FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted he is ‘absolutely not’ working to protect the Biden family as he claimed the agency has not been politicized during a face-off with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz displayed a text message allegedly sent by Hunter Biden where the president’s son wrote to a Chinese Communist Party official Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017 demanding money for a business deal.
‘I’m sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment has not been fulfilled,’ Hunter allegedly wrote at the time. ‘You will regret not following my direction. I am waiting for the call with my father.’
‘You seem deeply uncurious about it— almost suspiciously uncurious. Are you protecting the Bidens?’ Gaetz asked Wray.
‘Absolutely not,’ said the FBI director.
FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted he is ‘absolutely not’ working to protect the Biden family as he insisted the agency has not been politicized during a face-off with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee
Gaetz pulled up a text message allegedly sent by Hunter Biden to a CCP official
‘Sounds like a shakedown, doesn’t it Director? You won’t answer the question and everyone know why you won’t answer because to the millions of people seeing this, they know it is a shakedown.’
‘People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are,’ Gaetz went on.
‘In your home state of Florida, the number of people applying to come work for us … is up over 100% since I started,’ Wray shot back.
‘They deserve better than you,’ said Gaetz.
Gaetz and other Republicans also tore into Wray for the FBI’s unlawful uses of Section 702 of FISA.
Section 702 is meant to be used to surveil non-U.S. citizens overseas, and when U.S. citizens are flagged in such probes the FBI can run a query on them for national security.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer sent a scathing letter Friday to the Republican chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, slamming him for releasing the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers
Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell lashed out at Republicans for creating this graphic of an alleged WhatsApp message between the first son and a Chinese business associate
The FBI admitted to using FISA to run queries 204,000 times in 2022 on American citizens, from January 6 protesters to BLM demonstrators.
‘People were looking themselves up, looking their ex-lovers up, using the FISA process as their creepy personal snoop machine,’ said Gaetz.
Wray said there have been instances of ‘disciplinary action’ for improper use of the warrantless search process.
At the end of the year, Congress must decide whether to reauthorize Section 702 and Republicans have said they will not do so without major changes.
GOP Rep. Ken Buck took a less combative tone while expressing his own concerns with FISA.
‘You’re still a registered Republican and I hope you don’t change your party affiliation after this hearing is over,’ he told Wray. ‘I want to thank you for leading an agency that protects Americans from foreign terrorists.’
Wray also went on offense against a number of GOP allegation – saying it is ‘ludicrous’ to say that anyone from the agency was involved in the January 6th attack and ‘somewhat absurd’ to accuse the FBI of working with social media companies to suppress information on Covid origins.
‘Consider the fact that the FBI was the only the only agency the entire intelligence community to assess it’s more likely than not that was the explanation,’ he said.
Jordan insisted the FBI had worked with social media companies to censor speech – on everything from the Hunter Biden laptop to covid origins and vaccines and mail-in voting.
‘That’s exactly what you did,’ said the chairman. ‘And the judge said it last week. Every week people meeting with big tech companies say “Hey, look at this, this violates your policy, take this speech of Americans down.'”
He was referring to a Missouri case where a judge blocked the White House, FBI and DOJ from contacting social media companies due to collusion concerns.
Earlier this week the committee released a report based on documents subpoenaed from Meta and Alphabet finding that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s intelligence agency enlisted the FBI to help combat ‘Russian disinformation on social media.
The FBI transmitted Ukraine’s takedown requests to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., asked Wray how many undercover agents were at the Capitol complex on Jan. 6.
‘I’m not sure there were undercover agents,’ said Wray.
“I find that kind of a remarkable statement,’ said Biggs. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I say that because I want to be very careful. There have been a number of court filings related to these topics.’
‘Are you acknowledging then there were undercover agents?’ Biggs pressed.
‘As I sit here right now i do not believe there were undercover agents,’ said Wray. ‘Did you have any assets that day present in the crowd?’ said Biggs.
‘When it comes to … confidential human sources, that’s a place where again I want to be careful. There are court filings,’ said Wray.
Key Takeaways:
- ‘Absolutely not!’ Wray insists he is not protecting the Biden family after GOP Rep Matt Gaetz displays a ‘shakedown’ WhatsApp message sent by Hunter Biden
- Republicans tear into the 204,000 improper FISA queries carried out by FBI: ‘People were looking themselves up, looking their ex-lovers up, using the FISA process as their creepy personal snoop machine,’ said Gaetz
- Wray says he’s ‘not sure’ if there were undercover agents at the Capitol complex on Jan. 6 but it is ‘ludicrous’ to say the agency was involved in the attack
- Wray said he was ‘aghast’ at memo about ‘radical traditional Catholics’ from Richmond field office and the FBI was conducting an investigation
- ‘The conduct in the Durham report was totally unacceptable,’ said Wray. ‘It must never be allowed to happen again’
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan railed against Wray’s FBI for its handling of the Hunter Biden laptop and for a memo written by the FBI on ‘radical traditional Catholics.’
‘Americans have seen the FBI Richmond Field Office put together a memorandum saying pro-life Catholics are extremists,’ Jordan said.
In January a former FBI agent revealed a memo by the agency entitled ‘Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.’
Wray said he was ‘aghast’ at the memo and the FBI was conducting an investigation into the memo – which he insisted was the product of a single field office.
‘As soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems,’ Wray said.
“We do not recruit, open, or operate confidential human sources to infiltrate, target, or report on religious organizations,’ the director insisted.
Judiciary Ranking Member Jerry Nadler called the hearing ‘little more than performance art’ that was ‘designed to ‘protect Donald Trump and to return him to the White House in the next election.’
At one point Wray also addressed what would happen if the FBI were ‘defunded’ as some Republicans have called for.
‘We would have hundreds more violent criminals on the street,’ the director said.
He also sided with the findings of the report by special counsel John Durham – which found the FBI was not justified in opening Operation Crossfire – the investigation into collusion between the Trump team and Russia.
‘The conduct in the Durham report was totally unacceptable,’ said Wray. ‘It must never be allowed to happen again.’
He would not say whether anyone had been fired from the agency as a result. ‘I can’t speak to pending personnel matters.’
