to
the extremists, where you take that out in violent acts and all
those things.
So my question is, how do we better screen potential
applicants, and how do we identify those in the ranks to get
them out before they become to the extremist level?
Dr. Beirich. Well, I just wanted to add, the social media
issue is important. Training, as Dr. Pitcavage said, is
absolutely important, setting standards from the get-go when
somebody comes into the military about what is expected and
what is not.
But I do think, in addition to everything that Dr.
Pitcavage said, there is the issue of how big or how dedicated
the investigatory mechanisms are in the military to look for
exactly these problems, especially when they escalate.
Training can be dealt with; with a sexist remark, a racist
remark, you want to stop that immediately, you want to set
standards. But to find hardcore extremists, it is going to be a
little more difficult. They may try to hide what they are up
to. You know, it is hard to know.
And some of the press reports I have been reading about all
of this in the last few weeks indicate that perhaps there
aren't the investigatory mechanisms and sharing of information
at the level of the criminal investigative services across the
agencies that needs to be there. And I would suggest that be
beefed up.
Mr. Kelly. And, finally, I just have a few more seconds
left, but I think it is incumbent--and I am talking not to you
guys at the table today but all of DOD across and every leader,
from the team level, at the E-5 level, to the four-stars in
command of large organizations. We must not allow any of these
things to take place. And when we see it wrong, we have to
correct it on the spot, and we have to let people know we won't
tolerate any type of racism, sexism, or anything throughout the
military.
And thank you guys for being here today and testifying on
this very important matter.
I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Ms. Haaland, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you all so much for being here this afternoon to
talk on this important topic.
I come from a district with a large Hispanic population
that makes up 40 percent of my constituents. This diversity is
what makes our communities rich. And I will continue to fight
for all groups to have equal access to opportunities and the
right to serve in an inclusive and dignified environment. Let
me be clear: Hateful ideologies of any kind have no place in
our military.
Ms. Brooks, this past August, media outlets reported that a
master sergeant in the Air Force was an active member of
Identity Evropa, one of the most visible neo-Nazi and White
supremacist organizations in Colorado.
The Air Force released a statement saying, ``Racism,
bigotry, hatred, and discrimination have no place in the Air
Force,'' but Sergeant Reeves remained in the Air Force. Only
recently, after facing intense pressure, did the Air Force
decide to begin the process of removing him from the military,
and that is a concern to me.
Wouldn't you agree that this undermines diversity
initiatives as well as morale and unit cohesion? And could you
elaborate?
Ms. Brooks. Thank you so much for the question. You are
absolutely right; it goes against all of what the U.S. Armed
Forces are about.
And I would just say a bit about Identity Evropa. They are
a very noxious group of White nationalists who spread the very
disinformation that Chairwoman Speier was mentioning earlier.
And it is important, as far as the education campaign and the
things that we need to do to address these issues, is to
challenge this misinformation or this disinformation.
White nationalists advocate for a White ethnic state. They
put forth conspiracy theories with respect to White genocide
and the Great Replacement. It is nothing to be played with. If
we allow these noxious beliefs to continue, as our diversity
continues across the country, this is what we are dealing with.
You spoke to the diversity in your area, in your district,
and the U.S. is experiencing a great demographic shift. And
that is not playing well with a lot of White folks, and so they
are putting forward this false narrative that there is a White
genocide afoot.
So it is extremely important that we address this head-on,
because it does undermine everything that the military is all
about.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
And based on your expertise--I think I know the answer to
this--would you say that the services should adopt a zero-
tolerance policy for personnel that are involved in these----
Ms. Brooks. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Haaland [continuing]. Organizations?
Ms. Brooks. The Southern Poverty Law Center's first
recommendation is that we adopt and rigorously apply a zero-
tolerance policy.
As you say, you can't on the one hand say that we don't
stand for racism, you know, we won't stand for racism of any
kind, and then allow members to remain in the Armed Forces.
Ms. Haaland. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Ms. Haaland.
Mrs. Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
Ms. Brooks, I just wanted to turn to you first for a
second. And I know that the Southern Poverty Law Center does a
tremendous amount of tracking and research. And have you all
been sharing--I guess, how long has the relationship with the
military been going on? And do you see it having changed over
the last few years?
I think that, you know, the comment is sometimes made that,
well, the military just didn't take it seriously enough on some
issues. Talk to us a little bit more about that. How would you
characterize it?
Ms. Brooks. Thank you for the question.
The military, the Department of Defense in particular, has
been very receptive. As I mentioned in my oral testimony, and
it is documented in the written testimony, it goes back to
1986. And then-Secretary of Defense Weinberger was very
receptive and made a strong statement against White
supremacists in the military.
And as Dr. Beirich mentioned, it sometimes shifts over
time. We recall [Under] Secretary of Defense Chu, who thought
that our report was alarmist. So it depends on, kind of, who is
in office.
But we won't give up sharing the information that we have,
sharing the research, because it is just that important to us.
Mrs. Davis. And is that an ongoing, like----
Ms. Brooks. Oh, yes, it is an ongoing relationship. The
Southern Poverty Law Center also has ongoing relationships with
law enforcement. The research that we do with respect to
monitoring hate and extremism, we do it so that we can share it
with folks on the ground, with law enforcement on the ground,
with our military leaders, with leadership of any kind. We want
to put a stop to this----
Mrs. Davis. Yeah.
Ms. Brooks [continuing]. So we share it with people who can
put a stop to this. That is why we are so grateful to the
subcommittee for holding this hearing. And we implore you and
the Congress to do something with the research that we provide,
in addition to what Dr. Beirich provides.
And I will just say that Dr. Beirich has driven the
research for the Southern Poverty Law Center for the last 20
years. So the fact that I am talking about her research now,
and Dr. Pitcavage, you can trust it implicitly.
Mrs. Davis. Yeah. Thank you.
And I am not sure, Ms. Brooks, if you mentioned this or
either one of you, just talking about blunting the ideology.
And it was mentioned that there are support services to do
that. What are we looking at?
Ms. Brooks. I did mention that. There are currently no
support services.
Because the spread of White supremacy or White supremacist
ideology is so pernicious and people are so susceptible to
these messages, we want to not only, kind of--we want to
support people through it, right? We want to offer a way for
people to recover from the hateful messages and violent
messages that they might receive and may believe. Oftentimes we
are dealing with young recruits, who are just susceptible. So
we don't want to just kind of throw people out; we want to find
ways to deradicalize them.
It takes a little bit of work to convince people of this
ideology, and it will take a little bit of work to convince
them that it is not true. So----
Mrs. Davis. Yeah. I guess I am wondering about whether we
have the capacity within the military, in terms of having
trained personnel who can deal with this in an ongoing way.
Ms. Brooks. I think the resources are there, and I think
that there are resources within the Armed Forces to find the
people that can help the military carry out some of these
support services. I know that.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you.
I also wanted to just ask you a little bit about, you know,
what you see from our military leaders.
There was an example of a young man, supposedly, who used
graffiti, and it turned out it wasn't quite what people
thought. But the Superintendent of the Academy used some very
strong words to say, if you are going do this, you know, get
out of our military.
And I remember a number of years ago, around sexual
assault, there happened to an Australian--I believe it was
Australian--general, you know, who made similar comments. And,
at that time, we felt that maybe our leaders aren't given, sort
of, the go-ahead to make strong statements like that.
Would you like to kind of assess that sense of whether you
think that military leaders are able to say things that are
pretty strong and tell people to get out of our military if
this is the way you feel?
Doctor.
Dr. Pitcavage. I would be happy to address that. And I
think the example that you brought up is an example of a leader
who exhibited leadership and spoke out very forcefully on an
issue that came up under his purview. And we have seen over the
years with the military and issues related to this that leaders
lead.
One of the reasons why the integration of the Armed Forces
that occurred after World War II occurred far more smoothly
than a lot of people expected was because, from the top down,
leaders led. They spoke out; they set expectations. In no
uncertain terms, they let people know what was going to happen.
Now, some officers didn't like that, and they left the
military and joined White supremacist groups and spoke out
against desegregation. But they didn't do it in the military.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
Dr. Pitcavage. And we have had examples of superlative
leadership in this regard recently related to this issue as
well, too, when chiefs of staff spoke out after
Charlottesville, the White supremacist event there and the
death of the young activist there, spoke out forcefully against
hate, against White supremacy, against extremism.
And those are voices we need to encourage, and those are
the voices that we need more of. And our military leadership is
certainly capable of being that voice.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
My time is up. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. Ms. Luria, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
And thank you to the panel for being here to discuss this
important issue today.
You mentioned in your testimony a recent Military Times
poll that revealed that more than one-third of respondents and
more than half of minority respondents said that they had
personally witnessed examples of White nationalism or
ideologically driven racism within the ranks within the recent
months from the time that the poll was taken.
We agree that the DOD policies regarding White supremacist
and extremist activities must be clear, they must be
transparent. And, you know, I have looked here at this DOD
policy. It dates to 2009, with a revision from 2012. And, as we
know, there is a rapidly evolving use of social media and
different means for spreading information.
Are there specific things due to the policy, you know,
being almost a decade old that you think merit, you know,
updating or revision by DOD or the services to make this policy
more enforceable, more relevant to current technology or any of
those other aspects?
Yes, Dr. Pitcavage?
And, Ms. Brooks, as well, I think you also referenced in
your written testimony the same survey from Military Times.
Dr. Pitcavage. I think you bring up a key issue. You know,
extremism constantly evolves, and so the methods the military
must take to deal with extremism evolve too. Our current
regulations, you know--actually, parts of them date back to the
1960s. And they were appended in the 1980s, appended again in
1990s, appended again when you mentioned it. But I think there
are some specific things that we may want to look at.
So, for example, White supremacy today is less group-
dependent than it used to be. In part because of the internet,
you can be very active in the White supremacist movement
without necessarily belonging to a specific group. Yet, if you
look at our regulations, a lot of them refer specifically to
organized groups rather than a broader movement. That may be
something that needs to be addressed.
But we may also want to take a look at those regulations
more comprehensively and holistically to see, like, from the
top, from the start to the finish, maybe they need to be
rewritten to deal with modern circumstances, rather than just
modifying or appending, you know, once more.
Ms. Brooks. Thank you for the question.
I would add that, I would encourage military leaders to
listen to their troops. This Military Times survey was about
1,600 people, and they surveyed people in the military. They
themselves said that they saw the whole scourge of White
nationalism, White supremacy being a greater threat to the
homeland than, you know, foreign terrorism or anti-immigration
combined.
And I would also point out that you referred to the
incidents where service members of color experienced racist
incidents. And I think it is important to point out that they
saw swastikas on military bases, they saw individuals using the
Nazi salute with one another, there were, you know, kind of,
graffiti--things that we find that we wouldn't expect to find
in the military.
I completely agree with my colleague that certainly the
regulations need to be updated, but the important thing is that
we take a serious stand. As was said, after the desegregation
of the Armed Forces, it was from the top to every single person
in the military, saying, you know, on the same page--saying
from the same page. And that needs to happen again when we are
talking about White supremacy and White nationalism. There can
be no equivocation.
Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
Dr. Beirich, did you have anything further to add on this
topic with the remainder of my time?
Dr. Beirich. Just one addition. I agree with what was said
here about taking a look at these constantly appended
regulations, but the fact of the matter is, if they are not
applied, it is pointless.
