[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU
OF INVESTIGATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-32
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-977 WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
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C O N T E N T S
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Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 1
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of New York....................... 3
WITNESS
The Honorable Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Testimony............................................. 10
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Committee on the
Judiciary are listed below..................................... 114
Materials submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California, for
the record
An article entitled, ``FBI resisted opening probe into
Trump's role in Jan. 6 for more than a year,'' June 19,
2023, The Washington Post
An article entitled, ``Showdown before the raid: FBI agents
and prosecutors argued over Trump,'' March 1, 2023, The
Washington Posts
Materials submitted by the Honorable Adam Schiff, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California, for
the record
A letter to the Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee
on the Judiciary, from David C. Weiss, United States
Attorney, June 30, 2023
A letter to the Honorable Lindsey Graham, Ranking Member of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, from David C. Weiss,
United States Attorney, July 10, 2023
Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Washington,
for the record
A report from the Director of National Intelligence from the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence Senior
Advisory Group Panel on Commercially Available
Information
A document from entitled, ``Legal Loopholes and Data for
Dollars,'' Center for Democracy & Technology
An article entitled, ``Republican Eyes Sweet Home for New FBI
Headquarters in Alabama,'' July 11, 2023, Wall Street Journal,
submitted by the Honorable Barry Moore, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Alabama, for the
record
Materials submitted by the Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Texas, for the
record
A tweet by Kyle Seraphin, May 30, 2023
A response to statement made by a Republican colleague
A report entitled, ``Strategic Intelligence Assessment and
Data on Domestic Terrorism,'' October 2022, FBI and DHS
A tweet from Matthew Foldi dated July 12, 2023, submitted by the
Honorable Mike Johnson, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Louisiana, for the record
A press release entitled, ``31 Individuals Involved in a Drug
Trafficking Organization inMarion County and Lorain
County Indicted,'' June 22, 2023, U.S. Attorney's Office,
Northern District of Ohio, submitted by the Honorable
Mary Gay Scanlon, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
An email thread discussing FBI SAR product ideas before
inauguration day 2021, Jan. 15, 2021, submitted by the
Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of New York, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Harriet Hageman, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Wyoming, for
the record
A letter to the Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee
on the Judiciary, from the Honorable Rand Paul, Ranking
Member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security &
Governmental Affairs from the State of Kentucky, July 11,
2023
A letter to Susan Ferensic, Assistant Director of Weapons of
Mass Destruction Directorate of the FBI, from the
Honorable Lindsey Graham, Ranking Member of the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of South
Carolina, and the Honorable Rand Paul, Ranking Member of
the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental
Affairs from the State of Kentucky, April 20, 2023
A letter to Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, the
Honorable Lindsey Graham, Ranking Member of the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of South
Carolina, and the Honorable Rand Paul, Ranking Member of
the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental
Affairs from the State of Kentucky, June 20, 2023
An image of a text message from Hunter Biden, submitted by the
Honorable Matt Gaetz, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Florida, for the record
An email thread discussing FBI SAR product ideas before
inauguration day 2021, submitted by the Honorable Jerrold
Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from
the State of New York, for the record
An article entitled, ``Jan 6 protestor Ray Epps reveals he's
forced to live in RV hiding after death threats over FBI
informant conspiracy: Feds confirm he's NEVER worked for them
as he slams right-wing theorists using him as scapegoat,''
April 24, 2023, Daily Mail, submitted by the Honorable Henry C.
``Hank'' Johnson, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Georgia, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the
record
An article entitled, ``All the Ways Trump, not his foes,
sought to `weaponize' the Government,'' July 10, 2023,
The Washington Post
An article entitled, ``A Deeply Ironic Reinforcement of
Right-Wing Misinformation,'' The Washington Post
An article entitled, ``Restricting the Government from
Speaking to Tech Companies Will Spread Disinformation and
Harm Democracy,'' July 5, 2023, Just Security
A letter to Chair Jason Smith, Chair of the House Committee
on Ways and Means, from Abbe David Lowell, Counsel for
Robert Hunter Biden, June 30, 2023
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD
Questions to FBI Director Christopher Wray, submitted by the
Honorables Ted Lieu from the State of California, Cori Bush
from the State of Missouri, Matt Gaetz from the State of
Florida, and Andy Biggs from the State of Arizona, Members of
the Committee on the Judiciary, for the record
No response received at time of print.
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU.
OF INVESTIGATION
----------
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Committee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Buck, Gaetz,
Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Tiffany, Massie, Roy,
Bishop, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Bentz, Cline, Gooden, Van Drew,
Nehls, Moore, Kiley, Hageman, Moran, Lee, Hunt, Fry, Nadler,
Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Schiff,
Cicilline, Swalwell, Lieu, Jayapal, Scanlon, Neguse, McBath,
Dean, Escobar, Ross, Bush, and Ivey.
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on Oversight of
the FBI. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Gooden, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes himself for an
opening statement. Eight days ago, eight days ago on July 4th,
in the Western District of Louisiana, the Court found that the
Federal government suppressed Americans' First Amendment free
speech rights. In his conclusion on page 154, the Court said
this, the judge said this:
Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing
that the Government has used its power to silence the
opposition: Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines, opposition to
COVID-19 mask and lockdowns, opposition to the lab leak theory
of COVID-19, opposition to the validity of the 2020 election,
opposition to President Biden's policies, statements that the
Hunter Biden laptop was true, and opposition to policies of the
Government officials in power. All were suppressed.
It is quite telling that each example or category of
suppressed speech was conservative in nature. The court further
writes, ``the U.S. Government seems to have assumed a role
similar to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.'' Specific to the
FBI, the Court said this:
The FBI's failure to alert social media companies that the
Biden laptop story was real and not Russian disinformation is
particularly troubling.
The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December
2019, and had warned social media companies repeatedly to look
out for ``hack and dump operation by the Russians prior to the
2020 election.''
Even after Facebook, specifically asked whether the laptop
story was Russian disinformation, the FBI refused to comment,
resulting in social media companies' suppression of the story
and as a result, millions, millions of our fellow citizens did
not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020, election.
Additionally, the FBI was included in industry meetings,
bilateral meetings, received and forwarded alleged
misinformation to social media companies, and actually misled
companies in regard to the laptop story.
When the Court said the FBI misled, that is a nice way of
saying they lied. They lied, and as a result, important
information was kept from we, the people, days before the most
important election we have, the election of the President of
the United States, election of the Commander in Chief.
In a survey last fall, four out of five Americans said they
believed there is a two-tiered system of justice in America
today. They said that because there is. They said that because
of what they have witnessed. Think about what Americans have
seen, National School Board Association, left-wing political
group writes the White House and asks them to treat parents at
school board meetings as terrorists. The Garland Justice
Department does just that. They put together a memo, set up a
dedicated line of threat communication and a snitch line on
parents. As a result, parents get investigated by our FBI, get
a threat tag associated with their name, 25 of them. Because
whistleblowers came and told us they were investigated by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Americans have seen the FBI's Richmond Field Office put
together a memorandum saying pro-life Catholics are extremists.
They have seen 20 FBI agents, SWAT team members show up at the
home of Mark Houck and arrest him in front of his wife and
seven children, even though he had indicated he would be happy
to turn himself in. What was he arrested for? Him and his 12-
year-old son were praying outside an abortion facility. Some
guy starts screaming in his son's face and he did what frankly
any dad would do, defended his child.
What is interesting is the National School Board
Association apologized for the letter, but the Attorney General
refuses to rescind his directive. The FBI did rescind, thank
goodness, the Richmond Catholic memorandum, but they refuse to
tell Congress who wrote it and who approved it. Mr. Houck, when
he got his day in court, he was acquitted by a jury of his
peers.
Americans' speech is censored, parents are called
terrorists, Catholics are called radicals, and I haven't even
talked about the spying that took place of a Presidential
Campaign or the raiding of a former President's home. Maybe
what is more frightening is what happens if you come forward
and tell Congress. You are a whistleblower, come tell the
legislature, come tell the Congress what is going on, look out.
You will be retaliated against. Ask Garrett O'Boyle. He told
Congress about these issues. They took his clearance. They took
his pay. They took his kids' clothes. Ask Gary Shapley, a 14-
year veteran at the IRS. Handled some of the biggest
international tax fraud cases at the agency. He comes forward
and the Justice Department kicks him off the case.
Here is what is truly unbelievable, here is what is
amazing. With all that history, with all that, the Justice
Department, the FBI, want the taxpayers they censored, the
parents they labeled, the pro-life Catholics they call radical,
they want them to pay for a new FBI headquarters. They want
FISA reauthorization of the 702 program in its current form in
the Director's opening statement. I mean you can't make this
stuff up.
There are 204,000 reasons why Republicans will oppose FISA
reauthorization in its current form. Two hundred and four
thousand times, the FBI improperly searched the 702 data base.
Unlike the FBI censorship, in the Court's opinion, that was
focused on conservatives, the FBI's illegal scrutiny wasn't
just limited to conservatives. BLM supporters were illegally
scrutinized by the FBI as well. I hope our Democrat friends
will join us in opposing reauthorization of Section 702 the way
it is currently done. I think they will. I hope they will work
with us in the appropriations process to stop the weaponization
of the government against the American people and end this
double standard that exists now in our justice system.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from New York for an
opening statement.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, not that long ago, an oversight
hearing of the FBI in this Committee would have been a
relatively bipartisan exercise. My colleagues on both sides of
the aisle would have asked legitimate questions about the
functioning and mission of the Bureau. Some of the questions
may have been tough. Debate may have gotten a little heated
when we discussed important topics like privacy and
discrimination. Our questioning would have been grounded in
advancing and overseeing the FBI's dual missions of enforcing
Federal laws and countering national security threats on
American soil. In short, despite our disagreements, we would
have done our duty as Members of the Judiciary Committee.
Today, unfortunately, House Republicans will fall well
short of that mark. For them, this hearing is little more than
performance art. It is an elaborate show designed with only two
purposes in mind, to protect Donald Trump from the consequences
of his actions and to return to the White House in the next
election. Don't take my word for it. Chair Jordan announced his
plan last August, just days after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.
He told an audience at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action
Conference, that the investigation into Trump's wrongdoing was
designed to
. . . help frame up the 2024 race and I hope and I think
President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure
that he wins.
Let me repeat that. ''We need to make sure that he wins.''
In pursuit of this goal, Chair Jordan and Committee
Republicans have claimed for months that the FBI is corrupt,
rotten, politicized, and their favorite word, weaponized,
against the American people. Chair Jordan has launched an array
of baseless investigations into the FBI, most premised on
absurd conspiracy theories. Some so absurd that the Chair
cannot possibly believe them to be true. This is where the
extreme MAGA leadership of this Congress has brought us today.
Today, House Republicans will attack the FBI for having had the
audacity to treat Donald Trump like any other citizen. The
strategy is simple, really. When in doubt, Chair Jordan
investigates the investigators. The FBI dared to hold Trump
accountable, so Republicans must discredit the FBI at all
costs.
You will hear claims today that the FBI's decision to
investigate Donald Trump was somehow unfair. You will hear the
Republicans attack the indictment of former President Trump on
37 counts related to his gross mishandling of national security
information, including information regarding defense and
weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign
countries, the United States nuclear programs, potential
vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military
attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a
foreign attack.
The facts are made clear in the indictment.
The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents would
put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign
relations, the safety of the United States military, and human
sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence
collection methods.
Indeed, the indictment goes on to describe how the former
President made such unauthorized disclosures, with him boasting
about and showing his classified documents to numerous
individuals without proper security clearance. You will hear
claims today that this indictment against Trump was unfair,
maybe even that it was unlawful. You will hear that the FBI
should have just asked Trump a little more nicely, one more
time, to hand over the documents. You will hear that the case
was a political investigation from the start, orchestrated by a
liberal-loving FBI that ensures Trump will be wrongfully
vilified at every turn.
These claims, of course, are completely untethered from the
evidence. Even if you believe, as Chair Jordan claims, that
President Trump has committed no crime, surely we can agree
that it is dangerous and profoundly irresponsible to have taken
these documents from the White House and left them unsecured in
Mar-a-Lago.
Again, don't take just my word for it, Trump's Secretary of
Defense Mark Esper said that the former President's handling of
this information put U.S. service members' lives and the
national security at risk. Trump's hand-picked Attorney General
Bill Barr, with whom I agree on very little, hit the nail on
the head when he described the former President's legal
troubles as,
. . . entirely of his own making. He had no right to those
documents. The Government tried for over a year quietly and
with respect to get them back and he jerked them around. When
he faced a subpoena, he didn't raise any legal argument. He
engaged in the course of deceitful conduct. That was a clear
crime if those allegations are true.
The former President could have at any time, for months,
simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution. House
Republicans do not want to talk about any of that. They seem
incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald
Trump for problems that are Trump's and Trump's alone.
You might hear today about a man named Steven D'Antuono,
the former Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field
Office during the investigation into the documents. Last month,
Committee Republicans brought him in for an interview and
shortly after that, Chair Jordan released a letter purporting
to describe Mr. D'Antuono's testimony. In fact, Chair Jordan's
summary of Mr. D'Antuono's words are a vast mischaracterization
of what he actually said. Here is just one example. Chair
Jordan has claimed that Mr. D'Antuono said he had ``no idea''
why the Mar-a-Lago investigation was run out of the FBI's
Washington Field Office instead of the Miami Field Office. What
the Chair hides are that just seconds later, Mr. D'Antuono
explained that ``the venue is here'' meaning Washington, DC,
for the classified documents, that it was ``not out of the
ordinary for Washington to be lead office running the
investigation'' and said that Washington has ``most experience
and knowledge in working public corruption cases'' and are
``the experts in classified document investigations.'' Mr.
Jordan did not share the full record with the American public
because it does not fit his chosen narrative.
My staff has worked to have a minimally redacted version of
Mr. D'Antuono's full testimony release and I urge you to read
the words for yourself in their entirety. When you compare his
actual words to Mr. Jordan's characterization, you will
understand why I feel like this hearing room has become a
theater. Frankly, that goes for many things that we will hear
from the Republicans today. You can expect to hear that the FBI
is retaliating against its conservative employees and has a
deep-seated conspiracy to support liberal candidates and
ideology. These claims are based on the words of several
individuals, people Republicans are somewhat laughably calling
whistleblowers. In fact, evidence shows that these individuals
were suspended for violating serious FBI policy. One provided
an unauthorized interview to Russian State-owned media. Another
leaked information about an on-going investigation, placing FBI
agents and witnesses at risk. Another said that he wanted to
use a senior FBI official as ``target practice.''
Chair Jordan invited some of these so-called Whistleblowers
to testify before the Weaponization Subcommittee in May. As it
turns out, two of the witnesses were ultimately paid $250,000
each for their testimony, money raised in part by former Trump
aide Kesh Patel and paid by a check with memo line reads ``for
holding the line.''
Yet, Republicans today will try to claim that it is the
FBI, and not these witnesses, who are somehow corrupt.
Republicans today will also attack President Biden, starting
with the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden. They will ignore
the fact that U.S. Attorney David Weiss had the authority to
bring charges in any district he saw fit and was able to
operate fully free of interference. They do not want to
acknowledge that despite years of investigation, President
Biden has not been found to have engaged in any wrongdoing.
Instead, they will try to convince you that Hunter Biden would
have been charged with far more serious crimes had it not been
for U.S. Attorney Weiss being blocked by the Biden political
machine. Once again, when they do not like the outcome, they
investigate the investigators and work to discredit the
outcome.
Republicans will make false claims about the FBI's Foreign
Influence Task Force, claiming that it is somehow censoring
conservatives. In fact, the task force plays a key role in
making sure that Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign
entities do not again interfere in our elections.
