Dan Bishop Asks DHS Official Point Blank: Was There 'Foreign Influence' At Pro-Palestinian Protests?

2 months ago

during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) spoke about potential foreign influence in pro-Palestinian demonstrations seen across the United States.

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Transcript

00:00The gentleman yields. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Bishop.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Weinstein, thank you again for this opportunity.

00:12Early on in your testimony, when we were having a colloquy in the first round, I think you talked

00:16about events, anti-Semitic protests and the like around the country. Do you guys have any

00:27information or indication whether any of that is a product of foreign malign influence? That is to

00:33say, we're all aware we've had a fairly controversial foreign influence task force of

00:39the FBI and the issue with the foreign malign influence allegedly spread through social media

00:46and what the FBI has done to curtail that. We had the Murphy versus Missouri case just came out from

00:50the Supreme Court today in which they said there's no standing for people who felt like their speech

00:54was suppressed to challenge that in the United States in court. What about these protests?

01:01What I meant when I said earlier about post-October 7 things, I was just stunned to watch

01:07Palestinian flags, 300,000 people marching through streets. I just didn't know that was

01:12the nature of the politics we had in the United States even at this point.

01:16Then, of course, we've seen all of the protests, some of them involving significant vandalisms,

01:21the tent settlements, a lot of building vandalism at universities across the country.

01:28Is there foreign malign influence in that? So you put your finger on a very critical issue.

01:34Obviously, if there were, that would be, if I was aware of anything, that'd be based on

01:39intelligence sources and methods. So you couldn't talk about it? I couldn't speak about it in an

01:43unclassified context, but let me just say that that is an issue that we in the intelligence

01:50community focus on, not just with this round of protests, but with all protests, because

01:55we're seeing that that is one of the entries in our adversary's menu, right? Try to foment

02:00agitation within the United States, sow discord. We've seen that over and over, and one of the

02:05ways of doing that is to try to sort of sow disorder on the streets. Are there programs,

02:11are there government resources that are available to deal with that in any way? So again,

02:17the Foreign Influence Task Force, that's a publicly known thing. They're supposed to be,

02:21they say they are working to counter foreign malign influence on social media. Are there

02:28programs, or I guess if you can't really speak to it, even if you can't speak to the risk,

02:32can you talk about whether there are resources that are devoted to trying to address that in

02:35any way? Sure, and once again, I'm answering as to sort of any foreign malign influence,

02:40sort of put aside whether it relates to any particular protest. Absolutely, the Foreign

02:44Malign Influence Center is up and running and is focused on that. The FBI, obviously,

02:49that is a counterintelligence threat. So if a foreign nation state or foreign terrorist

02:55organization is trying to foment discord with any groups here in the United States,

02:59that is by definition a counterintelligence threat, and it's a subject of something that

03:05the FBI can investigate, and that's the kind of matter that they do investigate. Okay,

03:08in the remaining time, I want to revisit this same topic a couple times that I've addressed,

03:12tried to address a couple times. I've read from Director Abizaid's response back in November 2022.

03:18I had another crack at her in November 2023, and I kind of went at the same issue again,

03:22whether the sheer volume of cross-border crossing presents a significant risk of terrorism. She said

03:29at one point, I appreciate the question. We absolutely recognize the kind of vulnerabilities

03:33that are associated with border security across all our ports of entry across southwest border

03:38otherwise, but I would maintain, and I talk to my analysts about this on a regular basis,

03:42that as we look at the global terrorism environment, as we look at foreign terrorist

03:47organizations' intentions to try and seed operatives into the United States, we don't

03:51have indications that are credible or corroborated that those terrorist organizations are trying to

03:56do that at this time. Do you join in that opinion at this time? Well, let me answer that a couple

04:04ways. That was obviously an answer at that point in time. Has it changed? November 2022. This was

04:1123, actually. November 23. And so that was at that point in time. In terms of what terrorism

04:20threat there is, whether there are any particular threat actors, I would have to defer to the FBI,

04:27NCTC, and my colleagues who will give you a brief in the closed session. So you can't really answer

04:32the question whether that still obtains? I cannot answer what the intelligence picture is in an open

04:38setting. I will just tell you, as an American citizen observing, it seems like the Tajik story,

04:44it seems like the NBC story I related earlier, it seems like the vice admiral on Fox News saying

04:51we're receiving probing visits a couple times a week at military installations in the United

04:56States. I did a hearing recently in a subcommittee on the 1100% increase in Chinese national

05:04migration. But she was prepared to say that, and you can't say one way or the other today.

05:11No, keep in mind, I'm answering the question what the intelligence picture is and telling you that

05:15I just can't do it publicly. But I can say this. We see that as an area that we need to focus on,

05:21and we're spending a lot of time focusing on it, and we're redirecting resources to focus

05:25on the border, and I've explained why and what we're doing. So in terms of the seriousness with

05:31which we take that concern, we're taking it very seriously. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein. I yield back.

Dan Bishop Asks DHS Official Point Blank: Was There 'Foreign Influence' At Pro-Palestinian Protests?

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