And this case in Colorado, where a person who is in Active
Duty military service and is a member of Identity Evropa, would
be banned based on the 1985 regulations that Weinberger put in
place. So he was demoted a rank, not removed from military
service.
So, you know, if you don't follow through with the whole
process, it is a little pointless. And so I would suggest that
be looked at very seriously.
Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Ms. Escobar, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am very grateful
that we are having this discussion.
And to our panelists, thank you very much for being here
and for sharing this important information with us.
To our second panel, I hope that everyone is listening with
an open mind.
I represent El Paso, Texas, which was targeted last summer,
on August 3rd. We had a domestic terrorist who confessed to
driving over 600 miles and 10 hours because, he said, he wanted
to essentially slaughter Mexicans and immigrants. And he
lamented the, quote/unquote, ``Hispanic invasion.''
And these are words that he repeated that we have heard
from some of the most powerful leaders in the land, the same
language used to describe members of my community by some of
our elected officials.
So this is, I think, a very important discussion. And I
think something that was mentioned earlier, we have to call
this out. When we don't call it out, we essentially give it
cover. When we give it cover, we give it life and we give it
power. And there is no greater testament to that than what
happened in El Paso, Texas, on August 3rd.
I am going to open up this question to all three of our
panelists.
I want to first acknowledge that military leaders have
taken steps to publicize their opposition to the hatred and
extremism that has been on display at events like the 2017
Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And I
applaud our military leaders for saying unequivocally that
those are not our values.
However, I was deeply disappointed to see an individual
nominated for the top personnel job at the Department who has
espoused a dangerous and radical intolerance for
multiculturalism in America, which is essentially the
foundation of who we are as a country.
J. David Patterson was a Presidential appointment, but he
previously served as a principal deputy under secretary. Should
we be concerned that someone who--obviously, he was a
Presidential nominee, but he was within the Department of
Defense for many years and rose through the ranks.
What does it tell us, that someone is able to ascend in
this manner with these kinds of views about minorities and
about America?
Dr. Beirich. Well, I will just say that I think it is
completely unacceptable. You cannot have somebody working in
the Department of Defense, involved with the Armed Forces, the
Pentagon, who doesn't believe the bedrock principles about
equality. And that has been said from, you know, top generals
and other officials for a very long time and is stated in these
regulations.
So it just should not be the case that somebody who
disagrees with that vision of our society and how it is
reflected in the Armed Forces should be in any position of
power.
Ms. Escobar. Yes, sir.
Dr. Pitcavage. Representative, first, I would like just to
say that I share the grief that you felt over El Paso. I grew
up in El Paso. My family still lives in El Paso. And I used
to--excuse me--I used to ride my bike to the place where the
shooting occurred.
I think Representative Kelly made an excellent point when
he talked about the military as being one of the most diverse
institutions in our country. Forty percent of our military
personnel, Active Duty military personnel, are a racial or
ethnic minority. More than 50 percent of the women in the
services are. And our military recognizes over 200 religious
faiths.
And we need leaders, civilian and military leaders alike,
who appreciate, acknowledge, and support that diversity, which
is a strength.
Ms. Escobar. Absolutely.
Ms. Brooks. And adding my condolences, as well, and to you.
I think it shows us and reminds us that one person--and I
think the ranking member mentioned--that one person can do so
much damage. That is why it is important for each of us to call
it out each and every time.
Ms. Escobar. And with the very limited time I have, Dr.
Beirich, you mentioned screening mechanisms. Could you give us
an example of one of the--like, what we could do, something
tangible?
Dr. Beirich. Well, I think one of the most important things
here is, what happens with recruits when they come in is they
self-report what their activities have been and so on. It is
not very detailed. It says things like, have you been part of a
domestic terrorist organization or something along those lines.
I think the questions should be deeper. There should be more
about people's racial views, views about ethnicity, religion.
And I also think that people that are coming into the
military need to report basically what their social media
accounts look like and then be verified. Whether that is to
intervene at that point to help someone move away from these
views or it is to simply say, this is an unacceptable
situation.
So those are the kinds of things that I would look at.
And military climate surveys should include questions about
these issues, as was proposed by the House in this last Defense
Authorization Act, and they don't right now. So the Military
Times polls now, 3 years in a row, which show these horrifying
numbers of how many people have seen White nationalism and
extremism in the military, are a stand-in for that--right?--and
the military should be collecting that information.
And let me just say, with the 2017 Military Times poll, if
the numbers are accurate to the full amount of Active Duty
troops at that time, which was about 1.3 million, it would mean
325,000 people in the Armed Forces had seen White nationalism
or racism. That is a pretty extraordinary number.
And, given the numbers, as Dr. Pitcavage just pointed out,
that is a whole lot of minority troops--right?--troops of
color, who are suffering under this situation. And, frankly, it
would be a hostile work environment if it was in----
Ms. Escobar. Uh-huh.
Ms. Beirich [continuing]. The civilian world. So, I mean,
it is a serious matter. And data is needed, and then that data
needs to be addressed.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you all.
Thank you, Dr. Pitcavage.
I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Mr. Cisneros, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thanks to our panel for being here today.
How can the Department better prepare service members, for
instance, of White nationalist groups attempting to recruit
them? Could they benefit from something akin to
counterintelligence training to counter White nationalist
recruitment?
And I know, Dr. Pitcavage--and I am sorry if I mispronounce
your name--but you mentioned, like, a lot of that is done over
the internet now. But how do we go to out there and how do we
train the troops--is there a way to train them--to kind of
recognize when they are being recruited to these specific
groups? And how do we prevent that?
Dr. Pitcavage. Well, I think that is a really interesting
question.
I think we warn our military personnel about a number of
different dangers, a number of different issues, including
those online. The services all have social media policies that
warn them about scams, that warn them about all sorts of
dangers that they might encounter online. It is possible,
similarly, to warn them to look for some of the signs that they
may be targeted by an extreme group that is trying to provide
them with false narratives, that is trying to indoctrinate
them, that is trying to radicalize them.
And so I think there are steps that we could do to make the
troops more aware that this is one of the things out there that
people might try to do.
Mr. Cisneros. I would love to hear from the other two
panelists as well.
Dr. Beirich. Well, I think that what Dr. Pitcavage said is
right. I mean, it is not as though there aren't primers out
there about the signs of White nationalism, the symbols of
White nationalism, some of the main groups. This is all
information that could be shared, that unit commanders could be
trained on.
You know, I have found that there just are some missing
issues: that there is no extremist tattoo database in the
military to use to identify these things, and, as a result,
investigators aren't trained on what these symbols are. In the
case of this Atomwaffen group that had an Active Duty guardsman
in it, he had a tattoo of his very scary neo-Nazi organization
on his arm, and nobody knew what it was about.
So I think there is a whole lot of education on the
investigatory level, on the recruitment level, and then for the
troops in general on, sort of, signs to look out for for White
supremacists trying to recruit them. Because they are
absolutely trying to recruit them.
Mr. Cisneros. Uh-huh.
Ms. Brooks. And I completely agree.
And I would add that we really all need to talk about it,
it needs to be okay to talk about it. I would imagine that
conversations happened, again, referencing the desegregation of
the Armed Forces, people talked about it and they talked about
how to manage it and handle people's concerns and anxieties.
And we need to approach this, I think, in the same way.
And once we do that and we have established some mechanisms
to train and to educate folks, then we can demand a zero-
tolerance policy and then offer support services to those who
are not able to meet the mission.
Mr. Cisneros. Okay.
According to an article in ProPublica in 2018, the
Atomwaffen Division, a violent neo-Nazi group tied to five
murders and a bomb plot, at least some of their members were
serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. And you just stated that.
I again ask the panelists, in your opinion, how high a
priority is the focus of military leadership on eliminating
White supremacy from our military ranks?
And I know you said there were regulations that we have
written, but my other question too is, why haven't we put these
groups in the UCMJ, outlawing them in the UCMJ?
Dr. Beirich. Well, that is a very good question, and it is
hard to know how to answer what you are saying. The only data
that I could find is that about 25 troops, not all of them
White supremacists, were removed in a 5-year period for
extremist ties. I think those numbers are ridiculously low.
Just in the testimonies that we have written for you all here,
all of us, we have documented more than that in the last year.
So I think that there is a big problem here in trying to
figure out how many investigations go on of this, who is
identifying extremists, how is this being reported. There is
supposedly a report the Pentagon does every year internally on
White supremacy in the military. Is that happening? What is it
indicating?
I mean, it is just very hard to answer your question
because there is no transparency and no data.
Mr. Cisneros. Go ahead, sir.
Dr. Pitcavage. I would just like to agree that, without
being alarmist about the nature of the problem, there is a
problem about White supremacy in the military, but our military
leadership may not realize the full extent of it simply because
the data and the transparency is not there.
Mr. Cisneros. Uh-huh. All right.
Well, with that, I am out of time, and thank you very much.
And I yield back.
Ms. Speier. I thank the gentleman.
Now we will hear from the gentleman from Maryland, Mr.
Brown.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for giving
me an opportunity to waive onto the committee today.
I want to thank the members of the Military Personnel
Subcommittee for your work. You wrestle with some of the
thorniest issues that face Congress and the House Armed
Services Committee.
Ms. Brooks, I think you are right, we should listen to our
soldiers. There are a lot of ways that the military can:
commanders in the chain of command, EO officers, inspector
generals, JAG [Judge Advocate General] officers, chaplains, and
also climate surveys.
And, Dr. Beirich, you mentioned in your testimony about the
watering down of a provision in the NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act] that was offered by the House. I was the
lead author, joined by a number of my colleagues.
These hearings are often an opportunity for us to really
establish the record that supports what we are trying to
accomplish in the NDAA. In that amendment, it was very
specific. It said that the Secretary of Defense will include--
or shall include in the workplace and equal opportunity,
command climate, and workplace and gender relations surveys
administered by the Office of People Analytics of the
Department of Defense, questions regarding whether respondents,
if ever, experienced or witnessed in the workplace supremacist
activity, extremist activity, or racism--it probably also
should include anti-Semitism--and whether you have reported
activity described in paragraph 1. It was watered down to
include extremist activity.
And I think, Ms. Brooks, in your written testimony, you
pointed out how, in the screening procedures, that too was
watered down. Somewhere between the House and coming through
conference, someone, somebody, some organization has an
aversion to the use of either ``White supremacy'' or
``supremacist'' activity in the NDAA, and it gets watered down.
So could you please make the strongest argument why,
whether it is in screening or whether it is in the survey, we
have to be specific?
Dr. Beirich. Well, let me just say, aside from the danger
to the troops themselves, especially troops of color--and thank
you for pursuing this issue, because I think it is critically
important--the biggest problem is that White supremacy is
distinct from other forms of extremism, and it is deadly to the
United States.
We have had far too many former soldiers--Timothy McVeigh
is best known, but Eric Rudolph, who bombed the Olympics in
1996, and many other soldiers who have been involved in serious
domestic terrorist attacks were people who shared that
particular point of view.
And those people then are coming out of the military and
joining up with groups like The Base that was mentioned here,
Atomwaffen, or they are Active Duty, and they are a threat to
the American public, and they are a threat to people overseas
anywhere White supremacy is functioning, anywhere our troops
are if they are involved in these issues.
