Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,”,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) claimed the military conflict in Iran had “exacerbated” the threat of terror attacks in America.
Partial transcript as follows:
MARTHA RADDATZ: Congressman. You heard that report from Aaron Katersky about these attacks on U.S. soil. It’s something we’ve talked about for years, these lone wolves. But has this war sparked these, do you believe?
SMITH: Well, it’s exacerbated the problem, without question. I think we’d be wrong to say it sparked it. We’ve seen these attacks before this war. I mean, we have a long-running problem with terrorist organizations associated with ISIS trying to strike us here on our own soil. We need to be prepared for those. We need to look at what the Justice Department, the FBI are doing to protect us from that. So, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Without question, this has been ramped up because of the war in the Middle East that has brought in, gosh, some 14 countries have been attacked in one way or another. This war and this conflict is without question spreading right now.
RADDATZ: You can’t keep people safe anywhere — everywhere, but do you believe the federal government should be doing something to help here, to help protect people? What can you possibly do?
SMITH: Yes, well, I mean, absolutely. We have an ongoing counterterrorism effort, that’s coordinated with the Justice Department, with various intelligence services. We need to make sure that we’re doing that. I mean, I worry a little bit that over the course of the last year and a half, starting with the DOGE process, we have driven out a lot of our talent within the bureaucracy, within the Justice Department, within our intelligence services. We know a lot of Iranian experts left the Justice Department right before this started as part of the ongoing purge. So I think it’s worth Congress in particular doing the oversight, do we have people in those places who are doing the best possible job to protect us. It’s more important and a tougher job right now than it ever has been.
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