From cybercrime to terrorism, FBI director says America faces many elevated threats ‘all at once’
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota — The country is facing increased threats from many quarters as law enforcement agencies struggle, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in an exclusive interview, adding that he finds it “hard to think of a time in my career when so many different types of threats have all increased at once.”
Wray spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday during a visit to the agency’s Minneapolis office to discuss partnerships among law enforcement agencies and with other entities. His comments come as the FBI faces heightened concerns about terrorism, both domestic and international, as well as Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft and foreign election interference.
“I’m concerned about the combination of so many threats being presented at once, with the challenges that men and women in law enforcement face in general,” Wray said at the office in the suburb of Brooklyn Center. “And the only thing that I think helps bridge those two challenges is partnerships. That’s how we get through this. It’s by all of us working together.”
Wray’s assessment of a heightened threat landscape is consistent with the alarm bells he has been sounding for months. Shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel, Wray began warning that the devastation could serve as inspiration for militants, “the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago.”
The FBI is also busy addressing security concerns at the U.S. southern border. In June, officials revealed that eight people from Tajikistan, believed to have ties to the Islamic State, had been arrested and detained for violating immigration laws.
Officials also face the specter of foreign election interference. The FBI and other federal agencies announced on monday that Iran was responsible for a hack targeting the Trump campaign and an attempted break-in into the Biden-Harris campaign, part of what officials described as a brazen and aggressive effort to meddle in American politics.
Wray declined to comment on a specific investigation or threat, but said investigations into cyberattacks, including attacks against election infrastructure, candidates or campaigns, require private sector assistance.
“One of the things we focus on every day is partnerships, because at the end of the day, it’s about the ability to connect the dots, whether it’s a threat to election influence or some other threat,” Wray said. “You need partners sharing information to put the pieces together and see the bigger picture.”
According to Wray, police officers are killed in the line of duty at a rate of about one every five days. He noted that in Minnesota alone, four first responders will die in 2024. This includes a Minneapolis Civil Servant killed in May while trying to help someone, and two officers and a paramedic who was killed in Burnsville in February when a heavily armed man opened fire.
“Such forms of violence break my heart every time,” the director said.
The FBI has not been spared from such attacks either: Days after agents raided Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, in search of classified documents, a gunman who had called on social media to kill federal agents “on sight” died in a shootout after trying to enter the FBI’s Cincinnati office.
Wray said the FBI has worked to strengthen traditional partnerships with state and local law enforcement, while also creating other forms with industry and academia to counter cybersecurity or intellectual property threats. In Minneapolis and other offices, he said, authorities are working with school resource officers and mental health professionals to help at-risk teens in hopes of deterring future threats.
Collaborating with industry is important to protect innovation and artificial intelligence from outside threats, Wray said.
“AI is in many ways the most effective tool against the use of AI by the bad guys,” he said. “So we need to work closely with industry to try to ensure that American AI can be used to protect American citizens from AI-enabled threats that are coming the other way.”
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Eric Tucker, an Associated Press editor in Washington, contributed to this report.