Violent Crime 

• Violent crimes and gang activities exact a high toll on individuals and communities.  
• Many of today’s gangs are sophisticated and well-organized. They use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings. 
• These gangs do not limit their illegal activities to single jurisdictions or communities. The FBI is able to work across such lines, which is vital to the fight against violent crime in big cities and small towns across our nation.  
• Every day, FBI special agents work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal officers and deputies on joint task forces and individual investigations. 
• Task forces remain the bedrock of our strategy for working shoulder-to-shoulder with our state, local, and tribal partners to tackle the violent crime threat.  
• Task forces are the largest force multiplier utilized throughout the field. Task forces help combine experience in long-term, complex investigations with experienced state and local officers.   
• The FBI now has more than 750 task forces with more than 6,000 task force officers.  
• To date in fiscal year 2023: 
  • Task forces have already made over 6,104 arrests nationwide, which equates to 24 individuals being arrested per day.  
  • Task forces have also seized more than 3,926 firearms and dismantled 91 gangs and criminal enterprises across the country. 
    
• In fiscal year 2022: 
  • The FBI and its partners arrested more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators.  
  • Task force officers seized more than 6,000 firearms and dismantled 166 gangs and criminal enterprises across the country. 

Combating Criminal Activity at the Southwest Border  

• As part of our efforts to combat the Transnational Organized Crime threat, the FBI is focused on the cartels trafficking dangerous narcotics, like fentanyl, across our border.  
• The FBI has 323 pending investigations linked to cartel leadership, and 78 of those investigations are along the southern border. 
• Border security is a major challenge that cuts across a whole host of FBI programs. 
• Any port of entry is a potential vulnerability that bad actors of all sorts—including terrorists—may seek to exploit. 
• Regarding national security threats and the border, the FBI’s role and priority is to gather intelligence and share information with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection quickly and efficiently so they can try to stop those who wish us harm from entering the country. 

 Reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

• The FBI’s “traditional” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authority, like a criminal wiretap, requires an agent to submit an application to the FISA Court establishing probable cause on a particular foreign target in the United States.  
• The FBI uses Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to further its national security investigations. 
• FISA Section 702 authority provides an indispensable way to identify, investigate, and mitigate threats to our homeland coming from foreign adversaries operating outside our borders.  
• Section 702 allows the FBI to collect on a target who is a non-U.S. person, outside the United States, for foreign intelligence purposes, without submitting an individualized application or obtaining an individualized order. 
• That’s because non-U.S. persons are not entitled under the Fourth Amendment to a probable cause finding.  
• Section 702 was added in 2008 because of changes to technology that no one imagined when FISA was passed in 1978.  
• As the threats we’re seeing from China, Russia, and all over the world continue to evolve, the FBI needs as many tools as possible to quickly gain intelligence about those threats so we can mitigate them. Section 702 is exceptionally valuable to ensure we can act on these foreign threats and not be in a situation where we could miss things that harm the American people.  
• Section 702 and other provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will expire in December 2023 unless renewed. 
• Loss of this vital provision, or its reauthorization in a narrowed form, would raise profound risks. For the FBI in particular, either outcome would mean substantially impairing, or in some cases entirely eliminating, our ability to find and disrupt many of most serious security threats our nation faces. 
• Many real and legitimate concerns have been raised about the FBI’s use of 702, particularly as it relates to querying the limited subset of 702 data relating to the FBI’s national security investigations.  
• The ability to access Section 702 data through strict compliance with the law is crucial to protecting our national security. New accountability procedures will hold individuals querying 702 data personally accountable not only for intentional misconduct but also for behavior that is reckless or negligent. Additional reforms will apply to field office leaders and evaluate their FISA compliance practices. 
• More information about the reforms the FBI is employing to safeguard appropriate use  

Responsiveness to Congressional Oversight 

• The FBI recognizes the importance of congressional oversight and remains fully committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests consistent with its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. 
• In FY22 alone, the FBI responded to nearly 200 official letters from Congress, provided nearly 300 information briefings to members of Congress and staff, had FBI witnesses testify in 14 hearings, and participated in over 100 other formal congressional engagements. The notion that the FBI is not responsive to Congress is false.   