According to Committee Republicans, the task force's
efforts to track and prevent foreign influence operations
amount to attacks and conservative speech, a nonsensical claim
considering that the Foreign Influence Task Force has nothing
to do with censoring American free speech and in fact, helps to
ensure that American voices are heard by stopping Russian troll
farms.
Make no mistake, in making these claims, Republicans have
all but rolled out the red carpet and begged Russia to once
again interfere in our elections because they believe that
doing so will get Trump reelected in 2024. That is the goal of
Republicans today. Republican claims that the FBI has been
weaponized, their personal attacks on Director Wray, their
repeated calls to ``defund the FBI,'' these are not victimless
acts. They are a clarion call to anti-government extremists and
that call is being heard.
Last year, Director Wray faced multiple credible death
threats. FBI employees faced more threats in the months after
the Mar-a-Lago search than they had in the entire prior year.
The problem has gotten so bad that the FBI has had to stand up
an entire new unit dedicated to combating threats to FBI agents
and staff. It is far past time that Republicans realize the
consequences of their actions.
Republicans may want to downplay Trump's behavior and blame
the FBI for his downfall. No matter what they say, Trump risked
the safety and security of the United States to remove those
documents from the White House, then lied to the government
instead of returning to them. Donald Trump must be held
accountable and attempts to shield him from the consequences of
his own actions are both transparent and despicable.
Ultimately, no matter how many times Republicans attack
Director Wray or the FBI or the investigation at Mar-A-Lago, I
trust in the rule of law. Mr. Trump will have his day in court.
I believe the system will hold him accountable and I thank the
men and women of the FBI who helped bring the classified
information to safety and protect the national security of our
Nation.
Thank you for being here today, Director Wray. I hope your
agents will not be disheartened by what they hear today and
will continue this kind of work essential to the safety of our
Nation. I thank the Chair and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Just for the
record, the pronunciation of the former Assistant Director in
charge of the Washington Field Office is D'Antuono, something
that the Ranking Member might have known if he had actually
shown up at the deposition like I did. With that, without
objection, all other opening statements will be included in the
record.
We will now introduce today's witness.
The Honorable Christopher Wray has been the Director of the
FBI since 2017. He previously served as the Assistant Attorney
General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice,
the principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Associate
Deputy Attorney General, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the
Northern District of Georgia. Director Wray has also worked in
private practice at King & Spaulding LLP. We welcome our
witness and thank him for appearing today. We will begin by
swearing you in.
Director, would you please rise, raise your right hand, you
have done this before. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of
perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief
so help you God?
Let the record show that the witness answered in the
affirmative. Please know that your written testimony will be
entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask
that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. We will give
you two extra minutes if you like, Director. Then you know how
this works. There will be five minutes of questioning and my
guess is every single member is going to have questions for
you.
So, again, thank you for being here, Director Wray. You are
recognized for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHRISTOPHER A. WRAY
Mr. Wray. Thank you, good morning, Chair Jordan, Ranking
Member Nadler, and Members of the Committee. In the time that I
have before we get to your questions, I want to talk about the
sheer breadth and impact of the work the FBI's 38,000 employees
are doing each and every day because the work the men and women
of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond
the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the
headlines.
Take violent crime. Last year alone, working shoulder to
shoulder with our partners in State and local law enforcement,
the FBI arrested more than 20,000 violent criminals and child
predators. That is an average of almost 60 bad guys taken off
the streets per day every day.
For our work going after the cartels exploiting our
Southwest border to traffic fentanyl and other dangerous drugs
into communities nationwide, the FBI is running well over 300
investigations targeting the leadership of those cartels.
Working with our partners, we have already seized hundreds of
kilograms of fentanyl this year alone, stopping deadly drugs
from reaching their intended destinations in States all over
the country and saving countless American lives.
Or the thousands of active investigations we now have into
the Chinese government's efforts to steal our most precious
secrets, rob our businesses of their ideas and innovation, and
repress freedom of speech right here in the United States. That
is just scratching the surface. The men and women of the FBI
work tirelessly every day to protect the American people from
what is really a staggering array of threats. We don't do that
work alone. The FBI now leads more than 750 task forces
nationwide, made up of more than 6,000 State and local task
force officers or TFOs, as we call them, for more than 1,800
different State and local agencies. Each of those TFOs
represents an officer, a deputy, or an investigator that a
local police chief, sheriff, or State superintendent was
willing to send our way, certainly not because they didn't have
enough work to do in their own department, but because they saw
the tremendous value that our FBI-led task forces bring. We are
honored and humbled by their trust in us and grateful for their
partnership.
The numbers don't tell the whole story. To truly appreciate
the impact the FBI and our partners are having, you have got to
look at the cases. Just last month, for instance, the FBI
charged 31 members of two drug-trafficking organizations
responsible for distributing dangerous drugs like fentanyl,
cocaine, and methamphetamine throughout the area around Marion,
Ohio. In that one investigation run out of the FBI's two-man
office in Mansfield, we worked with partners from multiple
local police departments and sheriff's offices to take kilos of
fentanyl off Marion streets, enough lethal doses, I should add,
to kill the entire population of Columbus, Cleveland, and
Cincinnati combined.
It is a great example of how even a small office with a
small personal footprint, the FBI is working big cases hand in
hand with our State and local partners to have an outside
impact in our communities.
The FBI has got thousands of employees working scores of
investigations like that all over the country to protect the
American people. Those men and women who choose to dedicate
their careers, their lives, really, to this kind of work and
fulfilling the FBI mission are inspiring.
At a time when so many other law enforcement agencies have
had a difficult time with recruiting and retention, the Bureau
continues to attract applicants in near record numbers. In
fact, after the first couple of years of my tenure, the number
of Americans applying to be special agents tripled the pace
from when I started, reaching the highest levels in about a
decade.
At the same time, inside the FBI, our special agent
attrition has remained in the low, single digits and would be
the envy of almost any employer. Even with these bigger
numbers, the folks we are continuing to add continue to be top
notch. The percentage of both veterans, and special agent hires
with prior law enforcement experience has remained as steady as
ever, between 25-30 percent. Add to that in a job market where
applicants have a whole lot of other opportunities, the
percentage of those new agent-trainees that also have advanced
degrees is up and now approaches about 50 percent of every
class at Quantico.
The thing that unites them all is a commitment to public
service, a willingness to put others above themselves and that
is true from the bottom of the organization to the top.
Since becoming Director, I have worked hard to assemble and
cultivate a leadership team that embodies those values and
characteristics. It is a team that I purposely chose because
they walked the walk out in the field. Just taking our top
eight leaders as an example, they all came up through the
Bureau as line agents. They have worked in 21 different field
offices and have a combined 130 years of field experience. They
include a West Point grad, veterans of the Army, Air Force, and
Marines, as well as a former police officer and State trooper.
Not a single one is a political appointee, not one.
Today's FBI leaders reflect the best of our organization,
an organization that is made up of 38,000 men and women who are
patriots, professionals, and dedicated public servants, and
that is the real FBI. I have now visited every single one of
our 56 field offices twice, some of them more than twice. I
speak constantly with local chiefs and sheriffs from all 50
States who work closely with us every day; with judges, coast
to coast, who see and hear our work up close; with business
leaders who turn to us for help with cyber-attacks, with
Chinese economic espionage, with victims and their family's
people that we protect from gangs and predators. The FBI they
tell me about consistently, almost resoundingly, is the same
FBI that I see, an FBI that is respected, appreciated, trusted,
and it is there for them when they need us the most. That is
the FBI that inspires me and that I am proud to be here today
to represent. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of the Hon. Mr. Wray follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you. We will now proceed under the
five-minute rule with questions. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director
Wray, this is no time to mince words. The American people have
lost faith in the FBI. All our constituents are demanding that
we get this situation under control, and we have to do that.
That is our responsibility. This is not a political party
issue, sir. This is about whether the very system of justice in
our country can be trusted any more. Without that, no republic
can survive.
See, the American people that we represent are losing count
of the scandals that are mounting. The FBI has been involved;
they have seen evidence that is being used as a political tool
by the Biden Administration. They have seen counterterrorism
resources being used against school parents; the homes of
conservative political opponents being raided. They have seen
conservative States being targeted over their election
integrity laws and conservative Catholics and pro-life citizens
characterized as violent extremists.
Just last month, as you know, former Special Counsel John
Durham sat right in that seat and testified that the Justice
Department and the FBI should never have launched the bogus
Trump-Russia investigation. His lengthy report reluctantly
concluded that the FBI ``failed to uphold its mission of strict
fidelity to the law.''
Just last week, NBC had a poll. Only 37 percent of
registered voters now view the FBI positively. Thirty-five
percent have a negative view. In 2018, by comparison, 52
percent of the country had a positive view of the FBI. There is
a serious decline in the people's faith, and it is on your
watch, sir.
Then, July 4th, we had this explosive, explosive 155-page
opinion from a Federal Court in my home State of Louisiana that
explains in detail that the FBI has been directly involved in
what the Court says is, ``arguably the most massive attack
against free speech in United States history.''
The court ordered the White House DOJ and FBI, among
others, to immediately cease colluding with and coercing social
media companies to suppress American speech, of course,
conservative speech in particular.
Director Wray, I find it stunning. You made no mention of
this court opinion either in your opening statement today or in
this lengthy 14-page report that you prepared on July 12th
which is eight days after the Court ruling.
Have you read the ruling, sir?
Mr. Wray. I am familiar with the ruling, and I've reviewed
it with our Office of General Counsel.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Are you deeply disturbed by what
they have told you about the ruling, if you haven't read it
yourself?
Mr. Wray. Obviously, we're going to comply with the Court's
order, the Court's preliminary injunction. We sent out guidance
to the field and headquarters about how to do that. Needless to
say, the injunction itself is a subject of ongoing litigation.
So, I'll decline to comment further on that.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Well, let me tell you what the
Court concluded because it should be the first thing you think
about every morning and the last thing you think about at
night. They said, that, quote, the Court found, apparently,
The FBI engaged in a massive effort to suppress disfavored
conservative speech and blatantly ignored the First Amendment
to right to free speech. The evidence shows the FBI threatened
adverse consequences to social media companies if they did not
comply with its censorship requests.
The Court found that, quote,
This seemingly unrelenting pressure by the FBI and the other
Defendants had the intended result of suppressing millions of
protected free speech postings by American citizens.
As a result, the Court states, for example,
Millions of citizens did not hear about the Hunter Biden laptop
story prior to the November 3, 2020 election.
Page 4 of the Court ruling lists some of the important
subjects that the Biden Administration and the FBI forced the
social media platforms to suppress. The evidence shows you,
your agency, the people that directly report to you, suppressed
conservative-leaning free speech about topics like the laptop;
the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origin; the effectiveness of
masks and COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines; speech about
election integrity in the 2020 Presidential Election; security
of voting by mail; even parity about the President himself;
negative posts about the economy.
The FBI made the social media platforms pull that
information off the internet if it came from conservative
sources. They did this under the guise that it was
disinformation.
Can you define what ``disinformation'' is?
Mr. Wray. What I can tell you is that our focus is not on
disinformation, broadly speaking, but on the--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Well, wait a minute. Yes, it is.
Wait it a minute. Your--
Mr. Wray. Can I answer the question?
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You can in a minute. Your star
witness said in the litigation, Elvis Chan, who's in charge of
this, said they do it on the basis of ``disinformation.'' We
need a definition of what that is.
Mr. Wray. Our focus is on malign foreign disinformation;
that is, foreign hostile actors who engage in covert efforts to
abuse--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Wray--
Mr. Wray. --our social media platforms, which is something
that is not seriously in dispute--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I have to stop you for time.
That's not accurate. You need to read this Court opinion
because you're in charge of enforcing it. The Court has found
that--and Elvis Chan testified under oath, in charge of this
for you--he said 50 percent, he had a 50 percent success rate
in having alleged election disinformation taken down or
censored. That wasn't just foreign adversaries, sir. That was
American citizens. How do you answer for that?
Mr. Wray. Well, first, I'm not sure that's a correct
characterization of his testimony, but what I--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. It comes right out of the
opinion. You should read it.
Mr. Wray. --of his testimony, but what I would say is the
FBI is not in the business of moderating content or causing any
social media company to suppress or censor--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. That is not what the Court has
found.
Mr. Wray. What I would also say is, among the things that
you listed off, I find ironic the reference to the lab leak
theory. The idea that the FBI would somehow be involved in
suppressing references to the lab leak theory is somewhat
absurd when you consider the fact that the FBI was the only--
the only--agency in the entire intelligence community to reach
the assessment that it was more likely than not that was the
explanation for the pandemic.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Your agents, your agents pulled
it off the internet, sir. That's what the evidence and the
Court has found.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from New York is recognized.
Mr. Nadler. Director Wray, House Republicans have attacked
the execution of the search warrant of Mar-a-Lago last August
as a, quote, ``unprecedented raid.'' Would you consider the
execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago a raid?
Mr. Wray. I would not call it a raid. I would call it the
execution of a lawful search warrant.
Mr. Nadler. Can you describe how the search was executed?
Mr. Wray. Well, we had the case team follow its standard
procedure. It has sometimes been described as a SWAT operation.
It was not. There was no SWAT involvement. Beyond that, I think
I want to be really careful with getting too far into the
details now that this case is not only in the hands of a
Special Counsel, but, more importantly, in my view, in front of
the Court. I learned a long time ago, as a line prosecutor and
defense lawyer, to respect the Court process as where I think
you should speak.
Mr. Nadler. Were particular steps taken to ensure that the
execution of the search warrant did not draw undue attention?
Mr. Wray. I think there were steps along those lines, yes,
sir.
Mr. Nadler. Can you name a couple of them?
Mr. Wray. Well, among other things, we did not have people
coming in so-called ``raid jackets,'' which is often something
you would see--
Mr. Nadler. So, in other words, the FBI agents executing
the search wore plainclothes, so as not to attract undue
attention, and the FBI waited until Trump had left Mar-a-Lago
to execute the search. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Nadler. Chair Jordan has attacked the DOJ and the FBI
for not attempting to get the documents back from Trump
consensually before turning to a search warrant. I want to walk
through all the opportunities Trump had to produce these
documents, and I have a series of yes-or-no questions.
The National Archives, also known as NARA, first asked
Trump to return all Presidential records to them in May 2021,
correct?
Mr. Wray. Well, I don't remember the date, but I remember
there was a request by the National Archives.
Mr. Nadler. OK. Then, throughout 2021, NARA made repeatedly
followup requests, but, still, Trump failed to comply, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I would refer you to the pleadings that have
been filed in court that lay out in better detail than I could
here--
Mr. Nadler. In fact, it was not until January 2022, after
NARA warned Trump that failing to return documents could
violate the Presidential Records Act, that Trump finally
produced 15 boxes of documents to it, correct?
Mr. Wray. Again, I would just refer to our court filings,
which go into great detail about all this.
Mr. Nadler. Even these 15 boxes did not contain all the
documents Trump was required to return, correct?
Mr. Wray. That's my recollection, but, again, I'll refer to
the filings.
Mr. Nadler. So, in May 2022, a grand jury had to actually
subpoena Trump for the missing documents, correct?
Mr. Wray. The same answer.
Mr. Nadler. Trump was, then, present on June 3rd, when his
attorneys handed over another folder of documents and a
certification that all classified material had been returned,
correct?
Mr. Wray. Again, I just want to stick with what's in the
Court filings. That sounds right to me, but I really want to be
careful to stay within the four corners of--
Mr. Nadler. The certification was false, right? Even then,
Trump had not returned all classified material, correct?
Mr. Wray. I think that is part of the indictment.
Mr. Nadler. He had additional documents hiding in his
bathroom and his storage room, in storage units, et cetera.
Yes?
