 Welcome. I'm David Sturman, a senior policy analyst here at New America. We're here to discuss extremism and domestic terrorism in the wake of the Capitol siege, and also what led up to it. At New America, we've been tracking terrorism and extremism of many kinds, including far right extremism for about a decade. One of the things we've been doing is tracking deadly attacks that are politically motivated inside the United States by people who profess or demonstrate such a motivation from any major ideology. According to our data since or in the post 911 era, we've noted attacks killing 114 people motivated by the far right writ broadly that includes anti government militia movement, anti abortion violence, as well as explicitly racist and white supremacist terrorism. But we're not here to only discuss the broader one on January 6 there was of course, the ride at the Capitol that breached the Capitol building. I think very shocking to many people. Not at least 59 people have been charged according to the last time I checked. Among those charges was an individual who drove a vehicle to DC and in that vehicle when searched were firearms and 11 Molotov cocktails. There were firearms on and in the sort of vicinity of the Capitol carried by various writers. There were at least two individuals but more to have been charged I believe, who had plastic handcuffs on them when they breached the Capitol. And there's also a number of charges for just illegal entry for the Capitol as well. In addition, the US has announced that it's examining further charges and specifically created a task force to potentially pursue sedition charges, and we'll look at more serious charges that may be tied to broader organizing or broader efforts within the right to discuss this and the events at the Capitol, how we got here, where we go from here now. And we have Arif Ali Khan, who is a New America international security program, and a former senior director on the National Security Council for counterterrorism. We have Arif Ali Khan who has a 25 year history on working on many of these issues, including years as a federal prosecutor, being the deputy mayor for Los Angeles for Homeland Security issues and as a system secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. And we have Janet Redman, a journalist contributor to the New York Times magazine, who wrote a major cover story on extremism, the failures and ways law enforcement has responded to far right extremism, in particular and who is writing a book on the subject. We'll have a lot from the various reporting that has gone into that. To start us off, I'm going to ask all three to give us sort of a sense of their initial reaction to the events at the Capitol, what they think happened, how it should be understood. And from that we'll go into a number of more specific questions before taking your questions and answers, which you can submit via the Q&A button at the bottom of your Zoom. With that, Javad, why don't you take it away. Javad, thanks for having me and thanks to New America, Peter Bergen and the rest of the team here for putting this event together and it's truly an honor to share the virtual stage with Arif and Janet. So really glad to be here. But just to kind of kick things off. Let me help folks kind of frame how we got to last week and the way I've thought about it and I even thought about this last Wednesday is that there were four key sort of factors or factors that I think worked in combination to get us to last Wednesday. So very quickly, the first was the impact of COVID. So even going from January 2020 to where we are in January 2021. So over that year stretch, the impact of COVID and all the restrictions that have come with that and perceptions of what government can do, the federal government, state and local government to restrict your liberty and lots of different ways. The first one, the second one over that same period of time, this deepening sense of political, cultural and social polarization in the country. And again, backing up a year from where we are now we had the first impeachment trial or proceedings of President and we had the Black Lives Matter and social justice movements from the summer we had the 2020 November 2020 elections and then what came out of the November elections with the, the claims that the vote was rigged or was fall so it was a contributing factor. Thirdly was or still is the high level of disinformation misinformation, fake news propaganda, whatever you want to call that. But over this past year, there just seemed to be more of it and it seemed not to be just coming from the fringe elements of society. And now become very mainstream from elected officials at the state local level. Now the federal level members of Congress, and then all the way into the White House up to the president right so that was so significant. And then I would say the last key factor that impacted arguably the other three was the ability of social media platforms to host these narratives these beliefs these ideas and let people discuss them openly. And a virtual world and sometimes even plot terrorist attacks or potential terrorist attacks so those are the four factors that I think got us to last week. I guess I'll go next David. Okay, well thank you David and thank you to New America for having me here it's great to be on this panel with my friends here. I guess from my perspective I kind of look at this at three different ways and maybe framing the issues for our discussion today. First I think we have to recognize that I said I on a national level, all of us just as Americans and human beings are just shaken by everything that we've seen happen. We may have thought it could happen may wait we may have on a clinical level and analytical level thought this was inevitable, given all that we've known and all we've worked on for so long. And I just think as a country and as individuals, especially with everything else that's going on and not just the United States but the world. I think this has hit us on emotional level that certainly we haven't had since 911. And I think that's something because it overlays I think a lot of the issues we're going to talk about of how do we get to this place. What are we doing now what is the environment and also something we have to take into consideration, moving forward. What is more on the professional level, at least my profession and us on the panel is looking at it and what happened, the security failures, the failure to protect at such a critical infrastructure, the loss of life. What happened that day that shouldn't have happened and how do we make sure it doesn't happen in the future from just a security and a policing perspective on such an important location. And I think the third thing is, what does this all mean, what does this all mean now and what does it mean going into the future, not just from a governmental level and law enforcement level how are we going to deal with this but also, where does the community come in, how does the political world come in. And I'm also very, it'll be interesting to see how much does this reach out more even internationally. And some of the issues just talking to some friends overseas. So I think there's a lot of emotion and, and sort of logistical and operational things here that make it very complex and I think I'm sure we'll get into a lot of these issues in this panel. Hi. So I was not. I was not surprised by what I saw on the six I was not I was not meaning I was not surprised that an angry mob of people who had been riled up by Donald Trump, and other polarizing rhetoric in this country, or you know that you can find on on social media that you are on, you know, YouTube and its precursors of talk and talk radio, going all the way back to the 1990s. In some cases, that this would snowball to a place where they would, you know, storm the capital and some in some belief that this was defending the government. This is part of a kind of a conversation that's been happening on the right for many, many, many years. What surprised me was that law enforcement caved that the capital actually kind of gave way. And so that to me is an indication of how not only how law enforcement and military veterans have become very much embedded in this movement. But also how how, I guess what we want to call white supremacy. But I'm not sure that that's exactly I mean that in the broadest of terms, how that has kind of baked itself into the political right the conservative right, which is very much subscribed to by by law enforcement and, and, you know, and the military not, not that everybody is a crazy mega, you know, Q and on supporter, but these are by, you know, in many ways, you know, very conservative institutions there's there's been tremendous support for, you know, for the president and both of these institutions. And it really made me think, you know, wow, this is really some of the stuff has baked itself right into their culture and, and I'm very interested I'm personally as to most I'm interested in knowing exactly what happened because I think it's it's much more than, you know, Viking man and some of them are, you know, their skin man and some of them are flamboyant people that that storm the couple. So I think that, you know, in my view. I think this should open a national conversation about extremism and the law it's long tail and the many events that have led up to this, and also about terrorism and the impact of the war and terror on this country and on a kind of a psychological level and I'm writing a book that that addresses a kind of the social unraveling of our country in the post 911 era. And there are specific benchmarks