• The mission of the FBI is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States, protecting the country against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats and upholding and enforcing the criminal laws of the United States. Potential cuts to the FBI’s budget directly threaten the FBI’s ability to do that work—including thwarting cyber intrusions from nation-state actors and criminals, combating terrorism, and protecting children from predators. 
• Slashing the FBI’s budget would have disastrous consequences for the safety and security of the American people. 
• A 25% budget cut would mean taking approximately 4,000 FBI agents off the streets and eliminating approximately 1,200 intelligence analysts to help connect the dots to thwart terrorist plots, avert foreign intelligence officers and cyber actors from infiltrating and stealing government secrets, and prevent criminal enterprises from peddling their dangerous drugs and weapons on the darknet. 
• The personnel reductions from a 25% budget cut could mean that thousands of violent offenders would be left on the streets to terrorize innocent people and communities across the nation.   
• Last year alone, the FBI and its partners took 20,000 violent criminals off the street and, in the process, cut into the capabilities of over 3,500 gangs and violent criminal enterprises and completely dismantled 370 more. These efforts and others like them are making a real difference in communities plagued by violence and drugs like fentanyl that are poisoning American citizens. 
• In a two-week period last year, during a coordinated operation, the FBI and its partners identified and located 84 minor victims of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation.   
• FBI Laboratory personnel are working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to analyze the DNA samples collected from people detained on the Southwest border. Based on collections submitted only by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), we were able to support 223 investigations, including 111 relating to sexual offenses and 12 homicides. 
• Last year, in a single cyber investigation, the FBI worked with financial institutions to freeze assets before they were transferred to cybercriminals, saving thousands of American companies almost $450 million. 
• These and other successes are only possible because of the men and women of the FBI.  
• Reductions to the FBI’s budget would also affect state and local partners in almost every district across this nation by stripping away the resources they rely on to protect their communities. This includes: 
  • The Operational Technology Division (OTD), which assists state and local law enforcement partners with digital forensics on child sexual exploitation cases, internet fraud, and financial crimes. Over the past year at OTD, the Field Audio Video Program has provided image and video forensics support for 344 state and local law enforcement cases across the country.   
  • The Render Safe Team, which is responsible for neutralizing any chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear device threat found in the United States. 
  • The Hostage Rescue Team, which deploys anywhere in the world, but especially throughout the United States, by responding to hostage situations, high-risk arrests, and tactical operations. 
  • The Laboratory Division, which provides forensic services to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies, including DNA analysis, forensic facial imaging, latent fingerprint analysis, and shoeprint and tire-tread identification. Over the past fiscal year, the Lab has processed over 4,000 submissions of evidence (almost half in support of violent crimes), aided over 46,000 investigations and indexed over 21 million profiles, and has been deployed 65 times in support of large-scale complex crime scenes and mass casualty events (including Colleyville, Texas; Buffalo, New York; and Highland Park, Illinois). 
• Bottom line: Cuts to the FBI would negate critical investments Congress has provided over the past several years that have helped: 
  • Thwart and investigate cyber intrusions from nation-state actors and criminals
  • Deter efforts by countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to infiltrate government systems and American companies to gain economic and military advantage 
  • Combat terrorism—both foreign and domestic 
  • Protect innocent children from predators and online exploitation 
  • Investigate and guard countless Americans from the effects of violent crime crippling communities across the nation and deter efforts of transnational organized criminals—even along the southwest border. 