Mr. Wray. Again, I think that's part of the indictment.
Mr. Nadler. So, finally, DOJ and the FBI were required to
obtain a search warrant to obtain the classified documents that
had not been retained, correct?
Mr. Wray. The same answer.
Mr. Nadler. The documents retrieved during that search
included 69 marked confidential, 98 secrets, and 30 top
secrets, is that correct?
Mr. Wray. The same answer.
Mr. Nadler. So, to sum up, President Trump had many, many
chances to voluntarily comply with the FBI and DOJ's requests.
Instead, he made the choice to keep these highly classified
defense and national security documents, apparently, because he
wanted a souvenir.
I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with
former Attorney General Bill Barr's statement that Trump
brought this on himself. I would add that it's absurd that
House Republicans are attacking the FBI and DOJ for doing their
job in ensuring that no person is above the law.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. I thank the Chair.
Director Wray, in light of information provided to us about
the FBI's investigation of the January 6th pipe bombs, in an
interview with Assistant Director Steven D'Antuono, Chair
Jordan and I sent you a letter a month ago. Some of the
information that we found in that interview was that phone data
that could have helped to identify the pipe-bomber was
corrupted, was unusable. He also wasn't sure who found or how
the second bomb was found at the DNC.
Do you know how the second bomb was found at the DNC? When
do you plan on answering our letter?
Mr. Wray. Well, as to the letter, I will work with the
Department to make sure we can figure out what information we
can provide. As you know, this is a very active, ongoing
investigation and there are some restrictions on that, but we
will do our best to--
Mr. Massie. Yes, we can handle classified information--
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Massie. --and we fund your Department. So, you need to
provide that.
Mr. Wray. It's not, respectfully, it's not an issue of
classification. It's an issue of commenting on ongoing criminal
investigations, which is something that, by longstanding
Department policy, we are restricted in doing. In fact, the
last administration actually strengthened those policies,
partly because--
Mr. Massie. That's not our policy, though, and we fund you.
So, let's move on.
Mr. Wray. I could State it's partly because--
Mr. Massie. Do you know how the second pipe bomb--can you
tell us how the second pipe bomb was found at the DNC?
Mr. Wray. Again, I'm not going to get into that here.
Mr. Massie. Nine hundred days ago is when this happened,
and you said you had total confidence we'd apprehend the
subject. We've found video that looks like somebody, a passer-
by, miraculously found this pipe bomb at the DNC, and then,
notified the police. Miraculously, I say because it was at
specifically the same, the precise time to cause the maximum
distraction from the events going on at the Capitol.
Can you show this video that we have, please? I'd like to
know if the Director has seen this.
[Video played.]
This is somebody with a mask on wearing a hat. They're
walking in front of the DNC, which is out of the view on the
righthand side. We'll see them come into view. He goes to one
police car. He goes to another police car. He's holding a
backpack. He's got a mask on. He's talking to the police.
Within a minute, they start scrambling. You'll see the camera
turn to the pipe bomb, the location of the pipe bomb.
By the way, that's, I believe, the Metro Police are now
getting out of their car, and that's Vice President-Elect
detail in the black SUV, I believe, parked about 30 feet from
the pipe bomb, eating lunch.
OK. Now, we go over to the location of the pipe bomb. The
cameras are scrambling. It appears to me that's not a
coincidence; that the person with the backpack who walked by
that bench, and then, went up to the police and the detail
didn't do that accidentally. They had a purpose in mind. Then,
what transpired after that was the result of information that
person gave to them.
If that person found the pipe bomb, would they be a
suspect?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I don't want to speculate about
specific individuals. I will tell you that we have done
thousands of interviews; reviewed something like 40,000 video
files, of which this is one; assessed 500-something tips;
reviewed the devices--
Mr. Massie. Have you interviewed that person?
Mr. Wray. We have conducted all logical investigative steps
and interviewed all logical individuals at this point.
Mr. Massie. Then, you need--it's 900 days--
Mr. Wray. We're continuing--
Mr. Massie. You need to tell us what you found because
we're finding stuff you haven't released into the public.
Mr. Wray. Well--
Mr. Massie. In my remaining minute, I want to turn to
another issue. George Hill, former FBI Supervisory Intelligence
Analyst in the Boston field office, told us that the Bank of
America, with no legal process, gave to the FBI gun purchase
records with no geographical boundaries for anybody that was a
Bank of America customer. Is that true?
Mr. Wray. Well, what I do know is that a number of business
community partners all the time, including financial
institutions, share information with us about possible criminal
activity. My understanding is that's fully lawful.
Mr. Massie. Did you--
Mr. Wray. In this specific instance--
Mr. Massie. Did you ask for that information?
Mr. Wray. In the specific instance that you're asking
about, my understanding is that this information was shared
with field offices for information only, but, then, recalled to
avoid even the appearance of any kind of overreach. My
understanding is that's a fully lawful process.
Mr. Massie. Was there a warrant involved?
Mr. Wray. Again, my understanding is that the institution
in question shared information with us, as happens all the time
by--
Mr. Massie. Did you request the information?
Mr. Wray. I can't speak to the specifics.
Mr. Massie. OK. Well, we've got an email where it says the
FBI did give the search queries to Bank of America, and Bank of
America responded to the FBI and gave over this information
without a search warrant.
Do you believe there's any limitation on your ability to
obtain gun purchase data or purchase information for people,
for people who aren't suspects from banks without a warrant?
Mr. Wray. Well, now you're asking a legal question, which I
would prefer to defer to the lawyers, since I'm not practicing
as one right now, including the Department. What I will tell
you is that my understanding is that the process by which we
receive information from business community partners across a
wide variety of industries, including financial institutions
sharing information with us about possible criminal activity,
is something that is fully lawful under current Federal law.
Mr. Massie. It may be lawful, but it's not constitutional.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from California is recognized for five
minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Director Wray, for being here.
I think it's actually sad that the majority is engaging in
conspiracy theories and efforts to try and discredit one of the
premier law enforcement agencies in the United States in the
effort to try--without really any evidence--make the case that
the FBI is somehow opposed to conservative views.
In my view, actually, I'm concerned that the FBI has been
reluctant to do its job when it comes to the former President.
I would like to ask unanimous consent to put in the record
an article from The Washington Post, ``FBI Resisted Opening
Probe into Trump's Role in January 6th for More Than a Year.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Lofgren. Director Wray, would you disagree with the
premise of this article that the FBI delayed in looking at Mr.
Trump himself? The January 6th Committee--and I was a Member--
did find that the ex-President was the center of a wide-ranging
conspiracy to overturn the election. Did the FBI start to look
right after January 6th at the ex-President?
Mr. Wray. I'm sorry, I just lost the last part of your
question.
Ms. Lofgren. Did the FBI start looking at the ex-
President's role on January 6th starting January 7th or closely
to that time?
Mr. Wray. Well, let me start with, I'm not in the business
of kind of commenting or engaging on the truth or falsity of
newspaper articles. In this particular instance, as I'm sure
you can appreciate, there is an ongoing, very important,
ongoing Special Counsel investigation that's now in court.
Ms. Lofgren. OK.
Mr. Wray. So, not only do I not want to talk about the
ongoing investigation--
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I respect--
Mr. Wray. --but the internal deliberations related to it
are even more sensitive.
Ms. Lofgren. I respect that you cannot discuss ongoing
investigations.
Let me turn to another item. There's been criticism, and
the Ranking Member went through the scenario leading up to the
warrant for the documents at Mar-a-Lago, but I'd like to ask
unanimous consent to put an article from The Washington Post,
``Showdown Before the Raid: FBI Agents and Prosecutors Argued
Over Trump.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Lofgren. It's pretty clear from this article that there
was a resistance on the part of the FBI to actually look at the
President or pursue that case vigorously. Although you can't
comment on it, the article does suggest that FBI agents want to
just close the case because the ex-President made an assertion
that a search had been made.
Now, we had Mr. D'Antuono in as a witness, and he testified
four times that the Mar-a-Lago search had adequate probable
cause. Do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Wray. That the search had probable cause?
Ms. Lofgren. Correct.
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
So, you don't have any dispute that there was probable
cause for this warrant? I just want to say, before going to my
next question, that over and over again the FBI delayed and
showed unprecedented caution before investigating the ex-
President, even when there was a potential threat to national
security. That's my view. That's very far from the assertion
that there was unfair targeting. Let me ask--
Mr. Wray. Can I just, on that point, if I may, while I
can't discuss any specific investigation, my expectation for
all our investigations, repeatedly communicated to all our
people--and this is especially important in sensitive
investigations--is that our folks take great pains to be
rigorous, professional, objective, following all our policies
and procedures, and do the work in the right way. Sometimes
that's frustrating to others.
Ms. Lofgren. My time is almost up. I want to ask you
another question.
In the Senate hearing, in response to Senator Wyden's
question of whether the FBI is currently purchasing Americans'
location data, you indicated that it was limited to data
derived from internet advertising. It's since been reported
that the FBI has admitted it bought U.S. location data. Is the
FBI purchasing location data from commercial sources without a
warrant?
Mr. Wray. This is an area that requires a little more
precision and context for me to be able to answer that fully.
So, let me have my staff follow back up with you, so that I
make sure that I don't leave something important out.
Ms. Lofgren. I'll just close with the FBI had 3.4 million
backdoor searches of the FISA data base without a warrant in
2021. Can you say whether the FBI is continuing to search the
FISA data base without a warrant for Americans?
Mr. Wray. Well, if you're asking about our use of 702
queries--
Ms. Lofgren. I am.
Mr. Wray. --there is no warrant requirement under the
Fourth Amendment for those queries. It's fairly well settled.
The 3.4 million figure that you're talking about, I guess I
would say a couple of things. First, that's not 3.4 million
people; that's 3.4 million search terms or query terms. Second,
those are not queries in violation of rules. Those are just
queries under the procedures--
Ms. Lofgren. My time has expired, but the Committee--
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Lofgren. --will look into the warrant requirement later
in the process.
Chair Jordan. We sure will. We sure will.
The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
Mr. Gaetz. The American people need to understand what just
happened. My Democratic colleague just asked the Director of
the FBI whether or not they are buying information about our
fellow Americans, and the answer is, ``Well, we'll just have to
get back to you on that.'' It sounds really complicated.
I have other questions.
I'm sitting here with my father. I will make certain between
the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my
ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not
following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call
with my father.
It sounds like a shakedown, doesn't it, Director?
Mr. Wray. I'm not going to get into commenting on that.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, you seem deeply uncurious about it, don't
you? Almost suspiciously uncurious. Are you protecting the
Bidens?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely not. The FBI does not and has no
interest in protecting anyone politically.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, you won't answer the question.
Hold on. You won't answer the question about whether that's
a shakedown, and everybody knows why you won't answer it.
Because to the millions of people who will see this, they know
it is. Your inability to acknowledge that is deeply revealing
about you.
Let's go from the uncurious to the downright nosey. How
many illegal FISA queries have occurred under your leadership
of the FBI?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are reports that have come out with
different numbers about compliance incidents.
Mr. Gaetz. More than a million illegal ones? Because that's
what the Inspector General said. The Inspector General said
that, ``in the 3.4 million of these queries, more than a
million in error.'' Do you have any basis to disagree with
that, that assessment by the Inspector General?
Mr. Wray. I'm not sure, actually, that's a correct
characterization of the Inspector General's findings on that,
but--
Mr. Gaetz. Oh, well, the internet will remind you of that
in moments.
Mr. Wray. But I--
Mr. Gaetz. Let's now go to what the Court said. The Court
said it was over 200,000 that have occurred on your watch. Do
you have any basis to disagree with that assessment?
Mr. Wray. Again, I don't have the numbers, as I sit here
right now. What I can tell you--
Mr. Gaetz. It seems like a number you should know--how many
times the FBI is breaking the law under your watch, especially
if it's like over a million. To not know that number--and I'm
worried about your veracity on the subject as well.
Play the video.
[Video played.]
So, there, Senator Lee is asking you whether or not FISA
was in any way involved in your January 6th investigation, and
you say no. Was that truthful?
Mr. Wray. I said that I did not believe it was.
Mr. Gaetz. OK. So, now, let's pull up what the Court said,
which is something a little different than what you said.
So here--no, that's not the right one. Yes, here we go,
right there, it says,
The government has reported additional significant violations
of the querying standard, including several relating to the
January 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol.
So, I guess the question, Director Wray, is, did you not
know, when you were answering these questions, that the FBI was
engaging in these illegal searches, or did you perjure yourself
to Senator Lee?
Mr. Wray. I certainly didn't perjure myself. At the time
that I testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I
didn't have that piece of information. I will add--
Mr. Gaetz. Well, that was a Court order. You didn't have
that piece of information because the Court hadn't yet rendered
a judgment. Did you not know, when you gave the untruthful
answer before Senator Lee, that this was going on?
Mr. Wray. It was a truthful answer. I did not believe FISA
had been involved in the January 6th investigation.
Mr. Gaetz. It was. So, you didn't--the answer is, the FBI
has broken so bad, that people can go and engage in queries
that, when you come before the Congress to answer questions,
you're like blissfully ignorant--you're blissfully ignorant as
to the unlawful queries. You're blissfully ignorant as to the
Biden shakedown regime. It just seems like it gets into kind of
a creepy place as well.
Go to our next image on what the Court said.
Just to the American people realize, the Court has smacked
you down alleging--or ruling, ``FBI personnel apparently
conducted queries for improper personal reasons.'' People were
looking themselves up. They were looking their ex-lovers up.
Who has been held accountable or fired as a consequence of the
FBI using the FISA process as their, like, creepy, personal
snoop machine?
Mr. Wray. There have been instances in which individuals
have had disciplinary action and they are no longer with the--
Mr. Gaetz. Name them.
Mr. Wray. I can't get into it here, but we can follow back
up with you.
Mr. Gaetz. Don't you see that's kind of the thing, Director
Wray, that you preside over the FBI that has the lowest level
of trust in the FBI's history? People trusted the FBI more when
J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are. The
reason is because you don't give straight answers. You give
answers that later a court deems aren't true, and then, at the
end of the day, you won't criticize an obvious shakedown when
it's directly in front of us. It appears as though you're
whitewashing the conduct of corrupt people.
Mr. Wray. Respectfully, Congressman, in your home State of
Florida, the number of people applying to come work for us and
devote their lives working for us is over, up over 100 percent
since I--
Mr. Gaetz. We're deeply proud of them and they deserve
better than you.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you for continuing to serve with all
these attempts to sully your name and suggest you've committed
crimes, when you've done an excellent job as FBI Director. I
don't agree with everything you've done, but mostly I do, and I
think the FBI is a premier law enforcement agency, and I
support law enforcement. To attack the FBI is to attack law
enforcement in general.
A few days after Mar-a-Lago, there was some individual who
went after the Cincinnati headquarters of the FBI. Can you tell
us a little bit about that and how you think that came about?
Mr. Wray. So, the incident that you're asking about was,
obviously, deeply disturbing. We had an individual wearing a
tactical vest, armed with an AR-style rifle and a nail gun, who
attempted to forcibly enter and attack our Cincinnati field
office.
A subsequent review of the subject's devices and online
postings identified a pretty striking anti-FBI, anti-Federal
law enforcement hostility. He was calling on others to kill
Federal law enforcement, claiming that he felt he was a, in his
words, ``civil war.''
It's, unfortunately, part of a broader phenomenon that we
have seen, not just against the FBI--and this is important to
add--but against law enforcement all across the country, not
just against law enforcement professionals themselves, which is
appalling enough, but calling for attacks against their
families, which is truly despicable.
Mr. Cohen. That man eventually was captured and eliminated,
was he not?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Cohen. A few days later, was the Arizona FBI Department
the subject of armed violence--or not violence, but armed
protestors?
