White supremacists are the 'top domestic violent extremist threat' facing the US, says Biden official

• President Joe Biden's top law official has warned that white supremacists pose the most serious domestic terror threat to the United States.
• Attorney General Merrick Garland said: 'Domestic violent extremists pose an elevated threat in 2021.'
• Garland cited a report warning that racially and ethnically motivated extremists posed the most significant terror threat to the US.

White supremacists are the most serious domestic terror threat facing the United States according to Joe Biden's Attorney General.

"Domestic violent extremists pose an elevated threat in 2021, and in the FBI's view, the top domestic violent extremist threat we face comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race," Merrick Garland told senators on Wednesday, per The Hill.

Garland, who was speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday was citing a report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and drafted by the FBI and other agencies in March.

The report warned that racially and ethnically motivated extremists posed the most significant terror threat to the US. The report also warned that racially motivated violent extremists were "most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians" while militia-linked violent extremists were most likely to target police officers and other government employees.

The attorney general also said that the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6, as a result of which five people died, was the most dangerous threat to American democracy that he had ever encountered, Reuters reported.

As a federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, Garland led the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing, when anti-government extremists blew up a federal building and killed 168 people.

"It's fair to say that in my career as a judge and in law enforcement I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol," Garland told the committee, per Reuters.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in February that President Joe Biden supports a 9/11-style commission investigating the Capitol riot.

The investigation would likely involve an investigation into the origins of the siege, the security failings that led to it, and multiple witness hearings, Insider's Jake Lahut reported.

Lawmakers could reportedly agree on the creation of a bipartisan commission as early as this week, a senior Democratic aide told CNBC.