And White supremacy is a distinct problem. It is also
indigenous to the United States. I don't think we should forget
this, right? White supremacy is born and bred out of our
history. And it needs to be tackled.
The Armed Forces have been a shining light in calling this
out, so we should be specific. We need to know, do people
around you have White supremacist views, White nationalist
ideas? What are you seeing? This is really critical information
to stop domestic terrorism, hate crimes, all kinds of violence.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
Ms. Brooks.
Ms. Brooks. Thank you so much. I appreciate your efforts as
well. And I completely agree with everything that Dr. Beirich
said.
I would point your colleagues in Congress back to the joint
resolution that was passed unanimously post-Charlottesville.
And in there, they rejected--and they named it--White
nationalism, White supremacy, neo-Nazism as hateful expressions
of intolerance that are a contradiction to the values that
define the people of the United States.
We cannot just say these things post-crisis or post-
massacre. We have to be about trying to thwart these attempts
every day, because, as Dr. Beirich said, I mean, it is a clear
and present danger. I don't know how to make it more clear. Our
history shows it, and we will just continue to repeat it until
we face it head-on. White supremacy is just that serious.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
I would like to just ask one last question. The Base, as an
organization, had an intention to derail some trains, kill some
people, poison some water supplies. What do you know about The
Base? And do we have representatives here in the United States
that are associated with that organization? I know the leader
appears to be in Russia. But what do we know about----
Dr. Beirich. Well, from the arrest that you mentioned in
your opening remarks, we know that we have members of The Base
here in the United States, which, I should just point out, the
name itself is a translation of ``al-Qaida.'' So it shows you
that there is this symbiosis in terms of dangerous, dangerous
threats.
And, yes, they have a violent, violent--the list of what
they have been arrested for is very scary, including murdering
people. And there are, you know, probably certain dozens of
members of this organization in the United States and also
abroad.
What was interesting in that case is there was a member of
the Canadian military who was also arrested, so it shows that
this is an international problem. And it is run out of Russia--
right?--which is a red flag as well. So it is a serious matter.
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
Any other comments?
Dr. Pitcavage.
Dr. Pitcavage. I think one thing that is worth pointing out
about The Base is that it is part of a new wave of White
supremacist group that are called accelerationist groups. And
accelerationists are extreme in a very unique way. They believe
that present society is not redeemable. They can't shape it
into the White-dominated or White-only society that they seek;
that the only thing that they can do is actually destroy our
society and then build something new from the ashes.
And so accelerationists believe that any sort of violence,
anything that will destabilize the system, even senseless
violence, is actually good if it will help bring down the
system that they so want to destroy and replace. And, you know,
groups like that, you know, are particularly dangerous and are
particularly liable to engage in violent acts.
Ms. Speier. Anything further?
All right.
Any----
Mr. Kelly. No, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. All right.
I want to again thank you all for your testimony this
afternoon. It was very enlightening.
We will now take a short recess and switch out to our
second panel.
[Recess.]
Ms. Speier. The hearing will come to order once again.
I would like to welcome our second panel.
We are joined this afternoon by Mr. Garry Reid, who is the
Director for Defense Intelligence, Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; Ms. Stephanie Miller,
Director of Accessions Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Personnel and Readiness; Mr. Joe Ethridge, Chief,
Criminal Intelligence Division, U.S. Army Criminal
Investigation Command; Mr. Christopher McMahon, Executive
Assistant Director, National Security Directorate, the Naval
Criminal Investigative Service; and, finally, Mr. Robert
Grabosky, Deputy Director of AFOSI [Air Force Office of Special
Investigations] Law Enforcement, U.S. Air Force Office of
Special Investigations.
Mr. Reid, we will begin with you.
Mr. Reid. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member. On
behalf of the entire team here, I would just like to convey our
appreciation for your time and interest and for the committee's
support to the Department in getting at this problem.
If you would allow, Madam Chair, I represent the background
investigation piece of this process. And in a logical order, I
would like Ms. Miller to begin, and then I will come back and
do it, because it is the front end on accessions, and then we
will go through to the military departments. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. That is appropriate.
Ms. Miller.
STATEMENT OF STEPHANIE MILLER, DIRECTOR, ACCESSIONS POLICY,
OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PERSONNEL AND
READINESS
Ms. Miller. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Ranking Member
Kelly, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Stephanie
Miller, and I am the Director of Accessions Policy under the
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. I am
pleased to appear before you today to provide testimony on this
important issue.
And I want to take a moment to thank the members of the
first panel for their knowledge and expertise in this area,
which the Department truly does value.
As Director of Accessions Policy, I am responsible for the
oversight of all matters pertaining to the recruitment and
accession of both officers and enlisted personnel. In this
capacity, I am responsible for establishing policy in
recruitment matters, overseeing the establishment and adherence
to enlistment standards, providing oversight of resources,
managing the accessions process, and other matters relating to
the general sustainment of the All-Volunteer Force.
Each year, the Department recruits approximately 400,000
applicants for military service, of which approximately 250,000
individuals actually contract into the All-Volunteer Force.
We remain committed to recruiting high-quality applicants
representative of the Nation that they will serve. And while
today's economy has brought challenges to military recruiting,
the Department has been steadfast that the services should and
will adhere to our established policies and only enlist
officers and enlisted candidates that actually meet our high
standards.
The life cycle of military personnel from accessions
processing to separation is a complex process which is
constantly evolving based on best practices and newly learned
information.
The beginning of the life cycle starts with each new
member, whether enlisted or officer, undergoing a thorough
screening process to ensure that they meet the high standards
of today's military. This multitiered screening process enables
a holistic review of each applicant.
And using the tools available, we believe we have been
effective at screening for individuals that have extremist
ideologies or support extremist groups, but we continuously
review our policies, our practices, and our methods for
improvement.
For example, the Department has recently launched a
centralized screening capability that vets all accessions to
identify and resolve indicators of questionable allegiance. And
this new vetting process has proven successful over the summer
in identifying unique adverse information not always available
solely from the standardized background investigation form, the
SF-86.
Recruiters play a very critical role in assessing the
qualifications and intents of the applicant. Each applicant is
interviewed by a recruiter to obtain as much information and
documentation as possible about the individual's qualifications
for military service.
At our military entrance processing stations, applicants
undergo a full physical by trained military professionals and
background searches of law enforcement and other records.
Applicants answer questions about any involvement with law
enforcement agencies, including arrests, charges, citations,
parole or probation, detention, and any other form of
potentially adverse adjudication regardless of the outcome.
Furthermore, all applicants undergo an advanced fingerprint
check, which provides a preliminary review of the history of
any involvement with law enforcement, including the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
Subsequent background checks screen recruits for extremist
ties, including FBI investigative and criminal history files
checks, terrorist and subversive activities checks, local law
enforcement agency checks, and a review of the violent gang
file at the National Criminal Information Center.
Upon entry into the armed services, the Department, the
military services, and the individual share a responsibility to
ensure that members are afforded the opportunity to serve with
dignity and respect in a very inclusive environment.
The Department's overarching guidance is clear that
military personnel must reject active participation and must
not actively advocate supremacist, extremist, or gang criminal
doctrine, ideology, or causes, including those that advance,
encourage, or advocate illegal discrimination based on race,
creed, color, sex, religion, ethnicity, or national origin or
those that advance, encourage, or advocate the use of force,
violence, or criminal activity or otherwise advance efforts to
deprive individuals of their civil liberties.
Beyond this overarching guidance, the Department continues
to work with the services and other agencies to provide
commanders and senior military leaders the tools that they need
to keep informed about the activities or adverse behaviors of
service members. Commanders, working with key stakeholders such
as the services' criminal investigative offices, are swift to
take appropriate action when warranted.
We are gaining additional insights on service members
through the deployment of new technologies and have also
explored additional testing and screening techniques that
assess a range of personality dimensions to identify applicants
who best fit with the military's culture of treating all
personnel with dignity and respect.
In conjunction with more traditional qualification
batteries, such as the ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational
Aptitude Battery], these tools can be utilized as part of a
whole-person applicant screening process and can tell us a
great deal about the likelihood of successfully completing
initial entry training, the first term of enlistment, and the
ability of that individual to adapt to the rules, regulations,
and requirements of military culture.
DOD remains committed to ensuring that all personnel are
treated with dignity and respect in an inclusive environment
free from unlawful discrimination and maltreatment. This effort
is accomplished while keeping each person's civil liberties
intact. And while this is not always an easy endeavor, it is
critical to protect our service members and those service
members who we are sworn to protect throughout the country.
Madam Chairwoman, I look forward to answering your
questions in this manner and appreciate you offering this
opportunity to discuss this very important issue.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Ms. Miller.
Mr. Reid.
STATEMENT OF GARRY REID, DIRECTOR FOR DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE
(COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND SECURITY), OFFICE OF
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE
Mr. Reid. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Kelly.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to testify on my
oversight of personnel security policy and the steps we take in
the Department of Defense to develop and sustain a total
workforce that embodies our values as Americans.
I will focus my opening remarks on background
investigations, insider-threat programs, and continuous
evaluation, as these are the primary authorities and
capabilities we employ to identify persons with extremist
ideologies and deny them the opportunity to serve in the
Department of Defense. Where indicated, we also ensure they are
investigated for any policy violations or criminal behaviors
and are held accountable for their actions.
Once a person has been selected for military service, the
Department initiates a comprehensive background investigation.
All applicants must complete the ``Questionnaire for National
Security Positions'' published by the Office of Personnel
Management as Standard Form 86, or the SF-86.
All military applicants, regardless of job code, must pass
a rigorous background investigation that significantly exceeds
the basic standards applied to many non-military persons that
enter public service. This is a choice made by the Department
of Defense in recognition that there is a high level of public
trust in our military that necessitates a strong commitment to
ensuring persons with criminal, extremist, or other undesirable
characteristics are not allowed to serve in our ranks.
Applicants are asked probing and detailed questions about
their personal conduct, job history, encounters with law
enforcement, drug use, credit, foreign travel, and associations
with organizations dedicated to terrorism, the use of violence
to overthrow the U.S. Government, and the commission of acts of
force or violence to discourage others from exercising their
constitutional rights.
Background investigators supplement and enrich the self-
reporting data on the SF-86 with information provided by former
educators, employers, coworkers, and neighbors of the
applicants. Investigators check Federal and State law
enforcement databases for criminal history and review public
records, credit reports, and other automated data sources.
Where needed, investigators initiate additional checks,
including personal interviews.
This information is aggregated in a report of investigation
and submitted to a certified adjudicator, who assesses overall
eligibility to hold a sensitive position and for military
service against the 13 Federal adjudicative guidelines. Of the
guidelines, personal conduct, criminal conduct, and allegiance
to the United States are the primary criteria used to vet
personnel that exhibit any extremist behaviors. While cases
with allegiance are uncommon, overall, these three guidelines
combine for almost half of the denials for military personnel.
And keeping in mind, the prior screening Ms. Miller
described happens in front of this, so you have already
narrowed down to a more selective population by the time we run
this.
Applicants with favorable background investigation results
are subject to two sets of monitoring procedures throughout
their military service.