Mr. Wray. Well, I know that our Phoenix field office has
had a number of very concerning security incidents where people
attempted to attack or breach the facility. I can't remember
the dates of when that happened, but--
Mr. Cohen. All this has happened kind of in the same
sphere. It's been information that's been put out on social
media and just in general, and by Members of the Congress,
questioning the FBI, questioning law enforcement in general.
This has had a deleterious effect on the safety of FBI
officials, and you said others like Justice.
The was a story the other day, I believe, about people
involved in the prosecution of the former President and threats
to them, DOJ personnel, as well as FBI. Is that something
that's going on presently? Are there efforts to have a unit at
the FBI maybe look into how to protect and defend law
enforcement personnel who are threatened with violence?
Mr. Wray. We did stand up a whole dedicated unit to focus
on threats to FBI individuals, FBI employees and FBI
facilities, because of the uptick that we saw over that time
period.
Mr. Cohen. The January 6th, was beyond a weaponization of
government; it was a nuclearization of government against the
government. I believe I heard that you said that you didn't
have any prior notice or reason to believe that there would be
such an event on January 6th. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. We did not, to my knowledge at least, have prior
knowledge of an attempt, a violent overthrow of and breach of
the Capitol Building itself. Certainly, we were concerned about
and put out a number of products, intelligence products, to
partners and others warning of the potential for violence more
generally on that date.
Mr. Cohen. So, there have been--I think Tucker Carlson and
some of the Members, colleagues on the other side of the aisle,
have said that Ray Epps was a secret government agent helping
encourage this crime, so as to make the President look bad. Do
you have any knowledge of Ray Epps being a secret government
agent?
Mr. Wray. No. I will say this notion that somehow the
violence at the Capitol on January 6th was part of some
operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous
and it's a disservice to our brave, hardworking, dedicated men
and women.
Mr. Cohen. Director, I agree with you. I think the FBI has
some of the most talented law enforcement people in our Nation
and in the world. They are concerned about safety. They tend
to, as I understand, lean Republican, but they do their job
down the line. That's what they're supposed to do.
I'm happy we have the FBI operating in Memphis and other
places to work with our police departments and joint units to
protect our citizens, and I thank you for your service to the
United States.
I yield back my time.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
Director, I'm going to followup on my colleague from
Memphis. How many individuals who were either FBI employees or
people that the FBI had made contact with were in the January
6th entry of the Capitol and surrounding area?
Mr. Wray. So, I really need to be careful here talking
about where we have or have not used confidential human
sources.
Mr. Issa. Was there one or more individuals that would fit
that description on January 6th that were in or around the
Capitol?
Mr. Wray. I believe there is a filing in one of the January
6th cases that can provide a little more information about
this, and I'm happy to see if we can follow back up with you to
provide that.
Mr. Issa. I just want an answer. Was there one or more? I
mean you would know if there was at least one individual who
worked for the FBI who entered the Capitol on that day.
Mr. Wray. I can't--again I just can't speak to that here,
but I'm happy to get the Court filing that--
Mr. Issa. Look, it has been two years and you now come
before us. The gentleman asked these questions, makes all kinds
of insinuations, and you nod your head yes. Then I ask you
simply was there one or more and you won't answer that. So, I
am going to make the assumption that there was more than one,
more than five, more than 10, and that you are ducking the
question because you don't want to answer for the fact that you
had at least one and somehow missed understanding that some of
the individuals were very dangerous and that there were others
inciting individuals to enter the Capitol after others broke
windows.
So, I am just going to move on because I think it is time
to move on past January 6th. I just--seems that the other side
won't.
You are near-cabinet-level individual. You enjoy a term in
Senate confirmation. You feel comfortable speaking to other
Members, either cabinet-level or subcabinet-level when
appropriate to resolve problems within the government?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely.
Mr. Issa. OK. So, when the FBI censored the U.S. Government
you wouldn't have to just take it down by calling Meta or
Google, would you?
Mr. Wray. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I'm following the
question.
Mr. Issa. Are you familiar with the official verified
Russian language account of the United States Department of
State that was taken down at your agency's request?
Mr. Wray. That doesn't ring a bell as I sit here right now,
no.
Mr. Issa. OK. Well, now you have something to take back and
look at--
Mr. Wray. OK.
Mr. Issa. --because in fact in this bundle that SBU
constantly was submitting to various agencies was, in fact, a
Russian language statement of the government. Literally, you
took down the free speech of the Department of State.
Mr. Wray. So--
Mr. Issa. Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Wray. --you mentioned SBU. I'm not sure we're talking
about the same thing, but I will endeavor to provide a little
more context, as least as to SBU.
Mr. Issa. Yes.
Mr. Wray. So, I believe what you may be referring to, but
I'm not sure we're not talking about the same thing, is that
when Russia invaded Ukraine the security service of Ukraine,
SBU, which is a longstanding good partner of the FBI, asked us
for help on a whole range of things. One of those things was to
contact U.S. companies on their behalf because the Russians--
the invasion had cutoff Ukraine's communications.
So, we did pass through information from the SBU to social
media.
Mr. Issa. Are you also familiar with the fact that
President Zelensky has had to clean house at the SBU?
Mr. Wray. I know there have been a number of personnel
changes.
Mr. Issa. OK. Well, we will followup with this in more
detail.
The question I have for you is you are the premier law
enforcement operation, and you are a former Department of
Justice high-ranking executive at all levels, so would you
agree that the job of the FBI is criminal investigation?
Mr. Wray. It is criminal investigation and to protect the
country from national security threats, those two things.
Mr. Issa. OK. So, the idea that you take information, and
you have it taken down, use your authority and the leverage you
have to have Meta, Google, Facebook; Facebook being Meta, or
Twitter--take down people's information on things like where
COVID came from, where do you find the national security
interest in that? Where do you find the interest in free speech
of American citizens being taken down? I repeat, free speech of
American citizens. Where do you have that authority?
Mr. Wray. So, we don't ask social media companies to censor
information or suppress information when it comes to national
security threats, certainly. So, what we do is alert them when
some other intelligence agency gives us information about a
foreign intelligence service being behind some account, we will
call social media companies' attention to that. At the end of
the day, we're very clear that it's up to the social media
companies to decide whether to do something about it or not--
Mr. Issa. The suggestion of the most powerful law
enforcement operation is not a suggestion. It is in fact
effectively an order.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are here
today because MAGA Republicans will do anything to protect
Donald Trump, their savior, no matter how unfounded or
dangerous it may be to do so. Welcome to the legislative arm of
the Trump reelection campaign.
A grand jury found probable cause that among other crimes
Trump illegally kept highly sensitive national security
documents, which put our country and our sources in danger if
they got out and which photographs show Trump kept those
records in bathrooms, showers, closets, and in the Mar-a-Lago
ballroom. MAGA Republicans are afraid that the justice system
might hold Trump accountable for his actions so to protect him
Republicans are trying to intimidate FBI officials. In case
that does not work, Republicans are trying their hardest to
discredit the FBI in the eyes of the American public.
When Trump lost in 2020, they tried to make Americans
distrust their election systems. Now that the FBI and the
Justice Department have sought to hold Trump to the same
standard any other American citizen would be held to, MAGA
Republicans are telling Americans not to trust the FBI. To
protect Trump Republicans are trying to distract us from the
real work that the FBI does every day, which is fighting
violent criminals, child predators, and fighting domestic
terrorists and extremists so as to protect our democracy and
our national security. Even worse, MAGA Republicans are
stirring up threats that pose a danger to the safety of FBI
employees. It is past time that Republicans realize the
consequences of their words and put the good of this country
over politics.
Now, Director Wray, I want to thank you for your service
during a time of unprecedented travail. Director Wray, you were
a partner in an international law firm before you took a
drastic pay cut to accept the job of FBI Director, isn't that
correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes, that's something my wife reminds me of from
time to time.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Let me ask you this, sir: You took
this office after Trump fired the former FBI Director Jim
Comey, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Did you contact the Trump
Administration to offer yourself for this job or did the
administration recruit you for the job?
Mr. Wray. They contacted me and asked me if I would be
willing to consider taking on the role.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. So, Trump handpicked you to be the
FBI Director?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. He expected you to do what he
wanted you to do, correct?
Mr. Wray. Well, that I can't speak to. I can tell you the
same thing I told him which is that I'm going to do this job by
the book.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, I'll put it like this: He's
unhappy with you now, isn't he?
Mr. Wray. I'll let him speak for himself.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, I think a lot of his acolytes
here reflect his intent at this particular time.
Director Wray, are you aware that MAGA Republicans have
repeatedly called for the FBI to be defunded?
Mr. Wray. I have heard some of that language.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. In fact, Republicans on this very
Committee have said that your institution should be dismantled,
isn't that correct?
Mr. Wray. Well, I think certain Members have.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. One Member even tweeted, quote,
``Defund and dismantle the FBI.'' Another told Fox News that,
quote, ``Republicans should defund the bureaucracy.'' A third
told the press that he thinks the FBI, quote, ``needs to be
split up and moved out into pieces.'' Those are direct quotes
and only a small sample of what is out there.
Can you briefly describe for us what the effect would be on
our national security and on our domestic tranquility if the
FBI were to be defunded or dismantled?
Mr. Wray. Well, certainly it would be disastrous for 38,000
hardworking career law enforcement professionals and their
families, but more importantly in many ways it would hurt our
great State and local law enforcement partners who depend on us
every day to work with them on a whole slew of challenging
threats. It would hurt the American people, neighborhoods, and
communities across the country, the people we're protecting
from cartels, violent criminals, gang members, predators,
foreign and domestic terrorists, and cyber attacks. I could go
on and on.
The people it would help would be those same violent gangs
and cartels, foreign terrorists, Chinese spies, hackers, and so
forth.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Member--
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado for
five minutes.
Mr. Buck. I thank the Chair.
Director Wray, thank you. Thank you for your work with the
FBI and thank you for your history of work in law enforcement.
You started out as an AUSA. I am getting this information from
Wikipedia, the great font of knowledge in the digital age, so
I'm assuming that it is true. You started out as an AUSA. You
were nominated by Republican President Bush for the position of
Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division at the
Department of Justice, and you were confirmed by a Republican
Senate, if I am correct in that.
Mr. Wray. Yes, by a unanimous voice vote.
Mr. Buck. You were then nominated by Republican President
Donald Trump to be the FBI Director and again confirmed by the
Republican Senate for that position?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I think there were only five votes against
me, and they were all from Democrats.
Mr. Buck. According to Wikipedia you are still a registered
Republican, and I hope you don't change your party affiliation
after this hearing is over. I want to thank you. I want to
thank you for leading an agency, as you mentioned in your
opening statement, that protects Americans from foreign
terrorists, an agency that protects Americans from spies from
China and Russia, cybercrime, public corruption, organized
crime, drug cartels, human traffickers, and white-collar
criminals. I want to thank you and the FBI for protecting law-
abiding Americans from the evil that exists all around us.
Director Wray, you know this, but it is worth mentioning
again anyway. The FBI doesn't protect America because this is a
beautiful country. It doesn't protect America just because of
the citizens who live in this country. You and the FBI protect
America because of the values that we hold, because of our
constitutional republic, because this is a special place. The
rest of the world knows just how special this place is.
Director Wray, I am concerned about FISA. I am not
concerned about FISA in a partisan way, and, frankly, I am not
in favor of defunding the FBI, nor am I in favor of splitting
up the FBI, nor am I in favor of using the Holman rule for the
FBI Director. I am concerned about FISA because I am concerned
about what makes this place special and the threats to us. I
would love to work with the FBI on how we can protect Americans
at the same time protecting the civil liberties of Americans.
That area of FISA is what really concerns me.
I know you have gone to great lengths to try to work with
FBI agents on how they access information under 702, and I know
that at times it has been successful and at times it has not
been successful. The spirit of FISA and the spirit of our
constitutional republic really demands that the FBI culture
shift and it shifts to a place where FBI agents understand that
protecting Americans' civil liberties, that protecting the
privacy that we all enjoy in this country and even though we
screw up, we still enjoy this privacy. In court we have the
highest burden of proof the world has ever known, to prove a
case beyond a reasonable doubt. That information has to be
gathered by the government in a legal way.
So, I fear that we are going to overcorrect on FISA in
Congress. That we are going to take away some tools that are
necessary because there is a trust factor here that is missing.
I would love to know how we can draw that line in a way that
assures the civil liberties.
I agree with my colleague from California, and I don't
often agree with folks from California, but I agree with my
colleague from California that it is essential that we do not
get geolocation information from what I consider criminals at
big tech and that we protect that information for Americans.
You as a law enforcement official should not know where I am
necessarily unless you have probable cause to get that
information.
I am also concerned about the ability of law enforcement,
and particularly the FBI, to access information. When I go on
the internet, and I search for a gun vault, or I search for a
holster I don't want the government to know that I own a gun. I
think I have that privacy right to make sure the government
doesn't know that I own a gun, or any other information that I
search for on the internet unless you have got probable cause
to make that search.
So, I want to ask you a question with my few seconds, and
that is how can you work on the culture in the FBI and help us
reach that sweet spot on FISA?
Mr. Wray. Well, thank you for that. Certainly, we start it
with first principles, try to drive home every day to our
entire workforce that our mission is to both protect the
American people and uphold the Constitution. We have on the
issue of FISA clearly had failures in the past. I've been very
plain about that. We've implemented a whole series of reforms.
If you look at the reports that have started to come out
now from the FISA Court, ODNI, the Justice Department, and from
others who have looked at the effect of your reforms, over and
over again they are showing significant improvement in
compliance. We're talking about the most recent FISA Court
opinion finding 98 percent compliance and commending us for
moving in the right direction. A DOJ report found 99 percent
compliance. Our internal audit found a 14-percent jump up to 96
percent. These are all separate reports looking at the impact
of our reforms.
A lot of the public commentary about our failures--and
let's be clear, we have had problems. Those problems are
unacceptable, and I am determined with my leadership team to
fix them. Those problems almost entirely predate those reforms,
even though some of them have just come out recently.
So, we're going to keep working at this. That is not a one-
and-done from my perspective. I recognize that we need to work
with the Congress on this issue, but this is an incredibly
important tool. As you know from your own public service--
Chair Jordan. The time of the--
Mr. Wray. --as a prosecutor as well, this is an incredibly
important tool to protect the American people from very serious
foreign threats.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman is expired.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Mr. Director. I want to pick up
where Mr. Buck began as well by thanking you for your service.
I am glad that we have an opportunity for one Democrat, one
Republican in close succession to thank you for your service to
the country.
You are being attacked and vilified by some of the Members
of this Committee and others outside this Committee because the
Justice Department, the FBI has had the audacity to investigate
serious allegations of criminal conduct by a former President.
I just want a chance to recap how we got to where we are.
During the last administration and for four years the
Justice Department took the position, not unprecedented for the
department, that a former President could not be--a current
President could not be indicted. Now, I think that is a flawed
matter as a constitutional principle, but nonetheless that was
the view of the Office of Legal Counsel and the Justice
Department during the Trump years that the President of the
United States could not be indicted.
My Republican colleagues seem to believe that a former
President similarly cannot be indicted. That would effectively
make a President above the law, beyond the reach of the law. In
my view, there would probably be only one thing the Founders
would find more politically precarious and dangerous to our
Constitution than the indictment of a President or former
President, and that is the failure to indict a President or
former President when they have engaged in criminal conduct.
