CNN's Pamela Brown highlighted a moment from a Homeland Security Committee hearing where the panel's top Democrat laid into an FBI official for his inability to provide details about the group he identified as the nation's top violent domestic security threat.
FBI official Michael Glasheen told the committee the law enforcement agency agrees with President Donald Trump that the left-wing group posed the greatest national security threat to the U.S., but he was unable to substantiate that claim when Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) pressed him for details.
"I'll ask one question, sir: I just want you to tell us if you said antifa is the number one domestic terrorist organization operating in the United States," Thompson said. "I just need to know where they are. How many people? I don't want a name, I don't want anything like that. Just how many people have you identified with the FBI that antifa is made of?"
Glasheen told the congressman the investigations remained active and described them as "very fluid," and Thompson pounced.
"You wouldn't come to this committee and say something you can't prove," Thompson said. "I know, you wouldn't do that. But you did."
Brown was stunned by the exchange, which she summed up as "quite the moment there," and she invited former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to comment.
"You can't come to the worldwide threats hearing and claim that something is the biggest threat in the United States, the biggest security threat that we face, and then provide zero details or facts about it," McCabe said. "Now, of course, we can't expect the FBI to talk about specific cases or identify individuals under under investigation. That's sensitive information, but very typically the director or the representative should be able to say 'This is what we think about them, here's how we know about them, here's how big we think they are, here's the regions of the country we think they're located in.'"
"The fact is, as any follower of and student of antifa can tell you, those things are just those facts are just not there for antifa," he added. "Antifa is not has never been a structured formal organization with an identified leader or even an identified directive. They are a loose collection of people who exhibit the same sort of anti-establishment views and, you know, violent activity among protests."
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