New FBI Headquarters 

• The Fiscal Year 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was signed into law on March 15, 2022, directed the administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) to select Greenbelt, Maryland; Landover, Maryland; or Springfield, Virginia, as the site for a new FBI headquarters.  
• To fulfill this directive, the FBI continues to work with GSA to undertake a fair and transparent site selection process, to include collaborating on the appropriate site selection plan and criteria. The FBI is confident in GSA's expertise to select a location that will meet the needs of our workforce, meet the mission of the FBI, and be a good deal to the taxpayer.   
• In addition to congressional direction to locate the next FBI Headquarters in the National Capital Region (NCR), there are numerous operational reasons to keep FBI Headquarters in the NCR. Under the new Headquarters plan, the FBI will still maintain a number of critical assets in the NCR, including the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, where the FBI must maintain close proximity to meet mission requirements. The FBI works closely on a daily basis with other Department of Justice (DOJ) entities and partners in the Intelligence Community (IC), who are all located in the NCR.  
• The FBI’s facilities at Redstone Arsenal cannot accommodate the minimum of 8,500 personnel planned to occupy the new Headquarters suburban and downtown facilities. 

Documents Investigations 

• Anytime we learn about classified materials that aren’t being stored securely and that could pose a risk to national security, it’s the FBI’s job to mitigate that risk by working to retrieve the materials and make sure they’re secured properly.  
• The FBI has a long history of handling investigations into the mishandling of classified information. Our standard for approaching those investigations is the same no matter who it is. That approach means that we typically start with the least intrusive means to try to retrieve the improperly stored classified information. But if those less intrusive means don't work, and certainly if they're impeded in some way, then we adapt and turn to other legal tools that we've been entrusted with. 

Social Media Engagement 

• The FBI is not in the business of being the “truth police” or telling any social media company to censor an account, and we don’t moderate content. 
• The FBI is, as a law enforcement and intelligence agency, responsible for working with companies, in a fully lawful way, to protect our communities from child predators and terrorists, as well as hostile foreign countries like China, Russia, and Iran, looking to exploit social media platforms to commit crimes and threaten national security. 
• When the FBI gets information that a hostile foreign actor is behind a social media account, we share with the company that the information is specific to a foreign actor, not based on content or narratives. The social media companies independently decide what, if any, action to take on their own platforms for their own customers. 

Domestic Terrorism  

• The FBI is charged with protecting the American people from a wide variety of threats, from terrorism, cyber threats, and violent crime to public corruption, hate crimes, and crimes against children. Our commitment to one does not come at the expense of another.  
• The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s authority to investigate a case as domestic terrorism requires the existence of a potential criminal federal violation, the unlawful use or threat of force or violence, and ideological motivation of any type. We do not investigate ideology.   
• The FBI investigates individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and other criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security.  
• We are committed to upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment activity. 
• Domestic terrorism is on the rise: In fiscal year 2019, the FBI’s domestic terrorism program had approximately 1,000 investigations. By the end of fiscal year 2020, well in advance of January 6, 2021, the domestic terrorism program had upwards of 1,400 investigations—about a 40% increase. 
• By the end of fiscal year 2022, the FBI’s domestic terrorism program included approximately 2,700 investigations.   

Report of Special Counsel John Durham 

• The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel John Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership had already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect. 
• Director Wray has repeatedly said, “I consider the conduct described in the report to be unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution. I’ve been consistent about that since the IG did his deep dive into this investigation in 2019. I wasn’t here in 2016 during the problems the inspector general and the special counsel identified, but since I’ve been in this role, my leadership team and I have been committed to fixing these problems and ensuring we do our work with the rigor, professionalism, and objectivity the American people deserve. The failures outlined in the special counsel’s report are why I ordered 40+ corrective actions around the time of the IG’s report in 2019—reforms that went above and beyond the IG’s recommendations and ones we’ve since implemented dozens more.”   