The Justice Department, I believe, as Representative
Lofgren, my fellow Member of the January 6th Committee,
asserted, took a very long time to begin the investigation of
Donald Trump and his involvement in January 6th. I believe it
began with urgency when it came to the foot soldiers who broke
into the Capitol and assaulted police officers that day, but at
least what I can tell from the public record the activities of
the President himself, some of which were a matter very much of
public record such as his tape-recorded conversation with the
Secretary of State in Georgia in which he badgered the
Secretary to, quote, ``find 11,780 votes that don't exist,''
while that was the subject of investigation by the local
District Attorney in Fulton County, it did not appear to be the
subject of investigation for more than a year by the Justice
Department. To me that is inexplicable. This was never the kind
of case in which you could roll up the foot soldiers on the
higher-ups because there were multiple lines of effort in this
plot to overturn the election.
I do think that the appointment of the Special Counsel has
accelerated the investigation of the former President's
misconduct and I think that is a positive step for the
department and for the country so we can get resolution to
this.
Likewise, with Mar-a-Lago, notwithstanding the protests of
my colleagues, they were repeated, repeated requests by the
Archives to get those documents back from the former President.
Then when those were unsuccessful, there was a Grand Jury
subpoena that was administered. When that was unsuccessful and
only when that was unsuccessful and there was evidence that the
former President was still withholding highly classified
materials, did the FBI go to the step of a search warrant. That
was more than a 1\1/2\ years after those initial requests. This
was anything but a rush to judgment in the Mar-a-Lago case.
So, I believe the department if anything has exercised
enormous caution, I would say too much caution, in the June 6th
Commission--Committee's work and oversight to proceed against a
former President when there are serious and credible
allegations of criminal conduct.
I want to thank you for your stewardship during this
incredibly difficult time. I don't think there has been a more
difficult time for an FBI Director. Notwithstanding concerns I
have expressed none of them go to your integrity or your
commitment to the country and I want to thank you for that.
Let me ask you about a different topic, although related to
January 6th as well. Let me ask you broadly about domestic
violent extremism. I offered an amendment in this Committee,
voted down by the Republicans, that we should oversee the
increasingly dire threat of domestic violent extremism. One of
your recent reports underscored the rise of this prevalent
threat and I would ask you if you would address it today.
Mr. Wray. So, the rise of domestic violent extremism is
something that I and we have been identifying for quite some
time. It goes back well before January 6th. In fact, a lot of
people don't know this, but the Joint Terrorism Task Forces
that we hear about so often at the FBI were largely created in
response to domestic terrorism, not foreign terrorism.
In my first few years, as Director we were identifying this
issue more and more and that's why we elevated in the Summer of
2019 racially motivated violent extremism to a national threat
priority level. We saw I think about a 40-percent increase in
the number of domestic violent extremism investigations all
before anything to do with January 6th. Obviously since then it
has continued.
Domestic violent extremism cuts across the spectrum from
the racially motivated violent extremism, militia violent
extremism, anarchist violent extremism, environmental violent
extremism, and, of course, recently, we've had a lot of violent
extremism attacks against prolife facilities. We're
investigating those.
So, it really covers a wide spectrum. What they all have in
common is three things: Violence or threats of violence
motivated by some ideology. It varies in violation of Federal
criminal law. That's the domestic violent extremism that I'm
talking about when I've identified this phenomenon.
Mr. Schiff. Mr. Chair, could I request unanimous consent to
enter into the record two letters, both from David Weiss, the
Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware, rebutting
allegations concerning partiality in the investigation of the
Hunter Biden case?
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Schiff. I thank you.
Thank you, director.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Director, what is the difference between a traditional
Catholic and a radical traditional Catholic?
Mr. Wray. I'm not an expert on the Catholic orders.
Chair Jordan. Well, your FBI wrote a memo talking about
radical traditional Catholics. I am just wondering if you can
define it for us.
Mr. Wray. Well, what I can tell you is you're referring to
the Richmond Product, which was a single product by a single
field office, which as soon as I found out about it, I was
aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems.
Chair Jordan. You were aghast? Then why won't you let us
talk to the people that put it together?
Mr. Wray. We are working on finishing an internal review
into what happen there.
Chair Jordan. We have to wait; we the Congress and the
American people have to wait until you do an internal review--
it is not a criminal investigation going on here--an internal
review before we can talk to the people who wrote this?
Mr. Wray. When we finish our internal review, which will be
very soon, we will come back before the Committee and provide a
briefing on what we found. Then we can--
Chair Jordan. Any idea how many Catholics in America?
Well, we appreciate the briefing, but we want to talk to
the people who wrote it.
Mr. Wray. Then we can--
Chair Jordan. Any idea how many Catholics are in America,
director?
Mr. Wray. No, sir.
Chair Jordan. There are a lot, over 60 million. What
percentage of those are radical traditional Catholics according
to the Richmond Field Office of the FBI?
Mr. Wray. Again, that product is not something that I will
defend or excuse. It's something that I thought was appalling
and removed it.
Chair Jordan. Let's read from that product. Page 4 of that
product--by the way, the copy you gave us--when can we get a
copy that doesn't have all these redactions on it, so we can
actually see what the American taxpayers were paying for, to
see their rights, their First Amendment religious liberty
rights attacked? Let me just read from page 4.
Provide new opportunities to mitigate extremist threat through
outreach to traditional Catholic parishes and the development
of sources with the placement and access to report on places of
worship.
That is pretty fancy language for they are trying to put
informants in the parish, in the church. That is what this
memorandum said, Director, from one of your field offices. You
won't let us talk to the people who did it. Any response to
that?
Mr. Wray. I didn't know--I was waiting for the question.
Chair Jordan. No, you think priests should be informants
inside the church, Director?
Mr. Wray. We do not recruit, open, or operate confidential
human sources to infiltrate, target, report on religious
organizations.
Chair Jordan. That's not what this said.
It sounds like you were trying to do it in Richmond,
Virginia.
Mr. Wray. No, sir. No, sir.
Chair Jordan. You weren't?
Mr. Wray. That's--
Chair Jordan. This didn't happen? You can assure us that
this didn't happen?
Mr. Wray. That product did not, as best as we can tell,
result in any investigative action as a result of it. None.
Chair Jordan. You know what the motivation for this was?
Why would they even think about doing this? You know what the
motivation was?
Mr. Wray. Well again, I think that's what our internal
review will find, and I'd rather wait until I hear what the
results of that internal review are.
Chair Jordan. Well, I don't need an internal review. I can
read the document. I assume you can do the same. Because it
says right there on the same page,
Richmond assesses extremist interest in radical traditional
Catholics is likely to increase over the next 12-24 months in
the run-up to the next general election.
Same paragraph,
Events in which extremists and radical traditional Catholics
might have common cause include legislation, judicial decisions
in such areas as abortion rights, immigration, affirmative
action, LGBTs, immigration, affirmative active, and LGBTQ
protections.
It is politics. That is the motivation. In the run-up to
the next election. They talk about the border, affirmative
action, and abortion rights. It is total politics. I think it
is interesting that affirmative--we just got a decision from a
bunch of Catholics who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court relative
to affirmative action. Politics was the total motivation here.
That is what is scary. That is what I think is so frightening
and why we--how this happens I don't know.
Five people signed off on it. Five people including the
Chief Division Counsel at the Richmond Field Office. I would
like to talk to this lawyer. A lot of people in this room went
to law school. You had a course on the Constitution. Talks
about the First Amendment. I find that really scary.
Again, when do you think we are going to have a chance? How
soon you going to complete this internal investigation so we
can talk to these folks who put this together?
Mr. Wray. I expect us to be able to brief the Committee on
our internal review later this summer.
Chair Jordan. Will that briefing include the names of the
individuals who put this document together attacking Americans'
First Amendment liberty?
Mr. Wray. I'm not sure yet what it will include because
it's not done yet, but when it is, we'll provide you with an
appropriate briefing.
Chair Jordan. What are you doing to fix it, so this doesn't
happen again?
Mr. Wray. Well, we've already started putting place a
number of fixes, and those will be further informed by the
results of the review.
Chair Jordan. What are those fixes? More training, more
things, that is the same thing you told us on FISA. While you
may have some improvement, you still got 204,000 times the data
base was illegally searched. So, what are the training and
procedures you are putting in place?
Mr. Wray. Well, I'll put the FISA stuff to the side,
although if you have time I can engage in that.
Chair Jordan. Well, I am just using that as an example of
where you have told the same thing, you fix something, and you
haven't.
Mr. Wray. I do not believe the number that you just invoked
on the FISA side is since the reforms. The fixes, as you called
them--
Chair Jordan. Can we get an unredacted--
Mr. Wray. --post-date the numbers that you're referring to.
Chair Jordan. Director, can we get an unredacted copy--
while you are still doing this internal investigation can we at
least get an un-redacted copy of this memorandum?
Mr. Wray. I will find out if there's more of the document
that can be shared with you. We've tried to be very careful in
what we redact and there's always a basis for it. So, let me go
back and see if there's more that we can provide. I know my
instructions are to be as sparing as possible in the redactions
that we provide.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Swalwell. Director, I think it is quite rich that the
guy that has accused you of lawlessness and weaponization is
400 days into violation of his own Congressional Subpoena over
January 6th. Quite rich to me that you are hearing all these
allegations from somebody who won't even respond to a lawful
subpoena.
I want to talk more about your workforce because that is
where you started. A couple weeks ago at the bureau you had
Family Day. Can you tell us what Family Day is?
Mr. Wray. Family Day is an opportunity for employees from
really all over the FBI. It tends to be primarily from the
nearby geographies because of the trip that they have to make,
employees to bring their families into FBI headquarters so that
they can see a little bit about the place their loved ones work
and why mom or dad is spending so much time away from home--
Mr. Swalwell. Do you see any little kids at Family Day?
Mr. Wray. Many, many, many. It is an opportunity for us to
say thank you to the families. We talked a lot in law
enforcement about sacrifice. The reality is that law
enforcement officers and professionals are sacrificing to do
what they love. Our families are sacrificing because of who
they love.
Mr. Swalwell. What would you say in your experience is the
No. 1 worry of a little kid about a mom or dad who is a special
agent out in the field?
Mr. Wray. Obviously, they are worried that their mom or dad
won't go home at night because they have been killed. That, in
fact, has happened unfortunately all too--
Mr. Swalwell. It happened in Fort Lauderdale a couple years
ago. Is that right?
Mr. Wray. Laura Schwartzenberger and Dan Alfin, two of our
agents, killed in a connection with a child exploitation case
down there. It was the single darkest day I have had in this
job.
Mr. Swalwell. I want to turn your attention to an
organization called Marco Polo. It is run by a former Trump
aide named Garrett Ziegler.
Over the past couple weeks, he has doxed the addresses of a
former Special Agent connected to the Hunter Biden case. He has
put up the dates of births and pictures of two current special
agents who work for you. He has said the name, which I will not
say, of an Assistant U.S. Attorney who worked on the Hunter
Biden case, that she will answer for her crimes. He will focus
everything on her. Justice will be done. It is out of my hands.
She will answer.
Do these types of threats and doxing concern you about
threats to your workforce and what it could mean?
Mr. Wray. Well, obviously, what we are most concerned about
are the actual acts of violence, which themselves have happened
and as we just discussed. This kind of phenomenon, doxing, is
itself hugely problematic because the more information,
personal information about law enforcement professionals that
are out in the internet, the more people who may be unstable or
inclined to violence that are out there who can choose to act
on it. We are seeing that all too often.
The number of officers across law enforcement killed in the
line of duty has been up alarmingly over the last few years. I
know that because one of the things I committed to doing early
in my tenure was every time an officer, anywhere in the
country, is shot and killed in the line of duty, I was going to
personally call that sheriff or that chief and on behalf of the
FBI express our support and condolences and relay that to the
family. I have done that now close to 400 times since I have
been in this job.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you for doing that. You not only do
that, but you also send your SACs, your special agents in
charge, to their funerals as well. I have seen that.
Chair, I have counted in this hearing, and we are only
about an 1\1/2\ hours, the use of the word laptop about 20
times. In fact, in the Chair's opening statement, he said that
he is upset that he believes the FBI prevented more Americans
from learning about a private citizen's laptop. That is bananas
to me. You all are bringing up FISA every single question. You
are essentially saying to the American people that you are
guardians of personal security and privacy. The 2020 election
was determined--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Swalwell. --because the FBI, no, because the FBI didn't
let more Americans see a private citizen's nonconsensual nudes.
Is that what we are saying here; that you lost the election not
because of your ideas, but because a private citizen's laptop
wasn't out there?
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Do you want an answer? Will you
yield?
Will you yield?
Mr. Swalwell. That's bananas. Like you should be a party of
ideas not a party of nonconsensual nudes to help you win an
election.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Will you yield for an answer?
Mr. Swalwell. It seems like that is what the objection is
here today. We should be talking about the mass shootings that
occurred over the last 10 days. Instead, this hearing has
turned into absolute chaos.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
We bring up FISA because it is up for reauthorization, if
the gentleman didn't know, at the end of this year. It was in
our witness's opening statement. I didn't bring up the laptop--
Mr. Swalwell. Whose time are you speaking to, Chair?
Chair Jordan. The judge last--
Mr. Swalwell. Point of order. Whose time are you--
Mr. Nadler. Chair, point of order. Whose time are you
speaking on?
Chair Jordan. I am speaking on, not a point of order.
I recognize the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Director, thanks for being here. Who is Matthew Graves? Who
is Matthew Graves?
Mr. Wray. I believe Matthew Graves, at least the person I
am thinking of, is I think the U.S. Attorney in the District of
Columbia.
Mr. Biggs. That is the person I am thinking of, too. Are
you aware that he has promised more than 1,000 more individuals
will be charged or indicted related to January 6th?
Mr. Wray. I had not heard that he had said that.
Mr. Biggs. Well, it seems arbitrary. There are reports that
it is kind of a quasi-quota system that he has put together for
January 6th prosecutions. Do you approve of targets, goals,
quotas in prosecuting alleged criminal conduct?
Mr. Wray. Well, certainly not quotas. That doesn't make any
sense. I mean, goals are a little bit more of an ambiguous
term.
Mr. Biggs. Certainly not quotas.
Mr. Wray. Certainly not quotas.
Mr. Biggs. Do you know if any of your personnel at the FBI
is involved in the investigations promised that will lead to
indictments by the January 6th quota established by U.S.
Attorney Graves?
Mr. Wray. That doesn't sound familiar to me.
Mr. Biggs. OK. In June 2021, you told this Committee that a
small group of people at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th had
``all sorts of weapons.'' Do you remember being here for that
Committee hearing and testifying that way?
Mr. Wray. In general, yes.
Mr. Biggs. It has been reported that more than 40 FBI
personnel, agents, or contractors were in the crowd on January
6th. Is that number accurate?
Mr. Wray. I don't know if that number is accurate.
Mr. Biggs. Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund
reportedly has asserted that the protest crowd was filled with
Federal agents. Are you aware of his assertion?
Mr. Wray. I am not.
Mr. Biggs. Would you agree with him that it was filled with
Federal agents on January 6th?
Mr. Wray. I would really have to see more closely exactly
what he said and get the full context to be able to evaluate
it.
Mr. Biggs. How many agents were actually, agents or human
resources were present at the Capitol complex and vicinity on
January 6th?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, it is going to get confusing because
it depends on when we deployed and responded to the breach that
occurred. Obviously, there were--
Mr. Biggs. How many were--
Mr. Wray. --Federal agents--
Mr. Biggs. Sure, yes, you are talking--and you and I both
know we are talking different things here. Please don't
distract here, because we are focusing on that those who were
there in an undercover capacity on January. How many were
there?
Mr. Wray. Again, I am not sure that I can give you that
number as I sit here. I am not sure there were undercover
agents on scene.
Mr. Biggs. I find that kind of a remarkable statement,
Director. At this point, you don't know whether there were
undercover Federal agents, FBI agents, in the crowd or in the
Capitol on January 6th?
Mr. Wray. I say that because I want to be very careful.