that you can look at and you can, you know, that I think are very important and, and, and they need to be addressed and I think that, you know, we don't have enough of an appreciation really of history and I think that's hugely important to kind of grasp this because this isn't just a kind of a one off of that. What I was saying so, those are kind of my broad ideas. Thank you all. Before we get into some of the discussion of how we got here I think it might be useful to define some terms or at least try and define some terms. No one loves the definitions debate but I think we'll find that it actually matters and a lot of this, or at least as informative as to how the government thinks about these issues. I'd like to throw out sort of three lenses to all three of you to talk about how you define it, whether you think they're distinct lenses. And what they show or don't show moving from sort of the narrower to perhaps the broader or at least that's how I think about it. Let's start with, what is domestic terrorism, or how do you understand terrorism in the context of this. How is it investigated by the government. And I guess to start I just throw some broad context that I think many people understand terrorism through the United States is war on terrorism. It's not necessarily understood although not quite necessarily accurately as having begun in the immediate aftermath of 911. And in particular, there's a whole material support structure tied to a list of foreign groups that you're not allowed to provide any kind of material support to Al Qaeda ISIS and its various affiliates, a couple other things. So apparently they're moving to put the Houthi rebels and Yemen onto that list. But that's not really how it gets applied here in the US. As I understand it and we'll see how this gets interpreted by our speakers. There isn't a single domestic terrorism charge, although there is a definition of domestic terrorism, at least one, I think actually multiple. There are a number of acts that are labeled or charges that are understood as terrorism charges or terrorism related charges, perhaps, most notably for what we're discussing here, attacking federal buildings or assassinating Congress people, and those could presumably be charged either with a generic material support to terrorists, which is distinct from the foreign terrorist organization less, or with the variety of sort of conspiracy attempting charges that apply to most crimes or all crimes. So I think we start with chauvin or whichever one of you and then the rest of you with what happens when the government label something or understand something as domestic terrorism. And what does that mean is that sufficient. And what would you call domestic terrorism. Thanks, David for for team all that there's a lot to unpack there so I'm going to try and take a couple bits and and obviously Janet and our full way into but just looking at the events of last week in my own mind what I've tried to sort of parse out is, or what sort of activity fits under a legal definition of terrorism or even domestic terrorism and then what analytically sort of, sort of could theoretically be described as terrorism I think you get different answers when you, when you start to sort of look at the events of last week for those two different framework so on the legal side as you mentioned David. There is no current statute from which to charge domestic terrorism but there is a definition of domestic terrorism is captured by an RF you may. You can, you can kick me virtually if I get it wrong but I believe it's 18 USC 2331. And then under that code there's a five part definition what constitutes an active domestic terrorism but I don't believe that there's a there's a charge you can bring if someone were to be if that statute were to be used again I'm not a lawyer not a former prosecutor like So that that is an issue. And David as you mentioned there is no equivalent to the foreign terrorist organization list that it already exists managed by the State Department, and then is linked to that material support. Part of us code as well so that's another thing that makes the foreign terrorism or some of the tools that we have on the foreign terrorism side so different. When it comes to domestic terrorism, is this something that the Biden administration is going to try and tackle either with a more sort of robust definition of domestic terrorism that is linked to something that looks like a domestic terrorist sport, or even more controversially, something that looks like a list of domestic terrorist organizations list domestic terrorist organization list these are all things that people have talked about and there are, you know, they're pretty fierce debates on either side of that so that's, I think how I look at sort of state of play, legally and as far as I know no one, even for the events of last week has been charged with any federal terrorism related matters right so that's something that people just have to keep watching, but then on the on the Atlantic side, you could make the argument that some of the activity from last week whether it was the destruction of property assaults against police officers the murder, the tragic murder of the one officer through violent action. You could make the argument analytically those activities look like acts of domestic terrorism so not the protest themselves but again, storming at the Capitol physical destruction attacks against law enforcement, and then potential sort of operational sort of planning that was going on beforehand so that's where I think there's this divide between what you can bring, what you can bring on the legal side, but what you can sort of analytically describe as as terrorist related activity so I'll stop there and turn it over to to RF and Janet. Sure, I'll take a stab at that just from on the sort of the legal issue and I agree with Javed. There isn't something directly that you would charge to make domestic terrorism. And that's been a debate that's been going on for a long time, not only just with that but with international terrorism. Before I get to that though I do want to make one comment about the issue of how we frame what's going on now, and the analogies to what happened after 911 and sort of the terms of the war on terror. I mean, I, there's been a lot of debate about whether we wanted to do that then and certainly whether we should do that now but I do want to make the distinction is we were literally at war. It was as a result of 911 with military operations, obviously in Afghanistan ultimately new rock and elsewhere, where there was a major role of the military and those types of kinetic operations that were going on. I don't anticipate that I don't expect that I don't see any need for something like that just based on what we're, we're having right now so I think that is a big distinction in terms of what we call it but words obviously matter. It matters now and I really do think it's time to really define the issue of domestic terrorism from a legal point of view that goes beyond just having it as an enhancement to another offense. I understand the arguments that you know sometimes it's easier to just charge somebody for setting off a bomb, as opposed to adding an additional element that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that gets into a lot of other issues including motive and intent and those complexities. On the one hand the laws, especially criminal laws reflect what society condemns and what we think is punishable and we have it's taken many many years but we've seen that being reflected in hate crimes. Hate crimes all have an underlying crime of violence. And oftentimes it's much more direct and efficient to just charge that because that's what's going to end in the large penalty, but we as a society or at least many states have decided no we need to label it for what it is, which is it is it is the hate crime. It's motivated by hate, it's motivated by things that we as a society don't accept. And I do think it's the very least this debate needs to happen and maybe the opportunity to make that change. Janet, do you have. So sorry, everybody. I've been, I've been out of this little world for a while. I think that, you know, my definition of terrorism or whether it's domestic or international is, or one definition of is, you know, has it changed behavior has it changed. The goal of terrorism is to scare people or scare society so that it's changed it changes. You know, arguably been a lot and got exactly what he wanted from 911, looking at the way our society changed looking at the, you know, it upended our culture and made us in my view, a much more fearful and much more defensive and much more in the many ways less confident country. I think with, you know, you can look at, you know, the members of Congress who are afraid to vote to impeach Donald Trump, because of their own constituents their fear that their own constituents could possibly hurt them. That to me, that's, that's it to me that's okay then this is terrorism if you're if you're afraid to do something to act in some way, because of this act. I think that that meets the criteria and I think that terrorism is an important I have a lot I think it's been a very politicized term. And I really worried deeply about a domestic terrorism statute because I think that those kinds of laws are generally for as well intention as they may be they're often used against those who are who are not part of the sort of established status quo and they tend to be used against historically that means against the left they've been used against people of color. You know, I don't have any sense of assurance that