Each of our military departments manage their own insider-
threat programs that serve as a conduit for reporting behaviors
of concern that are observable in the workplace. All DOD
personnel are mandated to report such behavior against the
reporting thresholds for insider threat that are similar but
not identical to the Federal adjudicative guidelines. The DOD
component insider-threat hubs provide reporting to a central
DOD insider-threat center, led by our Defense
Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
Presently, all DOD personnel are covered by at least 1 of
the 43 insider-threat hubs distributed across the Department,
and reporting of suspicious or alerting behaviors is steadily
increasing. Any behavior that crosses an established threshold
is assessed and acted upon by insider-threat hubs, the chain of
command, or security managers within the owning component.
In addition to monitoring for insider-threat behaviors at
the component level, the Department also conducts a continuous
evaluation program at the DOD level. Presently, 1.9 million DOD
personnel are enrolled in our continuous evaluation system, and
the Department has plans to enroll the full population by
October 2021.
Continuous evaluation complements insider-threat reporting
by providing data from outside the Department with automated
monitoring of multiple government, commercial, and public data
sources for indicators of behavior that violate established
standards of conduct.
When alerts from continuous evaluation data sources
indicate unacceptable behavior, the responsible security
manager submits an incident report that is subsequently
reviewed by the chain of command and the DOD Central
Adjudications Facility. If appropriate, the incident can be
referred to a law enforcement or counterintelligence
investigation. If indicated, the subject can be ultimately
removed from eligibility to hold a position and processed for
separation from military service.
Madam Chair, I will just close by highlighting that this is
a dynamic process that is always in a state of improvement. As
some members know and we briefed here, and supported by
Congress, the government is in the process of adding additional
controls in what we call the personnel vetting enterprise,
moving to a continuous vetting model across the entire
government. So everything I have described to you will continue
to be refined and enriched to where we have the greatest degree
of awareness of where threats are across the Department,
including those posed by those with extremist attitudes.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for your time, and I look forward
to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Reid and Ms. Miller
can be found in the Appendix on page 127.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Reid.
Mr. Ethridge.
STATEMENT OF JOE E. ETHRIDGE, JR., CHIEF, CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE
DIVISION, U.S. ARMY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION COMMAND
Mr. Ethridge. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Speier, Ranking
Member Kelly, and members of the subcommittee. I am Joe
Ethridge, Chief of the Criminal Intelligence Division, Army
Criminal Investigation Command [CID]. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to provide testimony on
the important issue of racially motivated extremist threat.
As the Chief of CID's Intelligence Division, I am
responsible for identifying and assessing criminal threats
confronting the Army and assisting in developing courses of
action to prevent or mitigate.
The CID identifies soldiers suspected of participating in
extremist activities in multiple ways, to include chain-of-
command reporting, local police, the media, public-facing
social media searches, tip-line reports, and FBI domestic
terrorism investigative reporting. We evaluate these reports to
identify supporting facts.
The majority of the soldiers identified as participating to
some extent in extremist activities are not subjects of
criminal investigations. The more common scenario is
participation in an online forum that might be expressing
extremist or supremacist views.
In these instances, CID notifies commanders via information
report for action in accordance with Army policy. Commanders
have the authority to counsel, train, and take disciplinary
action to preserve good order and discipline in the unit.
Additionally, CID notifies the DOD Consolidated Adjudications
Facility and the Intelligence and Security Command for
personnel security adjudication.
The CID initiates investigations when indications or
allegations of a crime are present. In early 2019, CID observed
a small increase in criminal investigations initiated with
soldier participation in extremist activities as a component.
Specifically, there were 7 criminal investigations initiated
with an extremist-activity component in 2019, in comparison to
an average of 2.4 per year in the fiscal year 2014 to 2018
period. This includes soldiers from all components--Active
Duty, National Guard, and the Army Reserve.
During the same time period, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation notified CID of an increase in domestic terrorism
investigations with soldiers or former soldiers as suspects.
The FBI reporting also clearly stated that extremist
organizations were actively seeking veterans' skills.
In May 2019, the Provost Marshal General of the Army and I
briefed the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and members of the
Army Staff on the CID and FBI observations. The Vice Chief of
Staff of the Army directed the formation of a working group to
review current policies and procedures to prevent and address
extremism in the ranks.
The working group recommended several adjustments to the
Army policy for soldier participation in extremist activity
stated in Chapter 4-12 of Army Regulation 600-20. That is Army
Command Policy. The revision of AR [Army Regulation] 600-20 is
scheduled for release in the second quarter of this year.
Internally, CID expanded its liaison relationship with the
FBI, traditionally centered on the National Joint Terrorism
Task Force and the National Gang Intelligence Center, into the
FBI's Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit.
In summary, over the past year, CID has increased
collection efforts, informed Army leadership of our
observations, participated in the review and changes to Army
policy, expanded our relationship with law enforcement
partners, and made notification to commanders.
Additionally, CID has formulated a request to the Army
Inspector General to add unit implementation of extremist
activity policy that is encapsulated in AR 600-20 as a focus
area for the next inspection cycle for Army-wide inspector
general inspections.
The Army is postured to identify extremist activity in the
ranks and has both the policy and the leadership tools to
prevent emergence as a pervasive issue.
Madam Chairwoman, I am happy to answer any questions you or
the members of the subcommittee may have at this time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ethridge can be found in the
Appendix on page 135.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Ethridge.
Mr. McMahon.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER J. McMAHON, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTORATE, NAVAL CRIMINAL
INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE
Mr. McMahon. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Speier, Ranking
Member Kelly, and distinguished members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on extremism in
the military.
I am Christopher McMahon, the Executive Assistant Director
of the National Security Directorate for the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service, NCIS. I am pleased to have the
opportunity this afternoon to appear before you and provide
testimony on this topic.
As Executive Assistant Director of the National Security
Directorate, I lead our investigations and operations
confronting the intelligence and terrorism threats posed to the
Department of the Navy personnel, assets, research, and
technologies. My team also addresses all force protection
issues affecting the United States Navy and the United States
Marine Corps, to include expeditionary force engagements, ship
visits, and static forces support.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is currently
conducting multiple domestic terrorism investigations involving
racially motivated extremism directed against or affecting the
personnel in or associated with the Department of the Navy.
These investigations receive immediate priority attention.
Our highly skilled civilian Federal law enforcement
professionals use all available resources to address these
matters, working closely with the FBI, our fellow military
criminal investigative organizations, and additional Federal
and local partners to address these threats.
Over the course of fiscal year 2018, the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service experienced an increase in the number of
domestic extremism related reports from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation involving Department of Defense-affiliated
personnel. In response to these referrals and to more
accurately reflect the scope of these incidents, NCIS
established the unique case category ``domestic terrorism'' for
investigative and operational reporting purposes.
NCIS generally defines domestic terrorism as terrorism
perpetrated by individuals and groups inspired by or associated
with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist
ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or
environmental nature.
NCIS investigates crimes associated with domestic extremist
organizations when there is an apparent Federal violation,
identified violent extremist ideology, and an active service
member or current Department of the Navy civilian employee who
has expressed an aspiration to further the identified violent
ideology by threats, acts of violence, or other enabling
criminal activity. For instances in which a crime is suspected,
a general crimes investigation under the appropriate case
category within NCIS for the crime is initiated.
NCIS does not pursue investigations of Department of the
Navy-affiliated individuals who simply make statements
indicating they share the beliefs or a subset of the beliefs
held by domestic extremist groups unless information exists
indicating their activities meet this threshold. In
investigations where it is determined crimes are not evident,
information is passed to appropriate commands for
administrative actions deemed appropriate by the commands
involved.
In conclusion, the predication for domestic terrorism
investigations typically comes from command complaints, other
investigative agency referrals, or tips. For example, NCIS
maintains formal information-sharing agreements with the FBI on
terrorism matters. These same well-established channels serve
as the primary method of information sharing on domestic
terrorism matters involving Active Duty service members or
current Department of the Navy employees.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McMahon can be found in the
Appendix on page 139.]
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Grabosky.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. GRABOSKY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, LAW
ENFORCEMENT, STRATEGIC PROGRAMS AND REQUIREMENTS, U.S. AIR
FORCE OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS
Mr. Grabosky. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
address you on this topic.
As the Deputy Director for Law Enforcement, Strategic
Programs and Requirements Division, Headquarters, Air Force
Office of Special Investigations [OSI], I help oversee policy,
training, and the resources necessary to guide major criminal
investigations impacting Department of the Air Force.
OSI has agents assigned to over 250 locations around the
world, to include 22 locations with the Joint Terrorism Task
Force, engaged in collaborative efforts with other Federal law
enforcement partners on matters of mutual concern, such as
matters involving domestic extremism.
Pertaining to the topic of possible White supremacists
within the ranks of the military, Department of the Air Force
and OSI are very concerned with early identification and timely
resolution of matters involving possible extremist activity
affecting good order and discipline within our Air and Space
Forces.
In fact, Department of the Air Force has a written punitive
policy pertaining specifically to participation in extremist
activities. The policy specifically states military personnel
must reject active participation in criminal gangs and other
organizations that, among other things, advocate supremacist,
extremist, gang doctrine, ideology, or causes.
Military members who violate this policy are subject to
disciplinary action under Article 92 for failure to obey a
lawful order under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
It is important to note that the Air Force policy dictates
mere membership in the organization is not prohibited. OSI has
investigative responsibility to investigate these matters where
military members who are subject to the Uniform Code of
Military Justice are suspected of active participation in
extremist or supremacy groups prohibited by the Air Force
instructions.
Since 30 September 2019, OSI received about nine reported
incidents involving possible supremacy activity on the part of
Air Force members. These incidents came to our attention in
various ways. Out of the nine reports, OSI opened eight
investigations and referred one incident to Security Forces for
further investigation.
Out of the eight OSI investigations, only one involved
active participation by the member. One incident was disproven,
and the remaining six involved inappropriate or racially
insensitive verbal comments or online postings, which was
referred back to command for action.
For the one active participation incident, the accused's
command administered administrative action and a reduction in
rank. As an impartial and independent investigative agency for
the Air Force, OSI does not make recommendations on potential
punitive or administrative actions.
It is also important to note OSI conducted more than 2,500
criminal investigations in 2019. Most of these criminal
investigations involved some form of data exploitation, such as
extraction of information from cell phones, other personal
computer devices, or reviews of social media applications. Our
law enforcement data exploitation activities over the past year
of thousands of devices and social media accounts have not
resulted in identifying additional extremist activity within
our Air and Space Forces.
Even though the amount of extremist incidents for
Department of the Air Force remains small, OSI and its criminal
investigative agents remain vigilant to identify and quickly
resolve matters involving possible extremist activity affecting
good order and discipline within our Air and Space Forces.
I thank the committee for the opportunity to provide
insight into some of the exceptional work our agents do every
single day, and I look forward to providing additional
information as this hearing continues.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grabosky can be found in the
Appendix on page 142.]
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
Let me start with you, Mr. McMahon. In your statement, you
make the statement, ``NCIS does not pursue investigations of
Department of the Navy-affiliated individuals who simply make
statements indicating they share the beliefs of a subset of the
beliefs held by domestic extremist groups.''
So, if I say I am a racist, I am not going to be
investigated, I am not going to be evaluated as to whether or
not I should be kicked out?
Mr. McMahon. Ma'am, so we, NCIS, would not actually conduct
an investigation. We would refer that back to the command of
the member who is--is a member of that command.
So we would refer that member back to the command, provide
the command that information, the information that we have
gained in any sort of manner, and then allow the command to
take care of them in the appropriate manner.
