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 The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes Syed Rizwan Farook,
28, the U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Tashfeen Malik,
29, a Pakistani native he married in Saudi Arabia last year, were
each inspired by Islamic extremists before they became acquainted,
he said on Capitol Hill.
The precise origins of the couple's indoctrination in extremist
ideology remain to be determined but appear to date back about two
years, before Islamic State "became the global jihad leader that it
is," Comey said.
"They were actually radicalized before they started ... dating each
other online, and as early as the end of 2013 they were talking to
each other about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged,"
the FBI director testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The husband and wife were killed last week in a shootout with police
hours after opening fire with assault rifles at a holiday gathering
of Farook's co-workers at the Inland Regional Center social services
agency in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los
Angeles.
 Fourteen people were killed and 21 others were wounded in the Dec. 2
assault, marking the deadliest burst of U.S. gun violence in three
years.
Comey has said the FBI is investigating the mass shooting as an act
of terrorism. If the investigation proves the massacre to have been
the work of killers inspired by Islamic militants, as the Federal
Bureau of Investigation suspects, it would mark the most lethal such
attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Comey said both the couple had declared that they were carrying out
their attack "on behalf of" Islamic State, an assertion he said they
made "at or about the time" of the killings.
The FBI previously had cited a pledge of allegiance Malik was said
to have made on Facebook to Islamic State, the militant group that
has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria and claimed responsibility
for attacks in Paris last month that killed 130 people.
A U.S. government source has said Farook may have been plotting an
attack as early as 2011, while a second government source said he
may have looked at a number of potential targets.
Comey said it would be "very, very important to know" if their
marriage had been arranged by a militant group as a way to carry out
attacks in the United States, although he said there was no evidence
yet indicating that.
In response to a question from Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of
South Carolina, Comey acknowledged that evidence of Islamic
extremists playing such a role in their marriage would be "a game
changer."
FRIEND AND RELATIVE
The investigation of Farook and Malik has also focused on his
relationship with his boyhood friend Enrique Marquez, a Muslim
convert who federal officials said made a 2011 or 2012 purchase of
the two assault-style rifles used by the couple in the attack.
A government source familiar with the investigation said authorities
were trying to determine if Farook had asked Marquez to buy the two
rifles so as not to draw attention to himself.
Marquez, who worked at a Walmart Supercenter in Corona, California,
has not been arrested in the case, but he was questioned by the FBI
on Tuesday and his family home was raided over the weekend.
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Marquez checked himself into a Los Angeles-area psychiatric facility
soon after the shooting.
State marital records examined by Reuters on Tuesday revealed that
Marquez' wife and the spouse of Farook's older brother are sisters.
CNN, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported Marquez has told
investigators he and Farook had conceived an attack in 2012 in
California, but they abruptly abandoned the plan, in part because
they were spooked by unrelated FBI arrests around that time of four
people charged with attempting to travel abroad to carry out jihad.
The San Bernardino Sun newspaper quoted investigation sources as
saying multiple photographs of Carter High School in Rialto,
California, were found on Farook's phone.
Gasser Shehata, a friend of Farook's from a San Bernardino mosque,
said Farook told him several years ago that Marquez had converted to
Islam.
On his marriage certificate, Marquez and his wife listed their
religious society/denomination as Islamic Society of Corona/Norco.
VISA QUESTION
Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Comey
about the attack and criticized the Obama administration's response
to the militant group Islamic State.
The committee's chairman, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, said
the San Bernardino shootings had shown Obama to be "spectacularly
wrong" about the security of the U.S. visa screening process since
Malik arrived in the United States on a K-1 fiancée visa on which he
said she listed a false address.
"Our government apparently didn't catch the false address in
Pakistan that she listed on her application," Grassley said.
Comey said in response to a question that he has no reason to
believe Islamic State already has cells in the United States.
"They are trying to motivate people already in the United States to
become killers on their behalf and they would very much like to - as
they aspire to be the leader in the global jihad - send people here
to conduct attacks," Comey said.
He said the latter scenario "has not been seen yet."
(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Writing by
Bill Trott; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Cynthia Osterman)
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