There have been a number of court filings related to some of
these topics. I want to make sure that I stick within what is
in--
Mr. Biggs. I understand that. I just, I thought I heard you
say you didn't know whether there were FBI agents or informants
or human sources in the Capitol or in the vicinity on January
6th. Did I misunderstand you? I thought that is what you said.
Mr. Wray. Well, I referred very specifically to undercover
agents.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. So, are you acknowledging then there were
undercover agents?
Mr. Wray. As I sit here right now, I do not believe there
were undercover agents on scene--
Mr. Biggs. Or any assets?
Mr. Wray. --FBI agents.
Mr. Biggs. Did you have any assets present that day in the
crowd?
Mr. Wray. When it comes to what you are calling assets or
what we would call confidential human sources, that is a place
where, again, I want to be careful, much as I said in response
to an earlier question. There are court filings that I think
speak to this that I am happy to make sure we get to you,
assuming they are not under seal. That can better answer the
question than I can as I sit here right now.
Mr. Biggs. In the same, or excuse me, June 2021 Committee
hearing you told us that,
The FISA Court approved FBI procedures, minimization
procedures, collection and procedures, courting procedures, did
not find misconduct.
That is what you said. Specifically, you said the FISC found no
misconduct.
Yet, three months later the Inspector General found
widespread problems in FBI's FISA applications, raising serious
questions about the FBI review process of applications,
including hundreds of examples of noncompliance with Woods
Procedures, for example. We know that from December 2020-
November 2021 the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless
searches of U.S. data under FISA, 3.4 million, up nearly triple
the amount of the previous year. It got worse as you were
telling us there was nothing to worry about.
Now, your reforms have produced about, reduced it down to
119,000, over 200,000 total, but 119,000 discrete Americans.
That just doesn't seem like you have accomplished much there if
you have 119,000 illegal searches and queries under FISA.
I will yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The House Judiciary Committee is responsible for helping to
ensure the rule of law. Unfortunately, this Chair ignored a
bipartisan Congressional subpoena served on him. The actions of
this Chair have undermined the credibility of all Congressional
Committees in seeking information from witnesses and have
undermined the rule of law.
Now, Director Wray, thank you for your public service and
for the service of the brave FBI agents. I am going to ask you
a series of basic questions to get facts out to the American
people about our system of justice.
Trump advisor Roger Stone was convicted in a Federal Court,
correct?
Mr. Wray. That is my recollection.
Mr. Lieu. All right. Trump donor Elliott Broidy was
convicted in a Federal Court, correct?
Mr. Wray. Also, my recollection.
Mr. Lieu. The Attorney General at the time for those two
convictions was Bill Barr. Which President nominated Bill Barr
for Attorney General?
Mr. Wray. President Trump.
Mr. Lieu. OK. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen was
convicted on two separate occasions in a Federal Court,
correct?
Mr. Wray. I believe that is correct.
Mr. Lieu. The Attorney General at the time for Cohen's
second conviction was Matthew Whitaker. Which President
appointed Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General?
Mr. Wray. President Trump.
Mr. Lieu. OK. Trump's former Campaign Chair Paul Manafort
was convicted in a Federal Court, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's former Deputy Campaign Manager Mr. Gates
was convicted in a Federal Court, correct?
Mr. Wray. That is my recollection.
Mr. Lieu. Trump's campaign Foreign Policy Adviser George
Papadopoulos was convicted in a Federal Court, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I think he, yes, he pled guilty, yes.
Mr. Lieu. The Attorney General at the time of those three
cases was Jeff Sessions. Which President nominated Jeff
Sessions for Attorney General?
Mr. Wray. President Trump.
Mr. Lieu. OK. You were their FBI Director for all those
cases at the time. Which President nominated you?
Mr. Wray. President Trump.
Mr. Lieu. OK. What these facts show is we don't have a two-
tiered system of justice. We have one Department of Justice
that goes after criminals regardless of party ideology.
All these folks were convicted under the administrations of
three separate Republican Attorneys General. It is not the
fault of the FBI that Donald Trump surrounded himself with
criminals. Donald Trump brought that on himself. Thank you to
the FBI for exposing the cesspool of corruption of these Trump
associates.
Now, I would like to talk about efforts by MAGA Republicans
to defund the FBI. I think it would be useful for the FBI to
explain to the American people what your missions are and how
critical they are, so, again, a series of basic questions. The
FBI's mission includes counterterrorism, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. OK. That means the FBI works to stop terrorist
attacks on American soil, right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. OK. The FBI's mission also includes
counterintelligence, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. That means the FBI works to stop espionage of
American companies and organizations. Is that right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. OK. The FBI's mission includes stopping
cybercrime, right?
Mr. Wray. Correct.
Mr. Lieu. The FBI's mission includes stopping public
corruption, right?
Mr. Wray. Correct.
Mr. Lieu. The FBI's mission includes stopping weapons of
mass destruction from being detonated on American soil, right?
Mr. Wray. Yes, we work with others on it, but yes.
Mr. Lieu. The FBI's mission includes going after organized
crime, right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. You go after violent crime, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. You also go after White collar crime, right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. The FBI's mission also includes going after child
sex trafficking, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. OK. Republican Members of their caucus, including
Members on this Committee, have asked to defund the FBI. One
Member on this Committee from Arizona wrote that the FBI
``should be defunded and dismantled.'' What would happen if the
FBI was defunded and dismantled?
Mr. Wray. We would have hundreds more violent criminals out
on the street, dozens more violent gangs terrorizing
communities, hundreds more child predators on the loose,
hundreds more kids left at those predators' mercy instead of
being rescued, scores of threats from the Chinese Communist
Party being left unaddressed, hundreds of ransomware attacks
left unmitigated, terrorist attacks, both jihadist inspired and
domestic violent extremists, not prevented that would succeed
against Americans.
Single seizures of fentanyl, it is not uncommon right now
for a single FBI office in a single operation to seize enough
fentanyl to wipe out an entire State. So many, many, many, many
more of those lethal doses would be sweeping the country. We
have close to 400 I think it is, somewhere between 300-400
investigations into the leadership of the cartels trafficking
that fentanyl. So, you would have a significantly greater
threat from the southwest border from the cartels. So, those
are just a few things that would happen.
Ultimately, the people most hurt by some ill-conceived
effort to defund our agency, the people most hurt are the
American people that live in every district represented on this
Committee.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Director Wray and the FBI agents, for
protecting Americans.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, is recognized.
Mr. Kiley. Good morning, Director Wray. I would like to
take you back to 2021. In many parts of the country, schools
remained closed month after month for no good reason. Once
schools did nominally open, many instituted draconian testing
and quarantine regimes, such as one student is possibly exposed
to COVID, everyone goes home for the week. Children as young as
toddlers were subjected to harmful mask mandates that defied
international norms.
The way some students were treated truly shocks the
conscience. Just consider a few examples from my own State of
California. A school district in Davis sent an email to parents
announcing that their children will be required to eat outside
in the rain to reduce exposure to COVID. A school in Sonoma
County made young children chew with their masks on, explaining
this was to minimize the time spent unmasked. Some schools in
Los Angeles limited students to one bathroom break per day and
barred them from drinking water outside of the lunch period. A
school in the San Ramon Valley made students eat lunch on the
ground.
In October of that year, the American Academy of Pediatrics
would declare a National State of Emergency in children's
mental health, citing dramatic increases in emergency
department visits for all mental health emergencies, including
suspected suicide attempts.
In the face of this, Director, the Biden Administration
decided to take action. It mobilized the sweeping powers of
Federal law enforcement. It wasn't to spare kids from such
cruelty. Rather, it was to target the parents who were speaking
out against it.
The administration coordinated with the National School
Board Association on a letter that began with the alarming
claim America's public schools and its education leaders are
under an immediate threat. The letter cited a handful of news
stories, almost all which involved purely expressive activity
by parents at school board meetings, and called such activity a
form of domestic terrorism. The letter called for the full
counterterrorism and law enforcement powers of the Federal
government, including authority granted under the PATRIOT Act,
to be mobilized to investigate, intercept, and prevent such
activity.
The Biden Administration was ready to take this letter and
run with it the moment it was received. After all,
administration officials had participated in its drafting.
Within five days of receiving it, Attorney General Merrick
Garland fired off his infamous memo directing Federal action in
response to a ``disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation,
and threats of violence against school administrators, board
members, teachers, and staff.'' In response, the FBI opened 25
assessments against parents and even created a new threat tag.
Director Wray, did Attorney General Garland consult with
you or the FBI before issuing that memorandum?
Mr. Wray. I can't get into discussions that did or maybe
more importantly did not happen between the FBI and the
Department in advance of the--
Mr. Kiley. Why do you say more importantly did not?
Mr. Wray. Well, because I will say to you the same thing
that I said to all 56 of our field offices as soon as I read
the memo, which is that the FBI is not in the business of
investigating or policing speech at school board meetings or
anywhere else for that matter, and we are not going to start
now.
Now, violence, threats of violence, that is a different
matter. We are going to work with our--
Mr. Kiley. Right. So, that is what the memo was predicated
on. What I am asking you, was there any evidence that you
provided to Attorney General Garland that supported that
premise that there was an increase in harassment and threats of
violence?
Mr. Wray. I am not aware of any such evidence. I know that
we have had a number of our folks who have been up here for
transcribed interviews. So, unless some of them shared it, I am
not aware of any--
Mr. Kiley. Well, actually what they have shared with us
points to just the opposite. You had, for example, a letter
from Christopher Dunham, Acting Assistant Director, in March of
this year where the FBI acknowledged that it has not observed
an uptick of threats directed at school officials since it
began tracking the data. Does that sound accurate to you?
Mr. Wray. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kiley. Is it also true that according to the FBI itself
none of the school board related investigations have resulted
in Federal arrests or charges?
Mr. Wray. I think that is correct. I think of the 25, and
for context that is 25--
Mr. Kiley. I am sorry. I have limited time. So,--
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Kiley. --if that is correct, I would like to move on.
This Committee's investigation concluded that the Justice
Department's own documents demonstrated there was no compelling
nationwide law enforcement justification for the Attorney
General's directive. Do you have any reason to dispute that
conclusion?
Mr. Wray. No.
Mr. Kiley. So, we had an investigation of parents. We had a
sweeping mobilization of Federal power against the most
protected core First Amendment activity, the right of citizens
to speak and petition, on the most important of issues, the
education of their children. You are telling me that the entire
basis for that, there was no evidence to support it.
Mr. Wray. Well, I want to be clear. We, the FBI, as I said,
were not and did not investigate people for exercising their--
Mr. Kiley. Should Attorney General Garland rescind the
memo?
Mr. Wray. I am sorry?
Mr. Kiley. Should Attorney General Garland rescind that
memo?
Mr. Wray. Oh, that is a question for the Attorney General.
Mr. Kiley. Do you believe he should?
Mr. Wray. Again, that is a question for the Attorney
General.
Mr. Kiley. Do you believe that the Attorney General should
apologize to parents who were the subject of that memorandum?
Mr. Wray. I am not going to speak to that.
Mr. Kiley. Will you apologize for the FBI's own role?
Mr. Wray. I think the FBI conducted itself the way it
should here, which is that we have continued to follow our
longstanding rules and have not changed anything in response to
that memo.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Washington.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you so much for being with us. Thank
you for your service to the country.
I do want to focus on some areas of concern around
American's civil liberties that I have had longstanding
concerns about. In testimony to Senate Intelligence in March,
you stated that the FBI had previously purchased commercial
data base information that includes location data derived from
internet advertising, but that to your knowledge the FBI does
not currently purchase data.
Just last month the ODNI declassified a report revealing
that the FBI and other agencies do purchase significant amounts
of commercially available information about Americans from data
brokers. The report notes that commercially available
information:
. . . has increasingly important risks and implications for
U.S. persons' privacy and civil liberties as commercially
available information can reveal sensitive and intimate
information about individuals.
It is public information that the FBI uses Babel Street and
Venntel, and has a Lexus account. All these companies provide
data for purchase. Can you tell me how the FBI uses that data?
Mr. Wray. Respectfully, this is a topic that gets very
involved to explain. So, what I would prefer to do is have our
subject matter experts come back up and brief you, and they can
answer your questions in detail about it, because there is a
lot of confusion that can be unintentionally caused about this
topic.
Ms. Jayapal. Does the FBI purchase data?
Mr. Wray. My testimony that you referred to before remains
the same. The story about the ODNI report doesn't change that.
Again, there is a lot of precision and technical dimensions to
this.
Ms. Jayapal. Well, I do appreciate that. I am looking at a
report that is from the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence saying that the FBI purchases data.
Mr. Wray. I understand that.
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter
this into the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Jayapal. Do you know if the contracts with data brokers
like the ones I described provide location data?
Mr. Wray. My testimony about purchasing commercial data
base information that includes location data derived from
internet advertising remains the same, which is that we
currently do not do that.
Ms. Jayapal. The information that you have that has already
been purchased, does it contain location--
Mr. Wray. Again, I am not trying to be obtuse or difficult
here. I just know from experience that the more you drill into
this whole issue of commercial data, geolocation data, et
cetera, that it gets very involved, in some cases involves
pilot projects that are in the past. In some cases, it involves
national security information, et cetera.
Ms. Jayapal. Director Wray, I do understand that you are--
Mr. Wray. So, I just want to make sure that we get you the
information that you need.
Ms. Jayapal. OK. That is great. I will take that. I do want
to say that this is just an extremely important issue for the
American people to understand how their data is being used.
That is location data. That is biometric information. It is
medical and mental health information. It is information
related to individuals' communications. It is information about
people's internet activity. While I understand that this is
complicated, that is the reason that you come before us, so
that the American people can hear this.
Let me ask you this. Does the FBI have a written policy
outlining how it can purchase and use commercially available
information?
Mr. Wray. There are a number of policies that bear on this
topic. Again, that could be part of the same briefing that we
are happy to provide. I don't dispute at all that this is an
important topic. I am simply saying that precisely because it
is such an important topic that a minute and 12 seconds
counting down is not the best way--
Ms. Jayapal. No, I understand that.
Mr. Wray. That's all.
Ms. Jayapal. I am asking whether there is a policy. It
sounds like there is a policy. When was that policy last
updated?
Mr. Wray. That I can't, as I sit here right now, I don't
have the answer for you on that. Again, there a number of
policies that are relevant to this. So that may affect the--
Ms. Jayapal. You will commit to providing those to us so
that we can explore them--
Mr. Wray. I will commit to providing you a briefing that
will provide hopefully very helpful information to help you
understand better this whole topic.
Ms. Jayapal. What about a written policy governing how
commercially available information can be used in criminal
investigations?
Mr. Wray. I think it is all wrapped up in the same answer I
just gave.
Ms. Jayapal. The reason that this is so important is
because the question is whether the FBI uses that data to
generate leads for investigations only or further along in the
investigative process.
There is public reporting on DHS contracts with the same
data brokers that I mentioned earlier totaling millions of
taxpayer dollars. As you know in the 2018 Supreme Court
decision in Carpenter v. The United States, the Court held that
it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment for the government to
access historical location data without a warrant.
Does the FBI have a written policy interpreting the Supreme
Court's decision in Carpenter?
Mr. Wray. If I recall correctly, there was guidance, I
can't remember if it is a policy or what, that came out after
the Carpenter decision. Again, I think that will be encompassed
in the briefing that we are talking--
Ms. Jayapal. Well, I am going to followup with you. I want
to thank you again for your service. This is a critically
important issue for the American people to understand.
We have bipartisan support around FISA reauthorization and
the concerns we have around FISA reauthorization. Unless we
really understand what measures the FBI is taking to ensure
that people's privacy is protected, I think it is going to be a
very difficult reauthorization process. I am sure you know
that. Thank you, Director Wray.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. I would just say
well said. I appreciate your work with colleagues and
bipartisan approach in this area. You have friends over here
who want to help you on that.