this would necessarily only be used or primarily be used against the right far right. I worry about that but I also think that it's important to kind of to call it what it is. In order to give it weight like as as I was saying it needs a sort of a societal weight that you know this is serious that these that that you know what we saw, you know last week was terrifying. There's an attack on our, you know, the last time Washington was attacked in a was 911. That was the last time, you know, this is a terror I mean it is a it is a weighty serious thing that happened. And so I do think that we should be talking about it in those terms. Thanks. Next, I want to ask you to look at it from another lens, which not sure on the best phrase for it but maybe we could call it riot control or protest policing crowd control. Why is it that we have to breach the capital. What differentiates the sort of concerns that might exist and policing before the breach, and then what can spiral out once people enter the capital. And I think one thing to look at here is in our deadly attack data. In order to sort of 20, 20, there were, I think for four or five deadly attacks inside the US that we saw as politically motivated, and several of those. I think at least three occurred in the vicinity of protest one being the shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. One being the attack in Oakland, California by a person motivated by sort of the movement. And then I'm blanking on the third one. Oh, the last one being the left wing shooting in Portland, Oregon. And it occurred in the midst of a clash between various far right, at least armed with weapons actors and left wing protesters. So it seemed like there was should have been a sense that these kinds of protests have it throw on to that Michigan arm protests that look awfully like a early version of this. Sort of the sort of protest policing frame. Well, I can take that. I mean, I think it's, it's, it's a lot more complex than I think people realize we saw that during the protests over the summer, and we've seen it in many other protests that various departments have been involved with over the years in Los Angeles where I'm very familiar with. I think, I think though that the capital situation is very unique for a number of reasons and I, and I think we all agree there were multiple points of failure here. The results and loss of life and incredible damage to the capital and injuries. So, I always think it's always very important to analyze these things from the context in which they're operating, because policing is not the same it's not monolithic we have 18,000 police departments in the United States. The concentration of law enforcement agencies just within the District of Columbia is mind boggling. And the level of coordination that that is required, typically is pretty significant, which, which they have so much practice in doing which I think is why it was shocking to most of us who have been in this world is what seems to be a lack of preparation a lack of coordination on something that seemed to be very likely to happen. I think Michael Chertoff, a former secretary said it well recently where he said, you didn't need an intelligence report to know that this was possible all you need to was a newspaper. And it sounds like many people realize that but weren't able to get the coordination the resources they needed. You know, the capital police very differently than you would a large municipal police agency in in large part because their missions are very different and in many ways many more come much more complex. You know, the capital police is responsible for protecting a critical infrastructure that is a fairly large complex building and buildings because as you know there are other buildings that are connected by tunnels where members of Congress and staff are. There are millions of people every year and not in this particular situation, but typically, of things and people. They do have law enforcement responsibilities to enforce the law if they come across a violation, whether it's a petty crime on the grounds of the capital, or there's a lot of security that's occurring. And also they have a very big responsibility of a protection detail, but unlike the Secret Service with a few people or, or, you know, somebody traveling through an airport like I was used to addressing when I was lax the 535 principles and officials that they have to protect who often all come together at once, which is what happened plus the Vice President. That is a very disparate set of responsibilities and roles and expertise. And then you couple on to that or you pile on to that a structure that is very different than any municipality or even county, where you have two houses of Congress who each have two different sergeant arms who then report to a committee who then have a chief. And the chief may be the only person with any security or law enforcement experience, and then expect it to do this under this just massive political environment COVID all these complications. I think all of those things have to be taken into consideration because there is no single reason why what happened happened. I do think that other departments are learning from that they need to I think that digging into this on all the levels is going to be very important as we move forward and learn how to better protect situations. But I hate to oversimplify it in any way that somehow the Capitol Police should have responded like the LAPD would have or another police department because their roles and responsibilities are very different. If I could jump in, David not to elaborate on anything I said because obviously our experiences is, you know, very acute on that but just, you know, to circle back to something that that you talked about with events here in Michigan and that's where I physically have now have having spent 26 years in Washington DC. So, before I moved back to Michigan, you know, the, the, what I would call sort of the first siege of a state house happened in Lansing last spring I was again still back in Washington. But for any of the folks listening or watching who remember that that was a fairly terrifying episode to because you had people who weren't there just there to protest. They were because of the coven related restrictions at that point, they were there to protest fully armed and kitted out and then walked into that, you know, State House and Lansing to potentially harass or intimidate other folks I'm actually amazed. There was no violence there the potential was so high and then the really disturbing thing was a few of the individuals who were part of that arm protest siege that's probably the best way I can think you know what to call it in April and Lansing were part of either later or already the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer that was unfolding last spring into the summer into the fall here in Michigan as well so events here in Michigan have showed what even a handful or you know a small group of people could do when they're politically sort of agree they have the capability to do great arm. They can self organize and train. And that Wolverine Watchman plot that again had some origins going back to the local protest and Lansing. That was about as serious as it gets from a terrorism perspective even though it hasn't been federally charged the federal charges for that. There's no terrorism in there for all intents and purposes again going back to my legal versus analytic distinction that was a terrorism plot. There's really no other way to describe it so just kind of going back to kind of events here on the ground in Michigan. I think we're instructive and telling for to a degree what happened in Washington last week. I'll just add to that and Java correct me if I'm wrong but that was a legal protest, where you can legally carry an open firearm on the capital grounds. And even today, although there's some restrictions about the open carry you're still lawfully able to carry a concealed weapon into the capital at any time that it's open. So that just adds a whole level of complexity to trying to protect a facility like that, despite what's happened in the country. And that's a law that I mean, no one was asking my opinion but had they, I would have said that law needs to be rethought in the name of public safety and the fact that it still hasn't gone all the way are as you mentioned that apparently whatever you know Michigan legislators say is a ban on open carry, but if you have a concealed weapons permit you can still bring your weapon in which, again from a public safety standpoint just doesn't make any sense to me but I'm not sort of calling the shots in the Michigan legislature so yeah this is another one of these things that we're going to have to work out on the policing front you know closer to ours. You know where does the waters edge kind of start and stop with First Amendment Second Amendment, and where does then public safety concerns kick in. Yeah, thanks to say on this particular issue. Yeah, just just that you know you can't we can't forget that there were organizers who are urging the organizers of this. There were organizers that were urging their followers like if you can't make it go to your state capital. You know if you're west of the Mississippi go to your state capital there are plenty of Democrats there that you can remind who you are. And you know there's a lot of open carry states there's a lot this is, I think that that you know that that I really worry about the strategy that these people are using this kind of state by state strategy. They essentially terrorize people on a local level at their state