Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

FBI Director Reports That Neo-Nazis Are Working Together Across The Atlantic

Neo-Nazis considered to be domestic terrorism threats by the U.S. government are increasingly communicating and meeting with European hate groups, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, told Congress Wednesday.

Speaking to the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray said that these meetings did not appear to be about organizing terrorist actions, but more about sharing their like-minded views.

“We are starting to see racially motivated violent extremists connecting with like-minded individuals online certainly, and in some instances, we have seen people travel overseas to train,” he said, particularly to Ukraine.

“Probably a more prevalent phenomenon that we see right now is racially motivated violent extremists who are inspired by what they see overseas,” he added. “They’re not working together, but they’re just fueled by each other.”

Wray noted that the lack of structure makes it difficult for law enforcement to determine how serious some of the groups are about committing acts of terrorism.

During the hearing, Rep. Max Rose, a Jewish Democratic Congressman representing Staten Island and a section of Brooklyn, asked if the FBI could more effectively monitor certain American neo-Nazi groups if the Ukrainian hate groups they communicated with were registered as foreign terrorist organizations. Wray said that the designation would be up to the State Department.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.