Ms. Speier. All right.
Mr. Grabosky, you said specifically that ``mere membership
in the organizations is not prohibited.'' But if you had a
tattoo of that organization, that would be actionable?
Mr. Grabosky. Chairwoman Speier, mere participation is not
something that OSI actually investigates. We actually
investigate the active participation of a member.
There are many avenues within the military, including
command or equal opportunity offices, that conduct
investigations of viewpoints of individuals. If it does not
rise to the level of a felony investigation of active
participation, we don't get involved in----
Ms. Speier. Okay. You are missing my point.
Mr. Grabosky. I am sorry.
Ms. Speier. You are saying active participation equals
something like a tattoo but active participation does not equal
being a member of one of these extremist organizations, and I
find that astonishing.
Mr. Grabosky. According to Air Force policy right now,
active participation is actually attending rallies, fundraising
for them, or actually being part of the organization and
actively involved in it.
Ms. Speier. But if you are a member, that is a level of
activity. I think we need to look at that.
Ms. Haaland had referenced an Air Force individual who was
not dismissed or discharged. Can you explain to us why?
Mr. Grabosky. The information received to us of being part
of an extremist organization, we opened an investigation, we
produced a report, and we provided it to command, and command
took action.
As I said in my statement, OSI does not get involved in
determining punishments. That is in the legal realm of the
United States Air Force, and the investigative agency is not
involved in that process of making a decision.
Ms. Speier. And, in your experience, have you found that
when you have completed your investigations and referred them
back to the command, are you ever made aware of whether or not
they take action?
Mr. Grabosky. Yes. If it rises to the level of
administrative action, we get an after-action report that we
have to update our files with.
Ms. Speier. And do you convey that to the FBI?
Mr. Grabosky. If it rises to the level for criminal
indexing, yes. All our investigations abide by criminal
indexing of convictions. In this incidence, I believe he
received an administrative punishment, which does not get
reported to the FBI as a criminal conviction.
Ms. Speier. Can you explain to us--okay. So, in this case,
he remains in the military. He had nonjudicial punishment, it
sounds like. Is that correct?
Mr. Grabosky. I am aware that--I believe he received a
letter of reprimand.
Ms. Speier. So it was even--it was a letter of reprimand.
Mr. Grabosky. Correct, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. So no action taken regarding rank, pay,
anything like that.
Mr. Grabosky. He received an administrative reduction in
rank by one rank, in conjunction with the letter of reprimand.
I am aware of that.
Ms. Speier. And can you remind us again what he was
actually engaged in?
Mr. Grabosky. He was an active participant of Identity
Evropa.
Ms. Speier. So he is an active participant in this----
Mr. Grabosky. He was fundraising.
Ms. Speier. He was fundraising for this organization, and
he is still in the military.
Mr. Grabosky. As I said, ma'am, that is a decision that is
beyond the criminal----
Ms. Speier. I realize my disbelief is not something that
should be registered to you but to his command, but I am
astonished by it, because I think the potential for placing our
service members at risk is so great.
In the cases that you have--and if you can answer this, if
you would like--that you have investigated, how many of them
come to your attention because of a bystander, another service
member who alerts you to it?
Mr. Ethridge. Ma'am, I can't give you a specific count,
but----
Ms. Speier. Majority? Minority?
Mr. Ethridge [continuing]. Tip line--I wouldn't say it was
a majority, but a common way for us to receive complaints is
through the tip-line process. We have an automated tip line.
Normally the source of those tips is a fellow soldier or a
family member.
Ms. Speier. Is that the case for all of you?
Mr. McMahon.
Mr. McMahon. Ma'am, all of the 14 ongoing investigations we
are in the process of investigating right now have all come to
us via the FBI. So we are working in partnership with the FBI.
At this time, we haven't had one complaint come forward off of
our tips line regarding White supremacy groups or any other
racially motivated groups.
Ms. Speier. I have exceeded my time, so I will come back
for a second round.
Ranking Member Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to talk to you two, because you are the guys who
have the authority to do something.
And it amazes me--I just completed a course last week, and
there is a book, ``Great New Work,'' and we had to read that.
But in it, it talks about the 1944 OSS [Office of Strategic
Services]--which is the precursor of the CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency]--sabotage manual for Germany, written by
William Donovan, and it was the field manual. And it said
things like, ``Insist on doing everything through channels.
Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite
decisions. Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at
great length. Illustrate your points. When possible, refer all
matters to committees. Make committees as large as possible,
preferably be more than five. Bring up irrelevant issues as
frequently as possible. Haggle over wording and details.''
You guys are Department of Defense, okay? The climate
survey that we have talked about--we have a great Secretary of
Defense. Secretary Esper is outstanding. And he is a business
guy; he gets this. Why don't we write in the climate survey and
ask the question that we want?
You don't need congressional authority to do that, I don't
think. I think you can write into your entry exam the exact
questions that you want. I think you can put in the--you or
someone, one of your counterparts, can write in the exact
questions.
And it doesn't just need to be White supremacy; it needs to
be any--because we have to identify what it is in specifics. If
it is White supremacy, we can't use the word ``extremism,'' but
if it is something other than White supremacy, we can't use the
word ``extremism.'' We have to use the specific words. So you
can write into a climate survey to find out what it is.
The second thing is the actions, it is--these guys can't do
anything. They don't have the authority to prosecute or to say,
this shall result in this. But at the DOD level, at the
Department-head level somewhere, you do have the authority,
without congressional authority, to say, if you are found as an
active, passive, any other member in this organization or these
organizations, you shall be removed from service or you shall
be reduced in rank or you shall be criminally charged. We do
have that authority.
And I would just ask that--sometimes I think we get a big
bureaucracy, and I really--you ought to go read that OSS field
manual, and you will go, ``Holy cow, that sounds like 90
percent of American businesses today and all of our government
and all of our organizations.'' And we have to get away from
that. And I think you guys can do that.
So, that being said, what recommendations can you make for
us to root out White supremacy or any other type of extremism?
What can we do better to keep them out and to identify them and
get them out?
Ms. Miller. Yes, sir. And I certainly appreciate your
comments.
The responsibility to incorporate the requirement into
climate surveys is within the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness. While my expertise is in accession, I
am part of the Personnel and Readiness team, and so I
understand that our colleagues who are experts with respect to
our climate surveys are in the active effort right now to
research and determine the best way to ask those questions to
glean the most information possible.
And so they are actively engaged, and we can provide an
update on that work to the committee on their efforts in that
regard.
We do have, certainly, command climate surveys, and we have
workforce equal opportunity surveys, both at the Active and the
Reserve level, that do ask questions about racist and extremist
group experience that they may be knowledgeable about, or hate
crime incidents. And we do collect data on that and have for a
number of years.
The data that we have is slightly different than the
results that we have seen from the Military Times poll, and so
we want to take into account the information that they have
collected. The information that the Department has collected is
more----
Mr. Kelly. I mean, I understand that, but what we have to
do is, we know there are things we need to know right now.
Ms. Miller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kelly. And so we can get the perfect answer and the
perfect wording, or DOD can write a policy which asks the
question and gets specific, and guess what? We don't have to
write the question, we don't have to put--``Have you
experienced any type of terrorism, racism,'' and put it down
there and say, ``Please write in.'' That may be a more
effective way, because then we get what they really think it
is.
But I think we have to execute, because, if not, we are
relying on outside data, which is not scientific, which is the
best that we have right now. But you have the capability
through command and control to ask the question that gets us
the data so we can make specific decisions to get it better.
And my time is about to run out, but I thank you guys, and
I think we are doing a lot of things right. But I think you
guys can get the specifics without waiting for congressional
authority to do that, and I would just ask that you please do
that.
And thank you all for what you do and for being here, and
especially my law enforcement guys. As a former DA [District
Attorney], I always appreciate you all.
And I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I know that several of you in the investigative
services mentioned your work and the importance, really, of
having the terrorist and subversive checks. But I am wondering,
can you give us some more understanding of what happens after
you have picked up something that concerns you?
You toss that over to the FBI or--it sounds like a lot of
things come to you from the FBI. So how does that work? And
what is it that really triggers concern, and what doesn't?
Mr. McMahon. Ma'am, I will take the lead on this one.
When the FBI refers something generally to us, that is kind
of how it flows back. If there is a military member or somebody
attached specifically, for myself, to the Navy or the Marine
Corps, the FBI refers that back to NCIS to work the
investigation collaboratively.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
Mr. McMahon. At that point in time, usually what triggers
that is either some online activity, that basically they find
somebody online they can actually actively identify that that
person is associated with the Navy or the Marine Corps and that
they have potentially talked about being able to procure
weapons or take some sort of action. And so they refer that
back to us.
And we work that collaboratively with the FBI, looking to,
you know, continue the investigation, monitor the activity not
just online but holistically during the investigation, and then
also look for any sort of other ties that they might have to
other individuals within the military to make sure that we are,
kind of, rooting out any additional problems that might exist.
Mrs. Davis. Can you share, is it more usual that there are
a number of people involved? Or this is sort of a loner, in
many cases? Is it possible to----
Mr. McMahon. Again, I am going off limited data, as was
talked about earlier in the earlier panel. With the 14
investigations that we have specifically focused on domestic
terrorism, it is a little bit of a mixed bag.
There are a few investigations that have indicated one or
two other members that are in communication. But quite often
they are involved in a group that the other members are not
current military, potentially maybe have been foreign
military--or former military. But, currently, a lot of times,
they are just in communication with people that are just
espousing the same viewpoints.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
Mr. Ethridge, did you want to comment on that?
No? Oh, okay. That is fine. Thank you.
Before the Marines United scandal, it is my understanding
we certainly didn't check people's social media when they were
being recruited. Is that correct? Or were you looking at social
media at that time?
Ms. Miller. So I can answer that, ma'am.
So, right now, social media checks are not a part of the
recruiting process. That is an element that we are working in
collaboration with our colleagues in the intelligence community
to determine how best to potentially incorporate that
requirement.
Mrs. Davis. I think when that happened I was shocked,
actually, that you didn't do that. Because certainly, as
Members, you know, even within our offices, that is something
that people talk about. And, often, people are very aware that,
you know, we ask them to show us some of--you know, to show us,
would they mind sharing that information.
So if we are not checking that at recruitment, isn't that a
real gap?
Ms. Miller. So, right now, the recruiting process is a
multitiered approach, starting with a recruiter who asks a
number of questions during the recruitment interview. And,
also, we pull local record checks, and then we also do the FBI
check that I had mentioned before with the fingerprint check.
And then, once we have that information and the individual
appears to be suitable for military service, if they are
contracted, then they fill out that SF-86 form that we
mentioned that initiates the background investigation process.
And Intelligence then takes it from there, and they can do
additional work beyond what we have done at an initial entry
level.
And Mr. Reid can speak more to that.
Mr. Reid. And once they sign that SF-86, for the past 3\1/
2\ years it has been written in that form, that they are
granting consent to limited--I will say ``limited''--social
media monitoring. It has to be publicly facing. We cannot go
behind passwords, we cannot look in private chat rooms, et
cetera.
We don't do that on scale for every background
investigation right now. We have the ability to do it if there
are investigative leads that come through the process I
described. We would like to do it on scale for everybody all of
the time. We are still developing the right tools.
There are pitfalls here. There is false information, of
course, online.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh. We understand.