capitals. I mean, you've seen that with other, I mean, I saw that with the anti abortion movement actually, and the way that they sort of just for years just blew off. I had been focused on changing laws at the state level which which worked extremely well. And I worry about how these people will operate at a local level around, you know, with their local law enforcement at these at these, you know, are they going to store in these capitals with these laws and are much more relaxed. And what the kind of culmination of all that will be you know how will that I'll put you know, ultimately build on itself over time. And I think we should be looking you know, I'm looking at that as a journalist and asking some questions about it. So let's move to the third frame which I think will rapidly expand into a broader conversation of a number of issues. How do we understand this through a lens of sort of extremism and the ideologies forms of politics beliefs that may even not be necessarily entirely understood as political, or at least not as people are sort of used to thinking of it in the past states frame what happened, where did this movement come from. Let's start with just initially sort of some general overview and then I think there's a number of questions we should dig in on here on the role of racism in particular mobilization in particular areas, but we'll save the deep dives on that for next. So, this isn't very, it's maybe an unpopular thing to say, I see this as we can call this white supremacy. I see this movement as a kind of reflection of a form of white culture. Not every single person in that in that crowd, or every single person who follows the Q and on conspiracy, or who supports Donald Trump in a very aggressive mega kind of way, would call themselves a racist would call themselves a neo Nazi. There are people who are not white in that movement there are people Jewish people in that movement. But it is a, it is to me it is a movement that's been happening for it's been growing and growing and sort of existing in some ways in the margins and in some places in the mainstream for many, many years, and it's a movement against change and the inevitable diversification of this country. And I think that over the past 20 years in particular a series of events from the war, you know from 911 itself to the to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the election of Barack Obama, and the economic crisis that came along with that, you know, in that same movement to trade on Martin and the black lives matter movement there's been a number of kind of benchmarks that have have shaken people and have scared people who who are who feel as if their culture, rightly or wrongly is being the culture that they knew the culture that, you know, that I grew up with, you know, calling the American Indians the American you know the American Indians the Indians we thought you know for growing up thinking Columbus, you know, was was very heroic you know with these kind of very traditional ideas that we all grew up with in our school books. There are people who really are very low to give that up are deeply worried that for example their sons, their boys are going to be an or are an oppressed class I've heard this many times from people that that I've interviewed. That you know they're deeply worried that that that you know anyone other than a white male now has way more power and that means that they are disadvantaged, instead of just understanding that it's power being spread across and that this is this could be a very positive thing. And so I think that all of those kinds of factors and feelings come together in this, you know, kind of chaotic. It's almost like an explosion that we saw the other day. I don't think that it is a. It is a top down in terms of a kind of. This is neo Nazi this is white supremacist you know this is the clan it's not like that it's a much you know these movements at this point are very much horizontal. And, and they always and in many ways they always have been because the only way that they can survive that white supremacy in particular can survive is to constantly rebrand and constantly figure out new techniques for bringing in the mainstream. And so what you see in these, you see the Ashwitz guy the guy with the camp Ashwitz t shirt now we know who he is. You know you see the guy with the Confederate flag we know he is, you know, then we see somebody else who's like, you know, the, there's a there's a doctor that for on a private jet from Seattle. You know, a healthy woman, I don't know who she is. She doesn't necessarily seem like the one of those people so how did she get there and I think it's, you really have to understand sort of the horizontal nature of all of this in order to kind of begin to, to see that so. That's, that's a very brief answer to a very complicated question. He's out of part maybe a bit. In sort of differentiating and obviously these can all be understood and maybe should be understood under one broad spectrum. But if we sort of separate out for an initial discussion. So who are white supremacists in the sort of form that takes as a ideological commitment to an explicit political program of upholding white supremacy, understood as doing that. What is your sense of their presence in this movement, and their interaction with what might be seen as trends that may support white supremacy and the neo-nazi model, the kind of people who would not ironically or jokingly or just, or at least when they're in private put forward the 14 words as their political program. Their interaction with what might be seen as trends that may support white supremacy and maintaining a system that is racist, but would not personally identify as such, or don't understand their politics to be doing that. And sort of the balances of the movement of that are their tensions emerging between those different views. I think that they're, they play a significant role in this movement as they played a role in every sort of large far right movement over the past 30 years. In the 1990s with the militia movement, that the radical right, the white supremacist neo-nazi faction were a major power behind the militia movement of the 90s that was not seen as a racist movement. But they were behind the scenes in many ways and they did not, they kind of rebranded like I said they kind of rebranded themselves in a way that it wasn't noticeable. But in this situation, they're actually, I know that in some quarters of, you know, some, some sort of chat rooms and discussion boards, where the, you know, the overtly racist white supremacist neo-nazi factions hang out. They were thrilled by what happened at the Capitol because what they see is okay, this is great. Now we can, you know, we've kind of like primed the pump here and now we can bring these people in, you know, to our way of, you know, to our view, we'll introduce them to what they call the JQ, the Jewish question, you know, how, you know, you need a series of events to radicalize a person. It's like being an occult, frankly. You know, indoctrination is a long process. And, and so there is a, there's on the more extreme and radical and sort of deeply ideological sides of this movement, I think there, there is a elation that this is happening around the country. But I think it was, it is a huge mistake to just see these people as crazy clans people or clays crazy Nazis, you know, white supremacy is now baked into our politics. You know, hate to say that, but it is, I mean, it is, we have Q and not supporters who have just, who are just elected to Congress. You know, this is, this is part of who we are. And I think this is, you know, this is something that we said on the left, but I think it needs to be said in the mainstream as well. So we need to look at this. This is, this is not just about, you know, the Ku Klux Klan or the National Socialist Movement, or, you know, or people who are overtly fascist or wearing, you know, you know, swap or have swastika tattoos. It's a much, it's a much more, it's a subtle shift. And I think we need to understand it on a number of different levels and to just kind of isolated and say, Okay, well, how much is the, the real white supremacists, how much are the real Nazis playing a role in this and maybe if we just get rid of them, we'll get rid of this problem that is not that's not the way to look at it at all. Mr. Irv and Java, do you have thoughts on the broad question of the extremism framed role of racism and let me also throw you before we go to questions, how do these ideological questions get addressed or looked at within the different side in a country that at least officially tends not to like to police or doesn't want to police ideology but certainly at least has a history of actually doing that on particular movements, but also like a legal system there are ways that ideology does matter to crimes for example, when you spoke about hate crimes that's sort of a thunder ideological process, brought through the act as part of the crime, not just the act in separation from the crime and of course just like any crime as that. I mean we differentiate on types of murder by why you were thinking on doing it from mans slaughter up to premeditated it, edited first to create. So I was going to just add on to what Janet said just almost kind of reinforcer points from my own kind of observations of what's been happening is that whether this is a movement or a phenomena again I'm struggling with my own kind of way to describe it, even in the classroom teaching counterterrorism, but whatever you want to call it, I would agree that it is diffuse. Fractured. It's not monolithic. There is no command and control structure or sense of hierarchy or bureaucracy completely different for the most part from the foreign terrorist side of the threat dimension more for the most part, at least in that post 911 experience that I spent my government current, we were dealing with formal groups that had a leadership structure and infrastructure around them and a physical parts of that group either human beings or buildings or other elements that you could actually try to target or just disrupt that doesn't seem to be the case here we're battling ideas and people's ability to internalize these ideas and then either stay highly radicalized which getting to some of your questions David is perfectly legal in this country. You can be as highly radicalized as you want as long as you don't violate the law. But then some of these people have stepped over that line right and are committing various crimes again whether they're terrorism or not so this is what I think makes the this far right threat. Again, whether it's a movement phenomena, some other word, so different than the international terrorism side of the spectrum. This is relevant to discussion. The one thing I hope we don't do is we do see this as a monolithic issue or phenomenon or that because or movement, because there are strains deep strains of different things, whether it's white supremacy, whether it's anti immigration, whether it's, you know, taking but we made, I think we made this mistake when we dealt with quote unquote Islamic terrorism on a number of levels. Because is job and reference to their organized groups that you could label under that very broad category, but all of these terrorist groups had very different objectives has Bola had a very different objective than Al Qaeda, or or, you know, the Taliban, it just very, and that's so important, not necessarily from an operational level about how to make sure that they're not killing people, which is the most important thing. But when you're looking at well how do you address it from an ideological perspective or how are you going to counter the narrative or how are you going to frame this so that the movements don't expand. We don't understand the groups themselves in in their particular units or groups and we just try to wrap it all in one. I think we fail and really understanding how to deal with the problem. And so you had a question about well how do we deal with the ideology issues that that that we deal with similar to what we did after 911. Well, I hope we do a lot better, because there was a complete lack of understanding across the board, especially the leadership in the US government of even understanding what the problem truly was. There were people like Java and others who are in the organizations, but certainly at the higher levels. I mean you had the, the assistant director counter terrorism testifying in Congress saying he didn't even under the we're calling this Islamic terrorism and saying he didn't know the difference between she ism and Sunni ism. We really need to understand this problem at a very almost granular level if we're going to deal with this more swiftly and effectively going forward and and I, I'm always concerned in trying to group it all into one thing as a monolithic effort. I think the naming issue has already kicked in. If any of you have seen the joint intelligence bulletin that was published in New York Times about what's going on. In the, in the classic US government, they've named it DV ease for domestic violence MV ease from militia violent extremists. They've got racially or ethnic motivated violent extremists are MV ease, and then the, the anti government or anti authority violent extremists, otherwise known as agave is the the other one so this debate is going on. It's good because we do have to segment them out. But, but I do think from an analytical point of view, we really have to understand the motivations the objectives and how they all intersect into what we saw last week. If I can just add one thing to this, you know, something that's happened within the white supremacy movements. There was a pot, there was a kind of a strategy in the 90s, particularly to to to get involved in to to kind of not look overtly, say, Nazi, you know, to to get involved with mainstream organizations anti abortion groups, anti integration groups, and, you know, other kind of mainstream conservative organizations. So, you know, which is not to say that they have all become that every anti immigration group is now a neo Nazi organization, but this is, you know, I think that we, they're in order to find people within those movements, who might be willing to go to the more radical extreme. And so it's really, really complicated, because I think that, you know, I don't even think that one of those little designations that like say the militia extremists. Does that mean that that they're not white supremacists does that mean that that I mean some some maybe and some may not be. So I think it's and I think it's it's really important I know that I when I was, you know, researching this piece over a couple of years ago about this, that the lack of like really deep scholarship on this issue is astonishing to me. And I don't know where the funding has been for for the study of various aspects of the far right. It was, there was really so little of it to kind of get a sense of well what is going on actually. So I think that that is, if something can come out of this I would really hope that more money is thrown at both in the government sector and in the private sector is throwing it like, you know, looking at this problem and really try to analyze it. I think there's a ton here to keep talking about. So I'm going to try to throw in some audience questions that I think will bring us to similar areas. So we have one about as a lot of the focus ends up on sort of the way of thinking about information and also in particular the way that this threat seems to be seems to have a much larger overlap with the mainstream sort of American political divisions. How does sort of free speech concerns about the way policing can harm that factor into what people should be thinking about doing ends us. And then I just from my own perspective add on this. Not only are we at danger of overreaching and looking at this threat are there ways in which this jihadist or however one would like to describe that threat. But it looks like now in the United States which seems more sort of diffused also largely inspired although they're still very real organizational aspects reaching out. It does become sort of a free speech issues that looks very similar but we just don't discuss it that way. And let me throw that to all three of you. I'm going to let RF answer that as the lawyer so. Well, I'm not sure I understand your question completely but is the question about how do we deal with sort of the ideological versus the organizational aspect of it of the threat. I think there's sort of maybe two questions here one is on a legal aspect how does sort of First Amendment rights factor into prosecuting decisions, the tools that are used and then on a sort of societal level. What concerns or risks come from bringing sort of counterterrorism methods into sort of the larger range of extremism issues. In order to not sort of destroy the way that people are able to actually discuss not to police people who are not actually engaging in violence. Not to sort of draw the line on that between sort of discussion of violence as an issue and inspiring. Sure, especially when it seems with some of these events. It's very, it's in the free speech space right up until it's not whether that's because you can open carry right on to the capital grounds and many states or for other reasons. So I think I think from a prosecutorial point of view these first amendment concerns are always taken into consideration that very sensitive about those things and also just on a legal basis having to address them if you do bring charges. But I think this is this is why it's so important how we frame the issues. You know, one of the challenges of calling something violent extremism is that extremism you can have extreme views and be an extremist. That is not illegal in the United States it's not illegal in any democratic society, or most democratic societies, but violence is illegal. So violence is sort of the extreme of the way you, you try to express something that's where we draw the line. So when we kind of conflate the two concepts you're a violent extremist well is there a violent minimalist is there a violent extremist. I, it just creates that issue. It's not about the extreme views it's about the extreme action from a legal point of view, where the government legitimately and must take action. So, does that mean that everybody who has an extremist view is likely to become a violent extremist is really the question. And I think in the terms of scholarship and does it lead to that inevitably. That's where we have to, we have to really look at it. You know, it was, it was similarly complicated and the first amendment issues about religion and getting in, you know, dealing with the, you know, quote unquote Islamic terrorism that you know extreme forms of Islam meant that you were going to become violent. And that there really was very little evidence to suggest that that was the path towards the inevitability of violence. And so I think we have to distinguish that I don't see us and I hope we do not get into policing ideology as a government that it's it's wrong. And it doesn't work, because the government should not take a position on ideology. In terms of trying to condemn it and you can