{See our October update at the bottom of this article. Director Wray also challenged the White House claim that voter fraud could affect this fall's elections.}

September 2020 - Christopher Wray has been the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since the summer of 2017. He was nominated for that position by Donald Trump and confirmed in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 92-5.

Mr. Wray's previous government experience includes serving in the George W. Bush administration as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. He later acted as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's personal attorney when Mr. Christie was fighting to save his political career during the New Jersey "Bridgegate" scandal.

On September 17, Director Wray testified before the House Homeland Security Committee and reported the following:

"Racially-motivated violent extremism" remains the top domestic threat in the U.S.
"Within that racially-motivated violent extremism bucket, people ascribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that."
The left wing anarchists described by the Trump administration as "antifa" are "just one part" of a domestic extremist threat picture that's far more dominated by right-wing violence. "We look at Antifa as more of an ideology or a movement than an organization."

(Wray image from news pool photographer)

This testimony directly contradicts the stories that Mr. Trump is telling. For years the White House and Mr. Trump's apologists in the right-wing media have tried to downplay the regular incidents of white supremacist violence in this country and they currently are engaged in an election year strategy of trying to scare Americans into thinking that some disparate left-wing extremists are the biggest threat to American tranquility.

In his testimony, Mr. Wray also agreed with other U.S. intelligence agencies on outside interference in the 2020 American elections:

"We certainly have seen very active - very active - efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020."
In an effort similar to 2016, Russia is engaged in an attempt to "denigrate" Joe Biden by spreading misinformation in order to assist Donald Trump in his re-election efforts.

These statements also are at odds with those of Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump regularly denies that the Russians are again trying to assist him in a Presidential campaign, even though he knows his denials are false. Occasionally he has slipped up and given a "so what" response when questioned about Russia's election activities.

In reality, there was nothing too new in Mr. Wray's testimony, only that another Trump appointee has openly contradicted Mr. Trump on the facts. And, as with those other appointees, the Wray facts are based on evidence, not opinion. The number of violent incidents involving white supremacists are well documented, as are the regular reports from U.S. intelligence agencies (and private companies like Microsoft) that Russia is interfering once again on Mr. Trump's behalf in the American electoral process.

Update: October 2020 - In another appearance before Congress in late September, FBI Director Wray also challenged Mr. Trump on the possibility of voter fraud affecting the 2020 elections.

Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on September 24th, Mr. Wray told lawmakers, "We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."

He noted that the FBI has seen voter fraud at the local level "from time to time" but "to change a federal election outcome by mounting that kind of fraud at scale would be a major challenge for an adversary."

Following up on his previous warning that the Russians are using social media to try and affect this year's elections, Mr. Wray reminded voters "I would encourage people to be critical thinkers and to get their news from a variety of sources and make up their own mind and be a skeptical, discerning electorate, which is what I think is the best defense against malign foreign influence."

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