U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), along with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), are asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the methods that both domestic violent extremists (DVE) and homegrown violent extremists (HVE) use to fund their activities.
The lawmakers also asked the GAO to examine how financial institutions address the risks posed by these extremists.
“Federal law enforcement and the intelligence community assess that the greatest terrorism threat to our country is posed by lone actors or small cells who typically radicalize online and look to attack soft targets with easily accessible weapons,” the lawmakers wrote. “Still, more information on the funding of domestic terrorism and violent extremism is required to understand how financial data and analytical tools can more effectively be used to combat this problem.”
Waters is chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Brown is chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Among the questions for the GAO, they would like to know about the primary mechanisms that domestic violent extremists and terrorists use to finance their activities, including the extent to which they rely on online social media, live streaming sites, crowdfunding platforms, digital assets (including virtual currencies), charities, and foreign sources to finance their activities. They would also like to know about any funding that domestic violent extremists and terrorists provide to foreign entities for the purposes of coordination, support, or otherwise furthering their activities.