condemn certain perspectives in its place in society but to criminalize it is a whole different approach that could certainly backfire. Do you need to study it? Do you need to study it but I, I, because I agree with you. And I, I think it's really complicated because I look at extremism as the kind of gestational phase, you know, the sort of the bottom level of what could become violence you know you you're not I agree with you're not going to become violent unless you have something extreme inside of you. And do you need to understand various ideologies and and I don't know the answer, but I don't I feel like you need to understand something about this in order to know what it is that you're looking at right. And perhaps it could be a necessary but insufficient condition to become a violent become violent or be the ones who are doing that that's true but I think that's where we really have to look because not all people of a particular ideological bent or approach, especially if they're maybe sympathizers there's will inevitably become violent. And I think that's that's the key of figure out when does that happen. And why does it happen. And it's more than just ideology, there are circumstances there's availability there's recruitment there's indoctrination there just a lot of complex issues that I think we were on the road to try to to review those but we need to and not make it specifically. Well, if you have an extreme view, you are going to become X Y or Z violent offender. Right and a lot of the people that do become violent offenders who are linked to an ideology are not necessarily ideological. Right, I mean I've, I've interviewed, you know, neo Nazis, who have told me that they could easily be anti that, or maybe ISIS, like seriously they could they could go, you know, from one thing to the next there is a there's a boy I wrote about who did go from a neo Nazi faction to you know subscribing to the Islamic State, all of which took place on the internet, by the way. So what does that mean who was he. And I think there's a that's sort of another layer of it that, you know, the violent people may not necessarily subscribe, you know even understand this ideology. Right, I mean, especially of, because we've been fighting an actual war, and then framed a lot of our other societal response as part of that actual war, even if it's not military, when it comes to jihadist terrorism that we now think of terrorism as the worst thing where to place on these, when perhaps there's sort of a counter terrorism issue but that's actually when it comes to our democracy or what we care about really small compared to how large a segment of the population doesn't doesn't trust the government is actively seeking to sustain white supremacy in some form has developed other extreme views. And tied to that let me connect that to another audience question for you all, which is how do you, or how can one restore trust in the government, or is trust not really even the issue here or we beyond that into open political conflict. I'll take a stab at the trust issue. Even as it relates to the events of last week, and as both RF and Janet have talked about their appearance have been several sort of either mistakes may not have been delivered but certainly no mistakes were made. All the vulnerabilities were exploited you know seems in the way the government sort of operates or communicates either to itself at the federal level or at the federal level the state local I mean these are all the sort of things that had to be addressed. I think we're 12 2001 right so we're going to have to come up with the same way of thinking about this, and this post post or January 6 2021 context but I think one way. If there is a loss of confidence of government, even from the security side about kind of what transpired. And one way to get at that is to have something that looks like a 911 Commission I'm not saying you need a commission per se, but something that basically has the same effect as 911 Commission study what what went wrong. And then come up with a really solid list of recommended policies solutions that the executive branch could then implement for action right to address all those things that went wrong, whether deliberate or not. And that I hopefully would be one thing that could restore some trust and governance government government if it's lacking right now. But again there's going to have to be bipartisan support in Congress on the Biden administration is going to have to also have to agree to it from the executive branch side so I don't think anyone knows what the answer to that is right now but hopefully there's something that looks like that that will try to achieve those effects or achieve those objectives, but that would be one thing that I would be hopeful for but again it's, it's hard to know right now, if that will happen or not. Yeah, I agree with that. I think, I think that that that would be an amazing step. And again it would be a statement of the seriousness, you know, with which we take this. I also think accountability. I'm, I'm, I'm actually, I think we need to choose the reconciliation Commission of some sort to just kind of look at what's happened in the country. If not in the past few years, then since 911, if you want to go all the way back that far but if you just even want to look at what's happened in the past four years it's been one crisis after another crisis one revelation of corruption after another These are all factors by the way to play into this mindset, this anti corruption mindset, you know, you know, there is there are reasons why they just trust the government that may not make sense to us, but they make sense to the people who believe it because they believe in a completely inverse set of facts. And I think that there needs to be a kind of a national conversation around that. I'm not sure exactly how, how that would happen but, but I would, I think the fastest way to ensure distrust in government is to just move on and say move on turn the page forget about it. And frankly, I mean, I, I thought that the Obama administration made a big mistake, actually, and not, and not being harder on discussing issues like torture. I'm not, you know, I understand why, but I think that was a mistake that there could have been a much greater emphasis on looking at what happened during the Bush administration that that Obama himself had had had run on as huge mistakes, and then address them and talked about them and kind of reinforce what American values are I think there's a confusion in this country actually about what American values are. Clearly, what is it what is it that makes us all American what are our shared values what is it, you know, what is what does it mean what is constitutional even me. These are all conversations that I think we should be having and I hope deeply that, you know, that begins actually invite. I get to say, the fundamental question that that's been so answered so well from my colleagues here. I just think when you ask, you know, is is trust in government important, you know, trusting government is always important. It doesn't matter whether it's about political leadership policing or public health, I mean we are seeing the damage that's caused from the lack of trust across the political spectrum and government, just in getting basic facts and the truth. And anything we do in response to what's happened and what we're now, you know, many people are now realizing in response to this domestic terrorism threat. It's the trust in the government that will carry it through. If there's distrust that the government is being overzealous or being disingenuous or not, you know, not telling the truth about it, you will have a greater disaster than what we have right now. So the restoration of trust in all levels of government is just so critical. And I really do think fundamentally that's the challenge of our time to address any of these social issues. Let me combine a few questions to see if we can root them and get through some of these. So one I'm going to paraphrase us, what's the deal with Q and on. And then I think one that's not necessarily fully tied but is similar is, what is the role of ritual and religion in parts of these movements or the broader coming together of the various movements that were active at the capital or more broadly in America's extremists and problem. So those are the questions that I'm asking other people right now. I'm actually trying to understand that myself. I am. Q and on is a conspiracy theory. And with with a long history that I actually, I'm not expert enough on to just hold forth on right now to be completely honest with you. So I'll answer the religion question. It's very interesting in what I found as a journalist. It has been very interesting that the people that I have found or heard about who have drifted into this extreme Q and on believing you know, Donald Trump is infallible believing movement is our pretend to be conservative Christians evangelical Christians. There is a kind of again that doesn't mean all evangelical Christians are this way, or even all conservative Christians are this way but there does seem to be a link between a kind of an ability to give oneself up to faith and what is required of you to be part of this type of extremism or any extremism. And I mean I think he's obviously if you see religious religion and other extremist movements. Is not in jihadist movements for example. But there is a there seems to be a direct link between Christian Christian Christianity and and and some of these movements and and certainly you know if you've seen like there are people that were carrying a flag that