Mr. Reid. There is identity resolution. There is use of
handles and avatars, that you sometimes don't quite know what
you have.
But, earlier on, you mentioned our work with the Office of
People Analytics, one of the members mentioned that. The
Personnel Security Research Center are great partners of ours.
We are in the midst of yet another pilot to figure out how to
do this. There are great returns on personal conduct and some
on allegiance, making disparaging remarks where you think you
are in private and it is associated with an anti-government
attitude. So we see promise there.
Our investigative friends can do this when we have leads
and things that we really need to get into. In terms of a
screening protocol, we haven't found the right success model
yet. But we have the ability to do it if we need to.
Mrs. Davis. Do you need help from Congress to do that
better?
Mr. Reid. I don't think so. I knew you would ask. We have--
well, no. You have given us the authority.
And insider threat, by the way, you know, for the last
three NDAAs, we have gained more scope of insider threat.
Insider threat is a great tool.
The things I described that we do in background
investigations, those are Federal guidelines. Those are set by
the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] for security and
the Director of OPM [Office of Personnel Management] for
suitability. We don't get wiggle room as an agency to do our
own, right? Because there is a reciprocity factor.
Insider threat is a much more flexible framework. We have,
as I mentioned, programs in every one of our components. They
are building; the reporting is building.
And for my military criminal investigative organization
colleagues, what they represent to you, they are enforcing U.S.
Code. These things--and it was mentioned on all the panels
today, that these behaviors fall below U.S. criminal code. But
we have policies, we have military security policy.
Separating someone from the service administratively
sometimes takes time, and sometimes we don't rush to do it
because we want to reserve the ability to take full action. But
if an individual exhibits behaviors, even though they are below
a criminal investigative charge, it is very likely going to
make them unsuitable for a security clearance. And every member
of the U.S. military has to qualify for a Secret clearance,
whether they have access to Secret information or not. That is
the bar that I describe.
So it is very likely, without getting into any specific
case, that when you follow through on the administrative side,
an individual loses their eligibility to serve, and they get
separated. It takes a little time sometimes.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Cisneros.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thank you all for being here today.
Ms. Miller, I believe it was you who commented about the
background checks and part of that that they do, and you look
at the gang file. But a lot of these White supremacist groups,
these alt-right groups that are committing some of this violent
activity, like what happened in Charlottesville, aren't on the
gang file. They are not classified as gangs. A lot of these
international White supremacist groups that are becoming more
popular online and that people are joining aren't classified as
terrorist groups.
So when you are doing these background checks, these groups
aren't popping up, it is not going up there. What are we
looking for, then, to kind of classify them if they might be
part of these groups?
Ms. Miller. That is an excellent question, sir. Thank you.
I mentioned the multilayered approach that we take, and
that really does start with the recruiter who does this in-
depth interview with the applicant. And they ask about a number
of qualifying factors, the traditional ones of citizenship and
age, level of education, any past criminal records, medical
history, drug use.
And then they also ask about tattoos. And tattoos, as we
have learned, is one of the best ways to help identify whether
an individual has had a current or past history of engagement
with any sort of extremist or gang activity. And our colleagues
in the first panel mentioned the importance and the value of
knowing those tattoos.
For many years, the recruiters in our military entrance
processing stations had multiple, you know, files, large
binders, with copies and images of tattoos to try to help
educate them and help identify tattoos. What we have learned is
that the landscape of tattoos evolves so rapidly, and it is
very difficult to maintain currency on those, sort of, static
resources and references.
And so we agree with our colleagues in the first panel that
having access to timely information about tattoos and branding
is very important. And so one of the requirements that we now
include is, for any sort of concerning or questionable branding
or tattoo, there is a requirement to take images, as
appropriate, of those markings and to actually engage local law
enforcement and to engage the FBI and to actually ascertain
more information about those markings. And that is a very
important step of part of what we do.
And then, also, the recruiters do a lot of work in terms of
working with family members. They spend an incredible amount of
time in their community, and so they get to know what are some
of the prevalent concerning indicators in those communities.
They talk to school counselors, they talk to school resource
officers, they talk to local police. And so they will get a
sense of who this individual is and the company he or she may
keep.
And so that is some of the preliminary work that we do
before we hand it over to more formal channels and more formal
investigative channels.
Mr. Cisneros. Yeah.
Now, Mr. Reid, you said, you know, the investigative
officers, they are enforcing U.S. Code, right? But the
military, the Department of Defense has policy. We have a zero-
tolerance policy when it comes to drugs. Why don't we have a
zero-tolerance policy when it comes to White supremacy?
You know, Mr. Grabosky had stated that being a member of
this organization isn't illegal, or it is not against the
policy, but only if you are active. You know, would we let a
member of al-Qaida or a member of ISIS into our military if
they said, ``Well, I am a member, but I am not active''? Why
aren't we doing this the same for these White supremacist
groups?
Mr. Reid. Sir, I believe we do have a policy, in that,
again, your eligibility for service is hinged to the Federal
adjudicative guidelines, and one of those guidelines speaks to
engaging in behavior that denies others their basic
constitutional rights.
So any involvement with a group that espoused those views,
and membership and involvement with that group, although it may
be below the level of a criminal code violation, would be a
disqualifier for a decision by an adjudicator on the continued
eligibility of that individual.
Mr. Cisneros. So you are saying, if somebody is a member of
that group, they are not eligible to--one of these White
supremacist groups--they are not eligible to serve in the U.S.
military?
Mr. Reid. They could be disqualified based on their
participation. The front-end questionnaire asks questions, are
you a member of any of those groups? If they withhold
information, they falsified the form, which, by the way, is a
criminal Federal offense also, but it also, again, goes to
loyalty and honesty, which are adjudicative guidelines.
So there are 13 guidelines, and they crisscross in many
instances, where, as I mentioned earlier, personal conduct,
criminal conduct, allegiance are the main categories. There are
other categories, terrorism categories. Alignment with any of
those activities would be an element of an investigative file.
And keep this in mind--I know you are running out of time.
We are going to this continuous evaluation. We are already
doing it. So we don't wait until the next reinvestigation
anymore like we used to. These are occurring every day.
We have public records checks, other checks, where, if this
comes to light--insider threats, someone mentions anything to
an insider-threat officer, chain of command, it is going to go
to a security manager, it is going to go to an insider-threat
hub, and they are going to pull the string on that and find out
what is going on, and if it is there, they are going to take
action.
Mr. Cisneros. All right.
Well, Madam Chairman, I just want to say this one last
thing, and it really is: This is a bigger problem in our
country, and it is something that we need to work on. It is not
only a military problem; it is something that we need--these
groups, they need to be classified as domestic terrorist
groups, as gangs. And we need to recognize what they are; these
international organizations are terrorist organizations.
And, with that, I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Cisneros.
Mr. Reid, Ms. Miller--and, Ms. Miller, we have worked
together on a number of issues. I have a high regard for you.
But I am really flummoxed by what we have heard tonight--
today--soon to be tonight.
In this policy, it says that any of these active
participation in gangs or organizations is prohibited. So if it
is prohibited and we have an Air Force service member who is
actively fundraising for this despicable organization, why is
he still in the military?
Ms. Miller. Ma'am, we will have to refer you to the Air
Force to gain more details on that specific case.
To your point, yes, the policy does say it prohibits active
participation, which includes fundraising, demonstrating,
rallying, recruiting, training, organizing, leading members,
distributing material, wearing gang colors and, to your point
earlier, tattoos or other brandings.
And so, therefore, those are the type of indicators that
need to be evaluated when determining whether there has been a
violation of this policy, which then could therefore lead to,
you know, certainly administrative separation and other actions
against the individual.
As it pertains to that case and as Mr. Reid indicated
earlier, the services often work very deliberately through that
process. And there is an element of due process consideration,
and so sometimes that does take time. But we will have to refer
you to the Air Force to garner specific details about that
individual case.
Ms. Speier. But here is the problem. If all of these cases
that you work very hard to investigate are then referred to the
command and there is total discretion within the command, there
is not equal due process, there is not equal parsing out of
punishment, if we don't have a standard.
And, you know, if I am a member of the Sierra Club, I
espouse all of their values. If I am a member of an
organization that is specifically interested in doing harm to
the United States, I believe and will be supportive of that.
So I have a real problem with the vagueness of these
policies and the distinction between active participation and
membership. And I think these policies have to be updated. They
are woefully inadequate for what we know today is a very
serious domestic terrorism problem. So we are going to
hopefully be working with you to try and develop, you know,
clearer outlines.
One last question I have, and then I will turn it over to
Mr. Kelly. What training is being provided to commanders now
about White supremacism specifically, the accelerationist
community, and a number of these organizations that we
referenced here today?
Ms. Miller. Ma'am, my capacity here today is accessions, as
I mentioned, and so I am not an expert, per se, on the level of
training that commanding officers may receive.
But the policy requires training. It requires training at
the entry-level training point; it requires routine and regular
training and certainly all the way up to the commanding officer
level. So we will have to take that question back and make sure
that the committee gets a fulsome answer from those who are
responsible for that.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 151.]
Ms. Miller. One point I think that is very helpful is that
each command has an equal opportunity advisor. And equal
opportunity advisors, I think, are a very important asset in
that command triad. And they do receive training specifically
on extremism and White supremacy, actually, largely pulling
from information from the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law
Center, to help educate them to look for concerning signs and
indicators within their command and to advise their commanding
officers on what to recognize. And so I do think that that is a
valuable asset.
Ms. Speier. And I will just finally say, I would like to
associate myself with Mrs. Davis' comments. Any job application
today requires that the review that takes place looks at social
media. So our reluctance or timidity in wanting to do that at
the front end in accession makes no sense. I mean, this is the
21st century, and that is how people communicate. And if we
can't look at that, then we are not necessarily doing this
fulsome review as we have individuals become members of the
military.
I will now turn it over to Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. I would just ask that you guys please look at
requiring that when you do administrative action or UCMJ, okay,
when these guys do the hard work, that you make them report
that to DOD so that we can collect that data. Because without
that, we don't know what is happening below.
So if you would require that they--number one is, people
are usually more accountable on things that they have to
report. We know that from almost anything. So I think that is
an easy fix.
Now I am going to ask you guys, what can Chairwoman Speier
and myself--what authorities do you need to better do your job
to not just--and White supremacy is what we are talking about
today, but whether it is other organizations, it doesn't matter
to me; they are all bad to the order and discipline of the
military.
So what authorities do you need from us to make your job
easier? What can we do to give you authorities?
Ms. Miller. I know Mr. Reid already answered that similar
question. I will echo his sentiments, that I believe the
Department has the authorities that we need to work after this
issue.
Certainly, the continued evolution and development of
additional tools and capabilities, particularly as it comes to
social media scraping, I believe, will be very informative,
especially during the accession process. But there are some
initial challenges and hurdles that we need to work through
before we can implement that on a large scale.
Mr. Kelly. Now the really hard question. For you two guys,
and then we will--and I am not ignoring you all, but these are
the decision makers, or at least you influence the decision
makers. I would ask, what is one thing that you can do with
your current authorities that immediately, incrementally, make
a difference in either identifying members of organizations
that are adverse--White supremacists, any other group that are
adverse to the interests of the United States Government, and
then, also, or that punishes them or makes a punishment even,
someone who is in an organization like that?