Attorney General’s School Board Memorandum  

• The FBI has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be. Our focus is and always will be on protecting people from violence and threats of violence. We are fully committed to preserving and protecting First Amendment rights including the right to free speech. 
• The suggestion that the FBI’s creation of a threat tag somehow means we’re targeting or using counterterrorism tools to go after parents for exercising their First Amendment rights is completely inaccurate. 
• Threat tags are statistical tools to track information for review and reporting. The mere existence of a threat tag does not change the long-standing predication requirements for opening an investigation. 
• Director Wray gave the following statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 4, 2022: “Let me say to you and to this committee the same thing I said to every FBI field office after I read the memo, which was that the FBI is not going to be in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and that we're not about to start now. That threat violence—threats of violence, that's a different matter altogether, and there we will work with our state and local partners, as we always have.” 

Richmond Field Office’s Intelligence Product 

• While the FBI’s standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, this particular field office product—disseminated only within the FBI—regarding racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI. 
• Upon learning of the document, FBI Headquarters quickly began taking action to remove the document from FBI systems and conduct a review of the basis for the document. The FBI is committed to sound analytic tradecraft and to investigating and preventing acts of violence and other crimes while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never conduct investigative activities or open an investigation based solely on First Amendment-protected activity. 
• The FBI is not targeting Catholic churches nor any other religious faith.  
• The FBI will never conduct investigative activities based solely on First Amendment-protected activity, such as religion. We take seriously our obligation and responsibility to protect the American people while upholding the Constitution.   
• When describing ideologically motivated violent extremists, we focus first and foremost on violence, criminal activity, and violation of federal law.  We do not use political or religious affiliations to describe or identify violent extremists.   

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act 

• The FBI remains committed to investigating violations of the FACE Act in a fair and objective manner. The FBI investigates violations of the FACE Act through both its Criminal Investigative Division and its Counterterrorism Division. The FBI takes these cases very seriously, and although we cannot comment on ongoing investigations, the FBI will utilize every tool within its authorities to identify and bring perpetrators to justice.  
• Since the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in the spring of 2022, about 70% of the FBI’s FACE Act or abortion-related domestic terrorism assessments and investigations involve offenses against pro-life facilities or against religious institutions, while 30% involve offenses against clinics that provide abortions. In other words, more than two-thirds of the FBI’s FACE Act or abortion-related domestic terrorism assessments and investigations involve some type of offense against a pro-life facility or a religious institution.  
• At the FBI, the focus is on violence and threats of violence. The FBI will vigorously pursue investigations into violence or threats of violence, regardless of ideology. 

Whistleblowers 

• The FBI has not and will not retaliate against individuals who make protected whistleblower disclosures. 
• The FBI recognizes the important role whistleblowers play and takes very seriously our responsibility under the regulations and other protections, which are something we train all our employees on. The FBI likewise takes very seriously our other rules, policies, and security requirements. We expect our employees to comply with both. 

Subpoena of FD-1023 

• An FD-1023 form is used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting by a confidential human source. Documenting the information does not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information verified by the FBI. Revealing unverified or possibly incomplete information could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputations, create misimpressions in the public, or potentially identify individuals who provide information to law enforcement, placing their physical safety at risk. Information from confidential human sources and members of the public is critical to the work of the FBI, and we are also committed to protecting the confidentiality of anyone who comes forward. 
• The common-sense protections the FBI has requested to maintain the confidentiality of that sensitive information are routinely employed both in response to congressional requests and in court in criminal proceedings to protect the physical safety of sources and the integrity of investigations. The FBI remains committed to cooperating with the committee in good faith. 
• The FBI has no interest in protecting anyone politically. 
• The U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh and the U.S. attorney in Delaware, both appointed under the previous administration, oversaw these matters. 
• The information in the FD-1023 was shared with all appropriate stakeholders with an investigative purpose, including the U.S. attorneys who were overseeing the matter. 
• The redactions the FBI made to the FD-1023 before sharing it with Congress were solely to protect the identity of the source. 

Origins of COVID-19 

The FBI has long assessed that the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic was likely a laboratory-associated incident in Wuhan, China. Our intelligence assessment is the product of a rigorous, independent process. However, a definitive interagency conclusion is pending, and the FBI will continue to support the U.S. government’s effort to investigate the origins of COVID-19.