said oh I can't remember. There's there's a there are people carrying flags that link directly link Trump to Jesus, this movement to Jesus. So there's a lot of there's a lot of overlap is I guess what I would say but but I'm in the process of actually reporting on that. And I'll, I'll jump in on that to an agree not as much on the sort of Christian identity part of this or kind of neo Nazi or a cult type symbols and iconography that is that is apparently showing up. But as Jan has said it does seem to be important for some people right either sort of draws you in to these ideas or beliefs or activates you for for violence. But think about the same thing that had been weaponized as Janet mentioned for jihadist groups, both al Qaeda and ISIS managed to take the the shahada right that the most simple profession of the Muslim faith that they're a believer, and they managed to make that make the shahada into a banner of jihadism, which it sounds crazy, but they did right that's when people refer to the black flag of al Qaeda ISIS. Those are the words that are on that black flag usually within within white. It's so offensive to most Muslims to see how those groups have weaponized again the most simple profession of just believing in Islam. And that is another example of how symbols and religious activity can be looked towards violent action. One of the far right organizations is called the Patriot Prayer. There's a lot of overlap in, in not just so I can argue but also just in the language and there, you know, we're. I mean Christian identity is a great example of this but. But there is. I really think that this stuff has been very much woven into. The strain of conservative Christianity that has been woven into many of these movements and and the Q and on movement seems to sort of pick up on it. There's a, there's a. To give you just like a kind of a quick example, the distress to invert it. There is a profound distrust of atheists in this movement, atheists equal communists equal leftists equals Democrats equals pedophiles. And you can go right and I mean, if you're an atheist, you know, who are God, if you're a Godless Communist you're Godless Communist if you're Godless Communist. Well, you're aligned with the liberals and the Democrats and the Democrats are so evil. They're pedophiles. I mean this is actually a continuum of thought within. Q and on. So, I mean, how you can only get that there. It's an inverse type of faith. You know, if you have, if you have deep, deep faith in something else and unquestioning faith in something else. It's an absolutist mentality that is, that is found in certain kinds of very, you know, fundamentalist or very fervent forms of faith. So, so I mean, I think, and again, like that's something that you know that when you look at when you look at, you know, Q and on it sounds crazy like why are Democrats pedophiles why are they drinking the blood of children. And then you sort of rewind it and it's like oh right and then Joe Biden is a puppet of the Communist Party and why did they hate the communists and you just kind of rewind this backwards and you just see that there is it's kind of rooted in this dislike of atheism. And that's what we're seeing here on. We've been discussing some of the various strands that come together, how they've been knit together and some of the tensions is what we're seeing now. The creation of what will come to view as a new movement label. Whatever you want to call that, like an extreme Trumpianism or MAGA or something else is that new has it overwhelmed sort of what might have used to have been fighting groups and change those origin points in a structural way. Let me add to that. It's what we're seeing usefully understood as new, or via those various points or is this just what the right as we really always been in many countries, or at least wanting not to write always been but one expression of right wing politics that this potential was always there. There's not a need to name it something new. Certainly, there's always been a range of like political violence to defend this status quo that brings together a variety of these things. So let me throw that to you all. I think it's a movement. I do think it's I think it's a movement I think it's on one level it's not new. On another level I think it's very it's not very well understood. And I mean, in, I think by saying, this is not new. We don't want to then say it's not important. It's really important. It's just not it is, you know, have we seen similar things like this in other parts of the world of course we have. Should we take this, this MAGA, whatever you want to call it, I don't really know what you want to call it I think it's, I think it's this MAGA movement that's way beyond Donald Trump or Trumpism. You know, should we take that really seriously, I really think we should. I really think we should. I really think that we need to understand that this is rooted in, in, in different ideologies and different social movements, and different forms of extremism white extremism whether it's organized white supremacy whether it's organized neo-Naziism whether it's organized the organized militia movement, whether it's the organized anti-abortion movement the anti-immigration these are all strains of far right thinking that have in some ways come together or woven in themselves and the second amendment movement is huge, huge, huge in this. And some of these movements have woven themselves together in various ways to, to manifest in this way and I think we need to look at this and understand, you know, what this is about. But these these movements have been around for for decades, if not longer mean forever, but for decades they've been on the radar for decades. How much importance would you all put on Trump as individual and Trump's use of the White House as fully pulpit on the dynamics we're seeing now. Is he essential to that weaving together as it's sort of expressed in the riot on the Capitol, or would these movements have come together if we say had a Hillary Clinton presidency for the past four years. I think they would have been worse. I think it would have been worse with Hillary Clinton I think Trump in some bizarre way because of his authoritarian tendencies kind of clamped it down. I think these, these, these sentiments these feelings this anger, this desire for some kind of revolution was there, long before Donald Trump was elected, and had Hillary Clinton been elected and fulfilled any of the sort of fears that that those on the right had been there. It could have been a very dangerous situation and I mean, which is not to say I don't think Trump is the leader of the troubadour of this of this movement and that he didn't incite these people. I believe that he did. But I also think this is bigger than Trump and was been will still be here without Trump. And, and actually if you want to, you know, when you do look at certain. There's a nihilistic faction in this movement the accelerationist faction that that couldn't care less about who your leaders are they're just about burning this whole system down. And that's, you know, they're thrilled by all of this. And that has nothing to do with Donald Trump it had nothing it has nothing to do with the pull the guy at the top or the woman at the top and has to do with the system itself. And I think that is actually growing. I think though, if I could just add real quick, the job of that is, I do think though that with Donald Trump in the presidency and all the people who followed him within the government, and all of the sort of legitimizing of what he said and what was done and sort of the, the, the, in the attempt for the media to be objective by giving equal weight to sort of the two perspectives that has had a set to legitimize a lot of the things that he was doing and it went from dog whistling to just full on blaring a, you know, a parade of trumpets on on some of these issues. And the fact that that happens. It, I think it is created much more of a maybe a sympathizing movement or maybe a broadening movement. I agree it wouldn't have gone away he's not the singular reason I think he's more of the manifestation of it. I would really, I don't think we would be where we are on this without that sort of legitimizing effect which is why I think it's so important that we delegitimize it and you're seeing that happen. And I think the shutdown of these, these, especially inciting violence, etc, and marginalizing that aspect of it is really important. I mean, you can put it back in the box as a thing that I'm thinking like you. Sure, but you can mitigate it. I think, and you're going to have to do many, many things in order to address this problem just as we have with other similar issues, but I do think his he's had a tremendous impact as well as the entire political apparatus that's followed him. I mean if you look at not only with the success of running over but they didn't dissuade the people who said they were going to vote against the, the, the election and kept perpetuating these, these falsities about the nature of the election so the empowerment that has come from this I think is significant and it'll be yet to be seen what happens in a few days. So we don't have much time left but there's one really important issue we meant to get to, and we should prioritize in our last eight minutes here, which is what, what are your thoughts and what are the problems that emerge from the purchase of this movement, these movements these ideologies within law enforcement, the military, and also various other agencies that may not be those but touch upon public safety issues may see may see intelligence products