Let's be for real. If they are a member, it doesn't matter
whether you can catch them being active; they are not passive.
They didn't join it to be passive.
And so, if there is anything, what can you do that you can
do or influence your superior to do to make that immediately
either to keep them out or get them out?
Mr. Reid. I apologize, sir. I didn't exactly hear the
question you wanted me to answer.
Mr. Kelly. Under the authorities--I asked what authorities
you need from us, and you said none. So, in your current job,
what can you do, what one simple thing can you do, to make it
easier either to keep people out, identify them, or get them
out of the DOD?
Mr. Reid. I think you hit on a very good one, and that is,
if we could find a way to extend our reach--of the things we do
in background investigations, as I indicated, we cannot apply
those at the Federal level until an individual has been placed
on contract and signs a consent form. So that space that exists
prior--left of that is a difficult space for us to operate in.
Among other things, especially when you talk about social
media, any time I am going to go check any of that, I am going
to get other U.S. person information. And we run into a lot of
obstacles with privacy concerns, civil liberty concerns, and EO
[Executive Order] 12333 concerns about third-party information.
Any American that is chatting with other people is probably
chatting with other Americans that are not part of my interest
sphere.
So it is a complex thing. If you could help us figure out--
--
Mr. Kelly. I get all that, but you would be surprised what
you can just find out with a simple Google of an individual----
Mr. Reid. Yes, sir. But we----
Mr. Kelly [continuing]. Which is public information that
they put out. But thank you.
And real quickly, if you can answer, please, Ms. Miller,
tell us what we can do to get you the authorities.
Ms. Miller. One of the things that we are working on right
now is to expand our scope of engagement with the FBI,
specifically the Domestic Terrorism Task Force and the criminal
gang files.
We do a level of work with local law enforcement in the
local gang activity. The information that is available at the
FBI is limited to law enforcement, and so that is not
necessarily information that we can provide to 20,000
recruiters across the country.
And so we have a working group right now to determine how
best to share that information and at what level so that we can
continue to update them real-time on emerging patterns and
tattoos and markings. And so that is work that we are doing
right now and, I think, will be very helpful.
Mr. Kelly. And I want to end with, guys, you are setting
the standard for America, and thank you. You are doing an
outstanding job. So I don't want--but I still want to get
better. A guy used to say: Good, better, best; good get better,
and better get best. I believe in that in everything we do.
And please look at the climate survey. I don't think you
guys need our authority to ask the right questions to identify
issues. And so I would just ask, either influence or do that.
And, with that, I yield back, Chairwoman.
Ms. Speier. All right.
Lots of food for thought here. We look forward to working
with you. This is a serious issue. I think you recognize that
we are taking it very seriously.
So we thank you for your contributions today and your work
that you do every day.
And, with that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:51 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
February 11, 2020
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 11, 2020
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
February 11, 2020
=======================================================================
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Dr. Beirich. The only data I have on this front is what has been
reported in the press. In my testimony, the following are active duty
soldiers who were found to be connected to extremist ideas/groups:
Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Hasson, arrested Feb.
2019. A former active-duty Marine and member of the Army Guard, Hasson
was found to be plotting a mass murder of elected officials of the
Democratic party and media figures.\1\ After seizing his computer and
other electronic devices, investigators found evidence that Hasson was
a long-time white supremacist who held violently racist views even
before his first enlistment in the military. He was sentenced in 2020
to 13 years in prison.
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\1\ https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/inside-u-s-military-s-
battle-white-supremacy-far-right-ncna1010221
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In April 2019, Master Sergeant Cory Reeves was identified
as a member of the white supremacist group Identity Evropa. He was only
demoted one rank after an initial investigation. In December,
proceedings into his activities opened with the possibility of
discharge.\2\ He remained employed by the Air Force until after this
hearing was held.
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\2\ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/17/air-force-identity-
evropa-cory-re eves/
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In September 2019, the FBI arrested Jarrett William
Smith, a soldier stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, and charged him with
providing expertise to extremists that could lead to the creation of
explosives and weapons of mass destruction.\3\ He was interacting with
a member of a neo-fascist Ukrainian group, the Right Sector, and was
interested in fighting in Ukraine. The FBI said Smith discussed in an
online chat a plan to conduct an attack within the United States. Smith
was reportedly searching for more ``radicals'' like himself and
discussed killing members of an anti-fascist network as well as
destroying cell towers or a local news station. Later he suggested a
major American news network as a target of a vehicle bomb.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/us/us-army-soldier-arrested-
Jarrett-William-Smith.html
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In December 2019, two men, Brandon Trent East and Dalton
Woodward, were kicked out of the Georgia National Guard after they were
reported to be leaders of the racist pagan group, Ravensblood Kindred,
part of the larger white supremacist Asatru Folk Assembly.\4\ According
to press reports, the men had attended a speaking event by white
nationalist Richard Spencer in 2017, and one of them was on active duty
in Afghanistan when his ties to white supremacy were disclosed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-men-kicked-out-national-
guard-over-alleged-white-supremacist-n1107591
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Also in 2019, the Huffington Post exposed seven members
of the U.S. military actively posting on a Discord chatroom as part of
the white nationalist organization Identity Evropa.\5\ They included
two Marines, two Army ROTC cadets, an Army physician, a member of the
Texas National Guard and one member of the Air Force. Their names are:
Stephen T. Farrea. Jason Laguardia, Jay C. Harrison, Christopher
Cummins, Joseph Kane, Dannion A. Phillips and Christopher Hodgman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-nationalists-military-
identity-evropa_n_5c8ab70ae4b0
d7f6b0f1094b
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In 2018, Marine Lance Corporal Vasillios G. Pistolis, was
expelled from the Marine Corps for his ties to the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen
Division (AWD). He was removed after participating in the
Charlottesville riots in 2017, where he was engaged in violent
assaults. Pistolis later bragged about his involvement online with
other members of AWD.\6\
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\6\ https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/
08/01/marine-with-alleged-neo-nazi-connections-booted-from-the-marine-
corps/
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In 2017, Brandon Russell, Pistolis's roommate, was
arrested after one of their roommates, Devon Arthurs, killed two of
their other roommates in a Tampa apartment. Investigators on the scene
discovered a cache of weapons, detonators and volatile chemical
compounds, including a cooler full of HMTD, a powerful explosive often
used by bombmakers, and ammonium nitrate, the substance used by Timothy
McVeigh in the Oklahoma City attack. Russell was also in possession of
two radioactive isotopes, americium and thorium. At the time of his
arrest, Russell had been serving in the 53rd Brigade Special Troops
Battalion of Florida's Army National Guard.
In 2013, John Charles Stortstrom, a mechanical engineer
who worked for the Army at its Edgewood Chemical Biological Center
(ECBC) in Maryland, was suspended after published reports disclosed
that he was among 150 white nationalists who attended a conference of
the white nationalist American Renaissance, a race science outfit.
American Renaissance included a photo on its website of Stortstrom with
the caption, ``Engineer. Republican. Racist. Military bomb maker.'' \7\
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\7\ https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2013/07/08/after-hatewatch-
story-maryland-military-engineer-suspended
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In 2012, Nathan Wooten, a member of the Missouri National
Guard, was arrested for running and supplying weapons to a neo-Nazi
paramilitary training camp in Florida.\8\
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\8\ https://theweek.com/articles/833960/american-militarys-
extremist-problem
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Also in 2012, two other soldiers, U.S. Army Sgt. Anthony
Peden and Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, were arrested after murdering a former
soldier and his girlfriend in an attempt to cover up their
assassination plot against then-President Barack Obama.\9\
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\9\ https://psmag.com/social-justice/does-the-american-military-
have-a-problem-with-far-right-extremism
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In 2009, Marine Lance Corporal Kody Brittingham,
stationed at Camp Lejuene, N.C., was arrested on an armed robbery
charge. A search of his barracks turned up a journal containing white
supremacist material and a plan to kill Obama.\10\
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\10\ https://www.journalnow.com/news/local/former-lejeune-marine-
charged-with-threatening-obama/article_0c645db5-0529-53ad-aeee-
e1ed3f7cf96b.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are additional sources of information on active duty troops
that could be considered. In 2009, the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) reported on leaked private emails of the neo-Nazi National
Socialist Movement (NSM). The emails showed that several people who
identified themselves as active military personnel contacted NSM over
the prior two years to express interest in the organization, including
at least one soldier who subsequently joined.\11\ In 2008, the SPLC
issued a report revealing that 46 members of the neo-Nazi web forum New
Saxon had identified themselves as active-duty military personnel. It
quoted a racist skinhead who wrote that he had joined the Army and
specifically requested an assignment where he would be able to learn
how to make an explosive device.\12\ And in 2006, an SPLC report showed
that a number of military personnel had joined racist and neo-Nazi
groups such as the Fourth Reich, Aryan Nation, National Alliance,
National Socialist Movement, and others.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2009/09/03/leaked-neo-
nazi-e-mails-show-contacts-military-personnel
\12\ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/
2008/evidence-shows-racist-skinheads-enlisting-military
\13\ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/
2006/several-high-profile-racist-extremists-serve-us-military
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would suggest that it would be helpful to look at all military
reports on this issue. For example, in 2003, the U.S. Army Criminal
Investigation Division advised the FBI of six active-duty soldiers at
Fort Riley, Texas, who were affiliated with the Aryan Nations. One was
the neo-Nazi group's point of contact in Kansas and sought to recruit
members from within the military.\14\ There may be other such internal
reports.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/
2008/fbi-reports-extremists-military
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I also mention several other individuals who are former military.
These include Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Wade Michael Page, all of
whom committed acts of domestic terrorism. There are far more examples
such as these. In 2020, two members of the neo-Nazi The Base were
arrested and had previous military training: Brian Mark Lemley was a
cavalry scout in the Army and Patrik Jordan Mathews previously served
as a combat engineer in the Canadian Army Reserve, indicating that the
reach of white nationalism is a problem for foreign military services
as well. According to New America, 21 military veterans were identified
as having committed or attempted an act of violence as a right-wing
extremist between 2001 and 2013.\15\ [See page 10.]
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\15\ https://psmag.com/social-justice/does-the-american-military-
have-a-problem-with-far-right-extremism
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Ms. Miller. Training on supremacism is provided to incoming
commanders and senior enlisted personnel during pre-command/senior
leader courses. Military Department and DOD policy on extremism,
including white supremacism are reinforced to commanders. Additionally,
commanders are informed of the options within their authority, and the
potential impact of extremism on the good order and discipline of their
command. The training provided to commanders supplements training
provided throughout their careers, as also required by DODI 1325.06,
during their pre-commissioning training, throughout their professional
military education, as well as other training such as Equal Opportunity
and Threat Awareness and Reporting. [See page 41.]
?
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 11, 2020
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Ms. Speier. As you mentioned in your testimony, the military has
faced a white supremacist threat before, and our country is currently
dealing with an international terror threat that manifests through
radicalized lone actors. We don't have to reinvent the wheel to deal
with this threat. What lessons from these other fights are relevant
here? And how should we apply them?
Dr. Beirich. The main lesson here is the need to tighten up
regulations as additional problems are presented to the military. Each
time the white supremacist threat has presented itself, the military
has taken measures to keep hate groups and their members out. This
started in 1985 with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and his
banning of card-carrying hate group members from the Armed Forces.