We now go to the gentleman from--I know, Director Wray. If
we can go just a couple more, then we will take a little break,
if that works for the Director. A couple more on each side,
then we can take a break.
[Off mic comments.]
Chair Jordan. OK. All right. We will go. I think Mr. Moore
is up.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you for being here today. In 2022, you
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and stated, ``I
condemn in the strongest possible terms any prospect of
retaliation against whistleblowers.'' Do you still agree with
that statement?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Do you feel that your actions as the FBI
leadership during your tenure live up to that sentiment?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Director Wray, a few months ago we heard from--
are you familiar with a Special Agent Garret O'Boyle?
Mr. Wray. I am familiar with the name.
Mr. Moore. After Mr. O'Boyle came to Congress and blew the
whistle on the misconduct at the Bureau, his clearance was
unsurprisingly suspended. Did that surprise you? Do you find
that suspicious?
Mr. Wray. I can't discuss a specific security clearance
matter, partly because the security clearance determinations
are made by ODNI directive, by the security clearance manager,
which is not the FBI Director. I don't want to insert myself
into the process while appeals are pending, for example.
Mr. Moore. Well, as a leader, I think it is important. We
need to have the opportunity, and you know by law that they
have the opportunity to be whistleblowers and talk to Congress
and inform us on issues. I think to restore trust in the FBI,
it is imperative on you to allow whistleblowers to come forward
and for us to have the oversight we need to have to make sure.
We are seeing the polling numbers. The FBI is tanking. It
is under your watch, sir. It concerns me for the American
people. When I am in the district, the No. 1 concern, and I
come from a fairly rural district, is weaponization of the FBI
and the DOJ, coming after conservative American citizens who
just simply want to have a voice in the process.
So, I would encourage you--Mr. O'Boyle, I understand he has
been suspended since September 2023, almost 10 months now. In
2022, he was suspended in 2022. So, almost a year now the man
is trying to go without a paycheck. I don't know. Could you
make it 10 months without a paycheck, Mr. Wray?
Mr. Wray. I prefer not to answer that.
Mr. Moore. Well, you talk about your wife not being really
happy, yes, taking a pay cut. Well, can you imagine 10 months
later, and you are still going through a process for just a
whistleblower coming to the Congress and trying to inform us on
issues he sees within the FBI?
I think we could help you in the process if you would allow
us. In some ways, we have to look at this whistleblower and
other whistleblowers and encourage them to come forward and be
truthful with the American people.
Two real quick questions. Why would the FBI offer
Christopher Steele a million dollars to verify a dossier about
Trump Russian collusion and then the same FBI offer $3 million
to Twitter to squash a story on the Hunter Biden laptop? Do you
have any idea why a law enforcement agency would be playing
into elections?
Mr. Wray. Well, you raised a number of different issues
there. So, first, as to the Steele dossier, that, of course, is
a subject treated at great lengths in the Durham Report, which
we, and again, predates my time as director in which we--
Mr. Moore. I understand that.
It was the same agency paying a million dollars to push one
story out or try to collaborate one story and $3 million to
quiet another story for political opponents. I don't quite
understand.
Mr. Wray. Then I would, as to the second part related to
Twitter, I would disagree with your characterization
respectfully. When there are payments to social media
companies, that is by a longstanding Federal law going back, I
think, about four decades where we have to pay companies for
their costs in responding to a legal process. It is not just
social media companies. It is other kinds of businesses as
well.
Mr. Moore. Well, when those stories get out, and you
understand certainly the dossier story, and I know that wasn't
under your watch, but also the Hunter Biden laptop story, that
to me looks political. To the American people, it looks
political. I am just an everyday guy. I am not an attorney, Mr.
Wray, just an everyday guy. To me, it looks extremely
political. That is why you are having trouble keeping the FBI's
reputation afloat.
So, with that, Mr. Chair, I am going to yield the balance
of my time. I want to enter one thing to the record, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. Can you do that after and just yield? Then we
will enter it into the record after.
Mr. Moore. Sure, sure.
Chair Jordan. Director Wray, did the FBI ask financial
institutions to turn over their customers--he yielded the time
to me. Did the FBI ask financial institutions to turn over
their customers' debit and credit card purchase history in the
Washington, DC, area for January 5-6, 2021?
Mr. Wray. I don't know the answer to that as I sit here
right now.
Chair Jordan. Well, we do, because Bank of America gave
this email from the FBI to Bank of America.
Mr. Wray. Well, I am aware that Bank of America provided
information to the FBI. What communications occurred between
the FBI and Bank of America about it--
Chair Jordan. Well, let's read it.
To recap our morning call, we are prepared to action the
following threshold, customers transacting debit card, credit
card, Washington, DC, purchases between January 5-6, 2021.
That is scary enough. Then the next bullet point is even more
scary. ``ANY HISTORICAL,'' capital letters, all capitals, ``ANY
HISTORICAL PURCHASE OF A FIREARM.'' You guys asked financial,
at least Bank of America, we think more. Did you guys ask them?
Mr. Wray. Again, I don't have the full sequence of the back
and forth. You have got one. It looks like you have one email
that I haven't seen before here. So, I don't know that I have
the full exchange that--
Chair Jordan. Well, does this email trouble you as much as
it does Members of the Judiciary Committee, that the FBI is
asking for every single--we had Members of Congress here that
week, first time they are getting sworn in as a new Member of
Congress, their family in town. You are sweeping. They may
happen to be a customer of Bank of America. You are sweeping up
every debit and credit card purchase of their family who are in
town that week because their husband or their dad or their mom
is getting sworn in as a new Member of Congress? Then you are
also saying overlaying that information with did you, did this
person buy a firearm?
Mr. Wray. The question is?
Chair Jordan. I am just nervous about that. Are you nervous
about that?
Mr. Wray. As I think I have testified before, my
understanding is that our engagement with Bank of America was
fully lawful, but that we recalled the leads that were cut to--
Chair Jordan. Well, if it is lawful, that was my next
point. If it is lawful, why did you say we are not going to use
these leads? That is what Mr. Jensen testified to when we
deposed him, the Director of the Terrorism Unit at the FBI.
That is what he testified to. Why did you not use the leads if
it was lawful to get the information?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are--
Mr. Nadler. The Chair is one minute and 18 seconds over
time.
Mr. Wray. Sir, there are plenty of times where there are
things that we lawfully can do, but that we decide is better
that we not do.
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Wray. I think that is what happened--
Chair Jordan. The idea that Mr. Massie said earlier. This
is lawful, that you can ask this is scary. This is something
else we are going to have to change.
With that, I would yield to the gentlelady from, recognize
the gentlelady from, excuse me, well, we got a unanimous
consent request from Mr. Moore?
Mr. Moore. Mr. Chair, yes, the Wall Street Journal article
I would like to enter into the record says, ``Republicans eye
sweet home for new FBI headquarters in Alabama.''
Chair Jordan. All right. Without objection.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas for five
minutes. Then we will take a break, Director.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Good afternoon. Thank you very much,
Director Wray, for your presence here. Thank you to the men and
women of the FBI, in particular, for the work that you have
done on gun violence and as well the work that you have done in
keeping Americans safe.
Let me very quickly move on some issues that have been made
a chief part of the work of our friends on the other side of
the aisle. Republican Members of this Committee have spent much
time of this Congress claiming that various aspects of the U.S.
Government have been weaponized against the American people.
Director Wray, are you or your staff or auxiliaries
weaponizing the FBI against the American people?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely not.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much. Let me thank you as
well for your civil rights work and emphasize that, in
addition, there have been representations that the FBI
exaggerates domestic terrorism reports or data. Certainly,
January 6th had its many different storytellers. That was an
act of domestic terrorism. I don't know how you could have
exaggerated that, as evidenced by the Special Congressional
Committee we had.
Let's just think of domestic terrorism as it relates to the
good men and women of our law enforcement. Take an example in
February 2020 in Texas where a White supremacist was engaged in
conspiracy involving swatting, a harassment tactic, and all of
the emergency services showed up over and over again. Does
domestic terrorism impact negatively and dangerously on
America's law enforcement and first responders?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely. Sometimes law enforcement are
themselves the intended victims or targets of domestic violent
extremism.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Though you have good, committed
individuals, does the--critique is legitimate. That is our job.
Does the constant condemnation impact the morale of FBI
personnel or those trying to join the FBI?
Mr. Wray. Well, look, our people are human beings, and
nobody likes to see the organization they have dedicated their
careers, really their lives, to unfairly criticized. I will
tell you, as I said in my opening statement, that the good news
is our people are also tough and resilient. Our attrition is in
the low single digits and would be the envy of almost any
employer. Our recruiting, unlike what is happening in law
enforcement more generally--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Great news.
Mr. Wray. --is actually up very significantly.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I look forward to it being
diverse.
Let me start with our whistleblower journey here. Are you
familiar with FBI special agents Kyle Seraphin?
Mr. Wray. I am familiar with the name.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Is that yes?
Mr. Wray. I am familiar with the name.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yep. The Committee heard testimony that
Mr. Seraphin was suspended after he mishandled his service
weapon and then said he wanted to use two female FBI executives
as shooting targets. That was testimony of Jennifer Moore, HR,
under, human resources under oath from the FBI.
Mr. Seraphin describes himself as a Congressional
whistleblower. Committee Republicans will not tell us whether
he has been in contact with them. Are you familiar with former
FBI agents Garret O'Boyle and Marcus Allen?
Mr. Wray. Again, I am familiar with the names.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. O'Boyle was suspended for
accessing information about an ongoing case and then leaking to
the press. Allen was suspended for interfering in an
investigation of a January 6th suspect. Both Allen and O'Boyle
testified before the Weaponization Committee in May. Were you
aware of that?
Mr. Wray. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I think they are clearly there for all
friends and family to see. I assume they wanted to be seen.
Do you know who Kash Patel is, if you know?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I know who he is.
Ms. Jackson Lee. He is an aide to President Trump, isn't
he, or was an aide or is an aide to President Trump?
Mr. Wray. Well, he was an individual who served in a number
of different roles, both up here on the Hill and in the
Executive Branch.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Here is another picture. It is
the checks that Seraphin sent to both O'Boyle and Allen. Each
check was for $255,194. Let me say that again. These men were
paid $255,194 after they testified as so-called whistleblowers.
It should be noted that it says here, as it says, for holding
the line.
Director, at the time that Seraphin and Patel gave Garret
O'Boyle and Marcus Allen these checks, do you happen to know if
they were still employees of the FBI?
Mr. Wray. I can't speak to that. I don't know the answer.
Ms. Jackson Lee. If they were, 5 CFR 2635, and I would
appreciate it if we can get an answer in writing after you go
back, whether they were or not, prohibits FBI employees from
accepting cash gifts, doesn't it?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are a whole number of rules that
would apply to this. Again, I don't want to weigh in on a
specific personnel matter.
Ms. Jackson Lee. If they were, that rule applies about cash
gifts.
Mr. Wray. I am not aware of a situation in which they
could--
Ms. Jackson Lee. No, but just--
Mr. Wray. --appropriately accept cash gift.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Just generally--
Mr. Wray. Oh.
Ms. Jackson Lee. --if that applies to FBI agents about not
taking cash gifts. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. There are definitely rules that apply to special
agents accepting cash gifts.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Let me just finish this. Can
you explain why an FBI agent should not receive cash?
Let me move to one that I think is extremely important. Mr.
Chair, just a moment. Here is what I think is the most
interesting piece of this whole puzzle. O'Boyle and Allen are
represented by an outfit called Empower Oversight.
Chair Jordan. Time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Empower Oversight is run by former
Republicans staffers. Do you know who else Empower Oversight
might represent in any way?
Mr. Wray. I do not.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous
consent request.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me just--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
[Off mic comments.]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much. Thank you. The so-
called IRS whistleblower who Jim Jordan had relied on. Does
anyone need any further proof that these allegations are ginned
up, corrupt political stunts advanced by those who don't want
to see us follow the law.
Finally, Mr. Chair, here is another person who wants to
join you on the 702. The FBI has begun major reforms. I think
we should recognize that. You have been very kind. I yield back
my time.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
I would just point out my guess is they got the money
because, they wanted the money because they had to try to, they
were trying to feed their family.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. They actually haven't received
the money.
I have a unanimous consent request, Mr. Chair, of a tweet
Matthew Foldi put out here during this hearing. Right off the
bat Jerry Nadler lies about whistleblower getting $250,000. He
says here Marcus Allen has not received $250,000. He has not
received or cashed the check that Kyle Seraphin posted online.
Enter that into the record.
Chair Jordan. Into the record.
The Committee will take a five-minute recess, five minutes
and then we will come back.
[Recess]
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come back to order. The
Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Cline.
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you for being here. Since we last
spoke in Appropriations on April 27, and Special Counsel John
Durham delivered his report detailing intelligence activities
investigations arising out of the 2016 Presidential Campaign.
When Mr. Durham presented here at the Committee, I asked
him these questions. He was able to answer me in yes-or-no
answers. I would ask you to do the same.
Did the FBI have an adequate basis on which to launch
Crossfire Hurricane?
Mr. Wray. My understanding is that Mr. Durham found that it
did not have a proper basis to elevate it to a full
investigation, but that he thought it was an assessment or a
preliminary inquiry was appropriate.
Mr. Cline. Did the FBI fail to examine all available
exculpatory evidence?
Mr. Wray. Well, you say to examine it? Certainly, I think
there are failures, significant failures with respect to
exculpatory information.
Mr. Cline. Did the FBI interview all key witnesses in
Crossfire Hurricane?
Mr. Wray. I think Mr. Durham I think found that they did
not.
Mr. Cline. Did the FBI abuse its authority under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?
Mr. Wray. Well, certainly, there were violations that were
totally unacceptable and in my view cannot be allowed to happen
again.
Mr. Cline. As noted in the report, Crossfire Hurricane
investigators had hoped the returns on the Carter Page FISA
application would ``self-corroborate.'' Do FBI or DOJ
guidelines permit investigators to submit uncorroborated
allegations in a FISA application in the hopes that the returns
will self-corroborate?
Mr. Wray. I have never heard of that concept.
Mr. Cline. OK. Is Crossfire Hurricane the only time the FBI
has violated the procedures for the FISA process?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are a lot of different procedures,
but certainly not the only compliance incidence that we have
had with respect to FISA.
Mr. Cline. Director, as I expressed to you upstairs, the
American people are outraged. Just this week I had at a
townhall, constituents expressing outrage about the actions of
those within your agency who have damaged the FBI's reputation
and undermined the work, the good work, of the vast majority of
hardworking men and women within your agency.
Going down the list, you have the Biden family
investigations, you have the anti-Catholic memo. By the way,
you mentioned five individuals who contributed to the anti-
Catholic memo in the Richmond Field Office. Are they still
employed by the FBI?
Mr. Wray. I don't think I mentioned any specific
individuals. I did say that this was a product by a single
field office that we took action on immediately. We have an
inspection that is underway right now that is looking at how
this happened and how we make sure it doesn't happen again.
Mr. Cline. So, it is possible that individuals will be
fired as a result of your review.
Mr. Wray. Well, I don't want to predetermine or forecast
where the review will go. We are going to look at everything
from exactly how it happened and what went wrong, and then--
Mr. Cline. It is possible--
Mr. Wray. If there are appropriate steps to be taken, we
will take whatever the appropriate steps are.
Mr. Cline. OK. You have the violence against pro-life
clinics, you have the investigation of parents speaking at
school board meetings, you have the collusion with Big Tech.
The FISA abuses of Section 702 is where I want to focus right
now.