maybe in a sort of veto point over important things, especially with so many National Guard being put into DC at the moment, out of the pretty clear failure of the level and of policing on the or not what but allow the capital. So, I'll take a crack at that first I apologize for the color changing on my screen I have no idea how that happened it just that's welcome to technology anyways. So that issue that you know it's very controversial very complex I don't think there's a single answer on it. I'll just give you my own personal insight is a former national security and counter terrorism professional like RF. So these jobs, whether in the military law enforcement the intelligence committee, you take an oath you take an oath to defend or uphold the Constitution and protect the country from all threats foreign and domestic so to think that there are people either or active in any of these professions who are promoting ideas are taking concrete steps towards violating that code or that that oath that you take. It's, it's one of the most. It's one of the saddest and most disturbing aspects to this right because I just can't get into the mind of someone who thinks like that, having been a former professional myself or every day you wake up and you're like what can I do to, to make the country safe, not the complete opposite of what's happening so that's my own personal insight into this you know it's it's really disturbing to see the level of what this looks like right now. I have a questions. I mean, maybe for you, job of like the FBI, for example, they knew they've known for years that that white supremacist has infiltrated law enforcement. But the public didn't know. I mean they were, they were these, you know, internal intelligence reports, since going back to the mid aughts about this. I don't understand what could have, how this could have been dealt with or why it wasn't dealt with but it is, it is, it's obviously it's an enduring problem it's not just a new thing they've been. This has been going on for quite a long time and we've seen these groups like the oath keepers or three percenters, you know that are that go directly for law enforcement and military. And I don't, I don't, I'm very interested in what the, what the federal government is doing about that, especially since some of the members are members of the federal. So, yeah, I'll take a swing and RF you have your own insight too but just very quickly. My observation, having been in the FBI as an analyst the senior analyst for on counterterrorism is that there was, there was efforts made to sort of look into this, but it wasn't strategic right there wasn't the same sort of centralized strategic integrated programs that were designed to look at the jihadist threats both, both at home and abroad and whether that was the right reason or the wrong reason it just, it was a fact right we just didn't have that same kind of level of prioritization not only at the FBI but in terms of other parts of the national security enterprise. So, you know, obviously there's going to be, you know, a lot of hard conversation now about why that strategic effort hadn't happened in the past or didn't start earlier. So I can't say it was completely ignored. But again, it wasn't prioritized the same way, wasn't looked at the same way. And that, you know, led to different outcomes but RF, you saw this too. Yeah, I mean, part of it is, I mean, the FBI, I certainly have all the federal agencies that's taken this seriously in a way that no one else has over the decades. I think what having been inside bureaucracies of many different agencies is that they don't operate by themselves they don't make decisions independently. And to direct a raised credit he in recent hearings he was saying domestic terrorism is the greatest threat we have. And this was not that long ago, but I would never underestimate the political pressure that leadership, especially in Washington are under on these types of issues which often emanates locally. This is not just only this administration, I recall when I was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security in 2009. There was a product that was produced by the Department of Homeland Security intelligence and the FBI released talking about this specific threat, especially a former military and law enforcement who were part of militia and white supremacy movements. And for those of you remember it was, it was, it was soundly rejected by many in Congress as being ridiculous and being absurd and basically forcing the department to retract it. This was 11 years ago. So, they, you know, the departments don't act in a vacuum they're heavily influenced by things and then also just lastly, you know, agencies go where the resources are provided the agencies don't determine what resources they get. It's Congress it's the political establishment that decides where their budget goes and down to how many agents you're going to have investigating a particular type of crime. And that can often lead where the resources go to, to do the things that they want and try to do. And that's not much at time which is unfortunate since we have a ton more questions and really I think that's the reflection of how there may have been or was a broader failure to have these discussions publicly to the extent it needed to be. Let me give you each a very quick chance for any concluding remarks and perhaps as part of that or if you don't have anything. If you want to bring up, what might surprise you about this issue area over the next 10 years, or what you think people might not expect that might become a big part of the issue area. Yeah, maybe I'll just start. I think I have seen this in policing, in particular and other things that it's times like these that are catalyzing moment to shift and change things that we need to do. In any way any law enforcement public safety agencies ever responded it typically happens after tragedy or something that jars the country that creates this momentum. Every earthquake code in California is directly correlated to a major earthquake right before. And I do think this is that opportunity if directed in the right way for us to be stronger and, and I think we'll be surprised with the resilience of this country. I'm not trying to be Polly Anish about this but I do think given everything that we've all experienced and how exhausted and emotionally drained we are. We will emerge better. Still have these very deep seated problems they're not going to evaporate but I am optimistic that this will, because we have these opportunities to talk and we have very good people who want to do the best in public service, and in the community that we will, we will be able to get through this. And I'll just add that kind of jumping off what RF and Janet have said this is an enduring threat that is probably only going to grow in intensity in the coming years it's not sort of specific to you know Trumpism or Magism what Janet is described you know the history here goes back 3040 years and we're just seeing the latest crest of it. And at the same time the government has to change right I mean there has to be a paradigm shift in the way we think about domestic tourism least the federal level and what new resources tools capabilities. And the authorities, you know bureaucratic structures that all has to be figured out in the coming years, and then, you know with these really big 10 pendulum shifts at the same time. We can't take our eye off the ball of the international terrorism threat right because we've seen when that happens to. You know bad things can happen so this is the you know this is the real sort of challenge for counter terrorism of you move too far on one end of the spectrum then other threats kind of fill the void and so we're going to have to figure out a way to maintain some level of equilibrium and balance but also flexibility to shift as as threats change rapidly as well. I will reiterate what I said before I think there is a huge opportunity for a kind of a national conversation and you know from, you know, and a political conversation and kind of a reckoning with all this and recognition that for whatever the reasons that this issue has not been taken quite as seriously as as international terrorism, and without necessarily, you know deconstructing why that is because I think we've all sort of done that. And I think at least journalists have, you know, I think there needs to be a conversation around okay well now we're going to treat it seriously so how are we going to treat it seriously, how are we not going to violate people's first amendment rights, I have a. I'm very divided on this point because I'm a huge civil libertarian, but I also see how the first amendment has been used in ways to just not really pursue things that could be pursued. And that I'm hoping that we kind of really sort of reevaluate what you know what's constitutional what's not what whatever Americans allowed to do. What are they not allowed to do, are they, you know, you can have any idea how do you want you can say whatever you want but if you say something that insights a riot, that's a that's kind, you know, and we need to sort of understand what the lines are. I don't think we do that actually do understand that so I, my hope is that this opens up a much larger and longer national conversation and you could have a 911 Truth Commission type thing, I think that would be an incredible step forward and very positive. Well, thanks to all of our speakers, I'm sure this topic will not be going away anytime soon. There's so much we didn't get to, but we did get to a lot and again, thank you to y'all for a great conversation.