After Timothy McVeigh's bombing a set of more stringent regulations was
again put in force. Again, in 2009, after it was disclosed that many
soldiers were posting hate on social media, the regulations were
tightened.
Today, the areas where changes need to be made are on screening
incoming recruits and improving the enforcement techniques used to root
out extremists from the military. A tattoo database is urgently needed
as are mandatory examinations into hate on social media accounts run by
potential recruits.
It is clear that the problem today may not be regulations banning
extremists from the ranks, but rather their enforcement. During the
testimony given after I testified, it was clear that members of the
investigative services for the different military branches were
applying different standards. In particular, the Air Force
representative said ``mere membership'' in an extremist group did not
disqualify someone from the ranks. But the current regulations do ban
such membership.
My strongest suggestion is that a hard look at the investigative
services be undertaken to make sure the same standards against racists
in the ranks are applied across the board. There may be a need for
training/retraining on this point for members of the investigative
services and all of those in command. Troops should also be trained on
these regulations.
Also, it may be a good time to consolidate all the regulations
relating to this matter in one new set of principles. All staff could
then be retrained to follow those new regulations. It does not appear
the regulations are wanting, but rather their application is. But that
is something that needs to be substantiated through a serious
investigation of this matter. In the end, all hate group members and
anyone expressing hate ideas needs to be identified. And they should
have no place in the military. For more garden variety racist ideas
expressed by troops, there must be intervention of some sort to show
troops why such ideas are wrongheaded and hurtful to morale, troop
cohesion, etc. and not compatible with military service. And, most
importantly, decisions on these matters must be taken out of the hands
of unit commanders. It should be mandatory that any allegations of such
matters are reported up the chain of command and handled at a different
level than the unit. This will allow for more coherent and standardized
decisions in these matters.
Ms. Speier. As you mentioned in your testimony, the military has
faced a white supremacist threat before, and our country is currently
dealing with an international terror threat that manifests through
radicalized lone actors. We don't have to reinvent the wheel to deal
with this threat. What lessons from these other fights are relevant
here? And how should we apply them?
Ms. Brooks. We must move past a ``zero tolerance'' response to the
presence of white supremacism in the military. In both the military and
civilian worlds, we need to invest in programs that steer individuals
away from extremism and deradicalize those who have adopted extremist
beliefs or joined hate groups. We must prioritize research that builds
and tests ``off-ramping'' programs--already successfully in use in
Europe--in the United States. And we must prioritize this work in the
active-duty and veteran community. In Europe, social programs--such as
the Aarhaus model--have been developed that provide evidence-based
indications of positive models for dealing with the complexities of
``off-ramping'' civilians who have become radicalized. These programs
are community-minded and focus on breaking down barriers and promoting
healthy interactions with civil society. They prioritize counseling and
build resilience to extremism that is more lasting than punitive
responses. Although individuals must be held accountable for their
actions and allegiances, further stigmatization and alienation of
veterans hinders their recovery. For example, as numerous scientific
studies and reports have underscored, some veterans feel that care and
support around the issue of post-traumatic stress diagnoses paints the
entire military and veteran communities as broken, struggling and in
need of special care.
Extremism in the military is a complex, human problem that has been
addressed time-and-again over the past four decades. It costs human
lives. We must first study these complexities before we can understand
them and work to diminish the presence of white supremacists in the
ranks of our armed forces. The following is a list of compounding
recommendations for addressing the complexities of this problem:
1. While it is imperative that the threat of extremism in the
military is addressed, public officials and military commanders must
understand that remedial action may trigger further radicalization and
could help turn a radicalizing individual toward violent extremism.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we believe in a multi-tiered
approach centered on prevention and early intervention based on studies
that highlight the individual nature of radicalization. When necessary,
we recommend evidence-based deradicalization programs.
2. Experts in this field will need access to the relevant corridors
of the military to design credible prevention and intervention programs
that address the problem of extremism within the Armed Forces. Public
health service members in the military (such as psychologists,
psychiatrists, military social workers) will be able to provide
critical input that ensures these programs take into consideration an
awareness of military culture.
3. Establish a commission made up of experts in the fields of
prevention and intervention in radicalization, deradicalization and de-
escalation (``off-ramping''), and identify evidenced-based best
practices and programming across all branches of the military for
veterans reentering civilian society and corresponding resources
available through VA services, clinics and hospitals.
4. Use the recommendations of the commission to establish a tiered
process to address radicalization that begins with counseling but leads
to discharge only as a final consequence. These programs must be
rigorously evaluated.
5. Use the recommendations of the commission to create evidenced
informed trainings intended to inoculate against radicalization at
entry, throughout an individual's military career, and reentry into
civilian life. Train recruiters, officers (commissioned and
noncommissioned), and investigators on best practices recommended by
the commission.
6. Require an annual report from military leadership that includes
an audit of all investigations and prevention measures taken regarding
white supremacist activity within the ranks of the military. These
reports should, to the largest degree possible, be made public so that
it can inform the military's response to this problem going forward.
Ms. Speier. As I relayed in my opening statement, Director Wray has
indicated that the FBI has elevated the white supremacist terror threat
to the same level as the international terror threat. Are the military
criminal investigative organizations, or MCIOs, also treating those
threats with equal urgency and aligning resources appropriately? What
steps have you taken to ensure that commanders understand the gravity
of this threat? Director Wray also mentioned that he's stood up hate
crime-domestic terror fusion cells, are there MCIO representatives
present too?
Mr. Ethridge. The Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) greatly
values the terrorism investigation expertise and leadership of the FBI.
In 2019, the FBI welcomed CID to expand our partnership, traditionally
centered on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF) and the
international terrorism threat, to focus on the Racially Motivated
Violent Extremist threat. CID added agent and analyst representation in
the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, Counterterrorism
Division, in addition to the Army personnel assigned to the NJTTF and
the installation-level relationships maintained with regional JTTFs.
The FBI partnership ensures timely notification of Army personnel
suspected of crimes related to extremist activity. Additionally, the
CID provides the FBI information on the training and performance
history of former Army personnel suspected of criminal activity.
Commanders are responsible for maintaining good order and discipline in
their units. To assist, CID notifies Commanders when there are
indications of extremist activity present. Over the past year, CID has
increased collection efforts, informed HQDA of our observations,
participated in the review and changes to Army policy, expanded our
relationship with law enforcement partners and made notifications to
Commanders. Additionally, CID has formulated a request to the Army
Inspector General to add unit implementation of extremist activity
policy (Army Regulation 600-20) as a focus area for the next inspection
cycle. The Army is postured to identify extremist activity in the ranks
and has both the policy and leadership tools to prevent emergence as a
pervasive issue.
Ms. Speier. As I relayed in my opening statement, Director Wray has
indicated that the FBI has elevated the white supremacist terror threat
to the same level as the international terror threat. Are the military
criminal investigative organizations, or MCIOs, also treating those
threats with equal urgency and aligning resources appropriately? What
steps have you taken to ensure that commanders understand the gravity
of this threat? Director Wray also mentioned that he's stood up hate
crime-domestic terror fusion cells, are there MCIO representatives
present too?
Mr. McMahon. NCIS is confronting racially motivated violent
extremism (RMVE) threats with the same urgency as the FBI. Responding
to an increase in NCIS cases and referrals from the FBI, NCIS
established the unique case category Domestic Terrorism for
investigative and operational reporting purposes. This allows NCIS to
more accurately reflect the scope of the incidents and to align
investigative resources against this emerging challenge. To ensure
commanders understand the gravity of the RMVE threat, NCIS immediately
briefs commands when there are indications of service member
affiliation with RMVE groups under their command--regardless of
evidence of criminal activity. Briefing programs have been updated to
include information on domestic extremism. The command briefings not
only educate commanders, but also serve as another opportunity to
advise all service members of prohibited activities. Recognizing this
problem cannot be addressed solely through criminal investigations,
NCIS also convened a working group of Department of Navy commands to
coordinate resources, identify existing policies, and determine areas
of focus in an effort to raise the visibility of this issue as priority
with commanders. NCIS maintains a physical presence at FBI Joint
Terrorism Task Forces within all major fleet concentration areas. This
presence allows for direct NCIS visibility on domestic terrorism issues
that could impact the Department of Navy. Additionally, NCIS maintains
a senior level liaison officer at the National Joint Terrorism Task
Force with immediate access to all relevant information and FBI
Sections addressing this threat. This includes daily interaction with
the FBI Domestic Terrorism Operations Section. NCIS has conducted
multiple joint investigations and operations with the FBI targeting
RMVE activity in the military.
Ms. Speier. As I relayed in my opening statement, Director Wray has
indicated that the FBI has elevated the white supremacist terror threat
to the same level as the international terror threat. Are the military
criminal investigative organizations, or MCIOs, also treating those
threats with equal urgency and aligning resources appropriately? What
steps have you taken to ensure that commanders understand the gravity
of this threat? Director Wray also mentioned that he's stood up hate
crime-domestic terror fusion cells, are there MCIO representatives
present too?
Mr. Grabosky. OSI is a federal law enforcement agency with
responsibility for conducting criminal investigations,
counterintelligence and specialized investigative activities, and
integrated force protection for the United States Air and Space Forces.
As such, all threats potentially impacting our forces are thoroughly
investigated and taken seriously. OSI maintains a full-time presence on
the local and national Joint Terrorist Task Forces (JTTFs) that monitor
and provide Domestic Terrorism (DT) information to OSI HQ and field
units for action. Additionally, through its own Insider Threat (InT)
program, OSI monitors key data streams to provide early indicators of
potential threat activity. These data streams, fused with the
information provided by the Air Force InT Hub, provide information
ranging from local arrest information to background data used for
security clearance adjudication. This information, as well as
information provided through local and federal law enforcement
partnerships, are the key elements driving OSI's DT efforts. Currently,
OSI does not have full-time representation at the hate-crime domestic
terrorism fusion cell at FBI HQ. However, OSI is closely aligned with
our FBI counterparts with 21 agents assigned to full-time JTTF
locations, one agent and analyst at the National JTTF, and two liaison
officers assigned to FBI HQ. OSI also has 66 special agents who are
part of FBI Counterintelligence Task Forces (CITF) at 55 FBI offices
around the country providing OSI access to FBI information systems.
Finally, OSI agents and analysts closely work with the Domestic
Terrorism Fusion Cell via the domestic terrorism operations section of
the FBI counterterrorism division and are well postured to support
investigations and operations responding to racially motivated violent
extremist threats. OSI informs and educates commanders of all threats
that may impact the force, to include threats from DT. The primary
method of keeping commanders apprised of the seriousness of violent
extremist threats, both domestic and foreign, is through routine threat
information sharing with local commanders and senior Air Force leaders.
OSI is a primary member of the commander's Threat Working Group that
examines all source information and responds to threats to the local
installation, mission, and personnel. Additionally, each OSI field
operating location produces two annual reports that contain specific
threat information tailored to their Area of Responsibility (AOR): a
Criminal Threat Assessment (CTA) and a classified Local Threat
Assessment (LTA). The LTA deals primarily with foreign terrorism and
counterintelligence threats, while the CTA deals primarily with
criminal threats and domestic terrorism. OSI thanks the Committee for
the opportunity to provide additional insight into some of the
exceptional work our agents do every day to protect Department of the
Air Force personnel and resources, and we look forward to provide
additional information as needed.