Rogers: ‘Growing threat’ of domestic terrorists radicalized by ‘right-wing or left-wing groups’

Representative Mike Rogers (AL-03) on Wednesday appeared on CNN’s “Cuomo Primetime” to discuss the current state of homeland security.

Speaking on the 18th anniversary of 9/11, Rogers gave his perspective as ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. Rogers has been on the committee, now a standing one, since it was formed in the summer of 2002 as a select committee.

Speaking on where national security currently stands, Rogers told host Chris Cuomo, “I feel proud we’ve made great strides. … We have a great intelligence apparatus now. … We’ve done a great job of training and equipping our first responders. It’s been demonstrated repeatedly.”

“We’ve got, though, a very dangerous world out there, not just domestically but internationally, with more threats than we had 18 years ago, so that’s pretty sobering,” he added.

Rogers also spoke about emerging homeland security threats, identifying domestic terrorism as “growing.”

“While we have to keep our eye on these foreign threats, the growing threat [of domestic terrorism] here at home is disturbing,” the East Alabama congressman emphasized.

“These [groups] are starting to use recruitment techniques that foreign terrorists used to use internationally, now these people are using to radicalize here in this country,” Rogers advised. “We had a report from the FBI in May that they currently have over 1,000 cases open on people on our soil that are terrorists; [people] that may be radicalized by foreign terrorist organizations or from right-wing or left-wing groups here in the country.”

Asked specifically by Cuomo whether he was concerned about “the danger within” and “the rise of extremist, right-wing violence in this country,” Rogers responded, “I sure do.”

Rogers also stressed how important it is to keep the handling of national security bipartisan.

The interview followed Tuesday’s hearing on current threats to the American homeland.

“I’ve been on the [Homeland Security] Committee since it was established, when it was still a select committee. We generally aren’t very partisan. In yesterday’s hearing, there was no partisanship. We took … a very sober approach and at the end of the hearing both the chairman and I made the comment this was one of the best hearings we ever had,” Rogers added.

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Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn