FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday said the bureau thwarted four terrorist attacks across the U.S. last December - including three inspired by ISIS - by tracking suspects both online and in person.
Patel was testifying at the Senate Intelligence Worldwide Threats hearing on Capitol Hill when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked about what measures the FBI was taking to stop foreign terrorist organizations from recruiting and influencing Americans online.
Patel testified that foreign terrorist organizations, including ISIS, have become "all the more powerful" by moving their recruitment capabilities online.
"What we have done is extended and expanded resources to environments like the Threat Screening Center, which allows us to collect biometric capabilities from all over the world," Patel said, noting double-digit increases in those resources and the bureau's intelligence production.
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Patel said the FBI has also increased its manpower to detect such threats online.
"But what we've also done in the [counterterrorism] space specifically is expand the number of agents and intel analysts that go online and detect based on our biometric capabilities and intelligence that we have from the interagency," he said.
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Patel said that led the bureau to foil four terrorist attacks in California, Texas, North Carolina and Pennsylvania in December. He said three of those attacks were inspired by ISIS.
"We were able to detect these individuals, both online and in person, using our covert platforms," Patel said. "And we shuttered a bombing campaign in Southern California and two mass casualty events for New Year's Eve."
Patel testified at the Senate hearing alongside Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Acting Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command William Hartman and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
