
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday in his first appearance before Congress since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, as the bureau faces scrutiny over whether it properly shared intelligence leading up to the assault as well as its broader role in addressing the nation's domestic terror crisis.
Wray has not spoken publicly about the Capitol siege since a Jan. 15 appearance alongside then-Vice President Mike Pence, amid heightened fears that President Joe Biden's inauguration would be the target of a possible attack.
The FBI at the time had already identified 200 suspects in the bureau's sweeping investigation of the riot, Wray said, and warned those who had yet to turn themselves over to authorities.
"We know who you are, if you’re out there, and FBI agents are coming to find you," Wray said.
That number has more than doubled since Wray's last public appearance, with the bureau opening more than 400 case files against individuals involved in the Jan. 6 assault, according to the Justice Department. More than 300 individuals have been charged so far in connection to the Jan. 6 attack, according to the Justice Department, with over 280 arrested in what officials described as an investigation moving at "unprecedented" speed and scale.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat told reporters on Monday that Wray is the "man of the hour."
"The head of the FBI has not appeared before the committee for an oversight hearing since July of 2019. There are many questions. And certainly, at the top of the list, there are threats to America today that we need to put in as a priority. I think domestic terrorism, religious and racial based hate groups have become a major threat in America. I want to know if our intelligence operations have taken this into consideration in establishing their priorities," Durbin said.