By Josh Gerstein @ Politico.com, Feb. 1

FBI Director Christopher Wray is rejecting claims that his agency’s aggressive investigation of the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 contrasts with a lackluster response to violence and unrest that accompanied some Black Lives Matter protests across the country during the spring and summer of 2020.

Speaking in California, Wray offered his most detailed public rebuttal yet to critiques of the bureau put forward in recent months by some Republican lawmakers and other allies of former President Donald Trump, as well as attorneys for those charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot.

“We have one standard, which is: I don’t care whether you’re upset about an election or upset at our criminal justice system,” Wray said during an appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley on Monday night. “Whatever it is you’re upset about, there’s a right way and a wrong way to express your being upset in this country and violence — violence against law enforcement, destruction of property — is not it. …That’s what the rule of law is about.”

[....] Reagan Library executive director John Heubusch called the assault on the Capitol a “tragedy” and praised the FBI’s determined effort to hunt down those responsible.

“At the same time, there’s a concern out there in a community that a lot of bad actors did similar things, whether it be to federal courthouses or police headquarters across the United States in the summer of 2020,” added Heubusch, a former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Wray insisted that it was “absolutely” true that the FBI was moving as aggressively to investigate crimes related to the 2020 unrest as it is with offenses committed at the Capitol last Jan. 6

“We have in both instances opened hundreds of investigations — in both. We’ve made hundreds of arrests — in both. We’ve used nearly all 56 of our field offices, including our joint terrorism task forces — in both [....]