As you know, Section 702 authorizes warrantless
surveillance that is supposed to be targeted toward foreigners
abroad, but the surveillance sweeps in a large amount of
Americans' communications, and the FBI routinely runs searches
of Section 702 data looking for phone calls, emails, and text
messages of Americans in so-called back-door searches.
Depending on the year, FBI has conducted anywhere from 3.4
million in 2021 to 200,000 in 2022. Given this fact, do you
honestly think it is fair to continue describing Section 702 as
authority targeted only at foreigners abroad?
Mr. Wray. I do.
Mr. Cline. It looks like a framework that enables the FBI
to spy on countless Americans. Would you agree with that
assessment?
Mr. Wray. Well, I can't speak to what it looks like to
certain people. I can tell you that it is an authority focused
on foreigners overseas in the context of national security
investigations.
I would add to that the FBI's piece of that, the FBI only
accesses--so everything we are talking about FBI-related only
goes to about three percent of the entire 702 collection. Then
within that three percent, this is important now--
Mr. Cline. OK, I have 30 seconds.
Mr. Wray. It is important that people understand this. The
FBI ends up only accessing content in like 1\1/2\ percent of
that. So, a little context is appropriate.
Mr. Cline. I understand. Well, if you are conducting
hundreds of thousands or even just hundreds of warrantless
searches of Section 702 data for Americans' communications, it
is clearly a domestic surveillance tool.
I would argue that I believe it does pose a real problem
within the FBI's conduct toward Americans. I speak for many
when I say it poses a real problem for the reauthorization of
FISA authority for your organization.
With that, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Director Wray, for being here. I am troubled by
many of the statements and questions we have heard today that
embrace conspiracy theories and disinformation. With these
comments, it appears that some of my colleagues are trying to
sow division and score political points rather than conduct
legitimate oversight of the actual actions and policies of the
FBI.
I, like many Americans, would rather Congress focus on
doing the people's business and ensuring that the FBI is able
to do its job and do it well within the bounds of our
constitution and laws.
Now, one of the most serious issues facing American
communities now is drug abuse, particularly opioids and
fentanyl. In your opening remarks, you mentioned the arrest of
31 U.S. citizens in Northeast Ohio just a couple weeks ago,
most hailing from Marion, for drug trafficking.
Can you just take a minute, because I have some other
questions, to describe what the FBI is doing to end the scourge
of fentanyl and what additional tools you might need from
Congress.
Mr. Wray. So, the FBI is attacking the scourge of fentanyl
coming from the Southwest border, in particular, in a variety
of ways.
(1) We are using our organized crime task forces to target
the supply, the cartels in particular.
(2) We are using our Safe Streets task forces to go after
the gangs that are principally responsible, violent gangs, for
distributing a lot of this all over our streets.
(3) We are targeting provider abuse, prescription, pill
mills, and things like that through our healthcare fraud
authorities.
(4) We have something called J-CODE, which focuses on the
trafficking of fentanyl on the dark web, which is a real
problem.
We have had a number of very significant take-downs there.
We are also doing things like engaging in outreach, raising
awareness. We put out a video called Chasing the Dragon with
DEA that has been showed in a lot of schools around the
country. We are trying to work with the health community.
So, there's a lot of things that we are doing, but this is
an epidemic. I don't believe that it is an overstatement. It is
something that requires all hands on deck.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. If there are things you think Congress can
help you with, please submit that to us afterwards.
Another major threat to our Nation is domestic terrorism,
and that is something you have spoken about repeatedly. Like
many Americans, I find it unpatriotic and dangerous when
Members of Congress embrace dangerous conspiracy theories that
undermine our Federal law enforcement and ultimately our
democracy.
I find it disingenuous for Members of Congress to harangue
the head of the FBI about people losing faith in the FBI when
those same Members have been trumpeting lies and conspiracy
theories about the agency for months. Words matter, they have
consequences. When leaders lie or embrace disinformation, that
is dangerous.
In recent years we have seen increasing threats and
violence levied against public servants at all levels,
including journalists, elected officials, election workers,
doctors, nurses, school officials, teachers, librarians, and
more.
What these public servants have in common is they became
targets for threats and violence when they had the guts to
stand up to lies and conspiracy theories promulgated by the
former President and his allies.
We have seen MAGA extremists, Fox News pundits, Russian
internet trolls, and elected officials parrot conspiracy
theories and use heated language to convince the American
public, without facts, that dedicated public servants are
dangerous enemies who should be feared.
Most Americans understand that this is not legitimate
political discourse and that this kind of overheated and fact-
free rhetoric can in fact encourage political violence. It is
not normal, and it should not be part of American public life.
So, Director Wray, you have repeatedly testified about the
serious threat that domestic violence extremists present to
Americans. These are people who commit violent and criminal
acts in furtherance of social or political goals, whether
racial and ethnic motivation or anti-government motivation.
Can you talk about the role that mistrust in government and
disinformation and conspiracy theories play in the
radicalization and recruitment of extremists?
Mr. Wray. Well, certainly there is a whole host of
misconceptions that are out there about any number of
institutions, whether it is law enforcement, whether it is the
Supreme Court, whether it is any number of institutions. That
in the environment that we are in where there are people who
increasingly channel their rage into violence, that causes a
problem.
There is a right way under the First Amendment to express
what you are angry about and who you are angry with, and we
take that very seriously and view as part of our mission not
just to protect the American people, but to uphold the
Constitution.
When those views are then turned into violence and threats
of violence, then we got a problem. Then I think the FBI has to
act.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I see my time has expired, but I
would seek unanimous consent to introduce into the record a
press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern
District of Ohio entitled, ``31 Individuals Involved in a Drug
Trafficking Organization in Marion County and Lorain County
Indicted.''
Chair Jordan. No objection.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Director, when we abandoned Afghanistan, we released
about 5,000 terrorists from the Parwan Detention Facility. One
of those terrorists showed up at Abbey Gate 10 days later and
killed 13 U.S. Marines. Where are the other 5,000?
Mr. Wray. I don't know that I can tell you where all 5,000
of them are.
Mr. McClintock. Well, let me put it more simply. Have you
encountered any here in the United States?
Mr. Wray. We have quite a few ongoing investigations into
foreign terrorist-related subjects, whether they are Al Qaeda-
related or Isis-related, that we are conducting as you and I
are having this conversation. Certainly,--
Mr. McClintock. So, have you encountered any from Parwan
here in the United States?
Mr. Wray. Specifically, I am not sure I can say that. Let
me followup and make sure if there is anything more I can
provide you on that.
Mr. McClintock. Well, meanwhile, we have had about one and
a half million know got-aways cross the border as this crisis
has unfolded. Any estimate of how many among, of those 5,000
among one and a half million known got-aways may be terrorists?
Mr. Wray. I know that we have seen an uptick, which is
obviously concerning to me, and I can tell from your question
concerning to you, in KSTs, as we call them, known or suspected
terrorists coming across the Southwest border. Our folks are
working very hard to try to do our part to try to keep tabs on
those individuals.
Mr. McClintock. Speaking of upticks, have we seen an uptick
in criminal cartel or cartel-related gang activity in the
United States over the last several years?
Mr. Wray. Yes. The cartels, working in kind of an unholy
alliance with dangerous, violent gangs here in the U.S. are
responsible not just for the abominable distribution of
fentanyl all over the country, but also an awful lot of the
violence that comes along with it.
Mr. McClintock. That is coming principally across our
Southern border?
Mr. Wray. That is a huge driver of it, certainly.
Mr. McClintock. A huge driver. It is reported we have lost
contact with the guardians of more than 85,000 unaccompanied
minors who have been brought here by the cartels through the
Southern border. How many of these children are still
unaccounted for?
Mr. Wray. That I am not sure we have the answer to that.
That may be a question for DHS.
Mr. McClintock. What is the Woods Procedure?
Mr. Wray. The Woods Procedure is a procedure for--it has
nothing to do with 702. It has to do with traditional FISA,
Title 1 FISA, as we call it, and involves having files that
have all the underlying documents to support each of the
factual assertions in--
Mr. McClintock. Is that important to the integrity of FISA
applications?
Mr. Wray. Yes, sir.
Mr. McClintock. In February 2020, you assured the Committee
that you took these FISA abuses seriously, that you were
working to address them. A 1\1/2\ year later the Office of the
Inspector General reported that you weren't. They reported
systemic noncompliance and essentially that some FBI field
personnel took the Woods Procedure as a joke.
If we can't trust your past reforms, how seriously should
we take your promises of future reform?
Mr. Wray. I appreciate the opportunity to address this one.
So, that OIG finding actually applies to, first, a compliance
problems that occurred before all the fixes that I was
testifying to you about. Even though the report came out later,
it was covering a time period that predated all the fixes and
reforms we put in place.
Mr. McClintock. Well, your General Counsel assured Mr.
Durham that the abuses would not have happened because of the
new procedures for supervisorial review, yet some of the worst
abuses in Crossfire Hurricane were committed by supervisory
agents. So, why should we have any great confidence that it is
not going to happen again?
Mr. Wray. There are a couple different sets of reforms
here. So, the first is on the reforms that we put in place in
response to the Inspector General's Crossfire Hurricane report.
Mr. McClintock. We can't trust your supervisors is the
problem. The problem seems to be that this power exists at all
and human beings, being what they are, will tend to abuse them.
Could you describe the term parallel construction as it relates
to evidence produced in FISA searches?
Mr. Wray. Parallel construction? I am not sure I have used
that--
Mr. McClintock. Doesn't that refer to the FBI using
forbidden information from a 702 search to alert local law
enforcement to search for and then produce the same material
without revealing that it came from an improper search?
Mr. Wray. I am just not sure about the use of the term.
Mr. McClintock. Well, has the FBI ever employed that
particular tactic in prosecuting American citizens?
Mr. Wray. Not to my knowledge. Again, I can look into that
and get back to you.
Mr. McClintock. What percentage of FISA warrant
applications are rejected by the FISA Court?
Mr. Wray. I don't know that we have that number. There is
usually a back-and-forth with the Court. It is not unusual for
the Court to--
Mr. McClintock. It is a fraction of percentage, isn't it?
Mr. Wray. A fraction of a percentage?
Mr. McClintock. Yes.
Mr. Wray. Yes, I don't know if that is right, but it is
definitely a small number. I think that is partly because our
folks learn over time what the Court expects.
Mr. McClintock. Which makes that sound an awful lot like a
rubber stamp. I see my time has expired. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Georgia recognized.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, Director Wray. Thank you for coming before
the Judiciary Committee this afternoon. I have read your
testimony.
I want to redirect this questioning for a moment, and I
want to focus on the important work that the FBI is tasked with
when it continues to do its work with gun violence prevention
and keeping our communities safe.
As of today, there have been over 300 mass shootings. That
is more the number of days that we have in this year.
Statistics will continue to show us over and over again that
during the summer, these numbers continue to rise.
Extreme risk protection orders play an important role in
law enforcement's response to preventing mass shootings from
happening.
What are also known as red-flag laws or orders, they
empower law enforcement, along with family members and
household members, to petition a court to actually have an
individual that appears to be in crisis have those firearms
just temporarily taken away or removed from them with a court
order, to be returned during expiration of that order.
I have a few questions for you, so if you can answer as
directly as you can, I appreciate it. Family members and
members of law enforcement can often identify individuals who
would pose a risk to themselves or to others within the
community when they actually possess a gun.
As the head of the United States' Federal law enforcement
agency, do you believe that these red-flag laws and these
programs enhance public safety?
Mr. Wray. I don't want to speak on behalf of any specific
legislative proposal, but I will say that I know from
experience that a number of States have had good experiences
with those laws.
Ms. McBath. Thank you. In the past several years, several
States have actually enacted those extremist protection orders.
In total, we actually have 21 States and the District of
Columbia have enacted their own forms of red-flag laws.
If a person who is subject to such an order tries to buy a
gun from a federally licensed firearm dealer, would the FBI
approve or deny the sale?
Mr. Wray. Well, I believe if the order is required by State
law making it a State prohibitor, and therefore is loaded into
the NICS system, then when the background check is run, when
the FFL, the Federal Firearms Licensee contacts NICS to proceed
with the sale, what would pick up the so-called--the order that
you are talking about.
If that is a prohibitor, then that would block the
transaction is my understanding.
Ms. McBath. So, in the absence of an application or
applicable State law, is there a way for the FBI agent to seek
an order under Federal law?
Mr. Wray. I am not aware of any Federal law to that effect.
Ms. McBath. Exactly. If an FBI agent has information that
someone has been violent many times in the past, but is not
able to seek a criminal conviction, is there a way for the FBI
to deny the sale of a gun to that person?
Mr. Wray. We only deny sales for people who are prohibited
by law from possessing firearms.
Ms. McBath. My bill, the Federal Extreme Risk Protection
Order Act, which was passed by the House last Congress, would
provide Americans in all States access to these truly
lifesaving measures. I have reintroduced this bill again this
term.
Last summer Congress also passed the bipartisan Safer
Communities Act. Among other critical gun violence provisions
in that, the legislation begins to address the problem of gun
trafficking.
What steps has the FBI taken to implement or utilize this
new law that actually helps to stop gun trafficking?
Mr. Wray. Well, we are, of course, working closely with the
Justice Department to implement all the provisions of the laws
that relate to NICS, in particular. The place that has had the
biggest impact on us is, certainly, on the additional checks
that now would be run for the 18-20 year olds.
We started implementing that last October. It was fully
implemented starting in January. It is a big change for us and
for the State agencies that are on the receiving end of the
request for information. As well as for the FFLs, both the big
stores and the mom-and-pops. It is a big change in the system.
I think we have done about 100,000 or so checks of this 18-
20, in other words U21 group that we are talking about since
the implementation of the act. Those are not all denials, to be
clear. Most, in fact, the vast, vast, vast majority of them
were sales that appropriately proceeded.
There were some that were of course denials based on the
statute.
Ms. McBath. Thank you so much, I'm out of time.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The
gentleman from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Roy. Thank the Chair. Thank you, Director Wray, for
appearing.
Brian Auten was one of the FBI intelligence analysts who
interviewed Igor Danchenko, the principle source of the Steele
dossier in January 2017, correct?
Mr. Wray. I believe that is in the Durham Report.
Mr. Roy. Danchenko explained that the dossier allegations
were BS, yet the FBI did not reveal that to the FISA Court.
Instead, the FBI continued to use those allegations in two more
sworn FISA applications about President Trump and Putin,
correct?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I want to let Mr. Durham's Report
speak for itself.
Mr. Roy. OK, but as Director of the FBI, those are the
facts of the FBI under your watch. The FBI--
Mr. Wray. Well, no, sir, I'm sorry. Just, it's important.
Not under my watch. Those were the facts before I--
Mr. Roy. I'm getting to the part under your watch.
Mr. Wray. OK.
Mr. Roy. The FBI conducted an internal investigation of
Auten and sought to suspend him, but Auten appealed, correct?
Mr. Wray. I can't discuss a specific pending personnel
matter.
Mr. Roy. OK, well according to recent reports, those are
the facts. Nevertheless, in 2020 after Senators Grassley and
Johnson highlighted evidence of potential financial crimes and
corruption against the Biden family, the FBI assigned Auten to
compile an assessment, which was used to characterize the Biden
revelations as Russian disinformation.
The evidence Grassley and Johnson had collected were mostly
financial records and could easily have been corroborated as
authentic. By then, the FBI had the Hunter laptop in its
possession for over a year. So, it knew the lucrative payments
to the Bidens from corrupt and anti-American regimes were
authentic.
How on earth did the FBI empower an agent under
investigation for potentially corrupt performance and abuse of
FISA in one politically fraught investigation, a Democrat
operative driven case against President Trump, to a play a key
role and to undermine a second politically fraught
investigation, a case against the Bidens?
How is that possible? How can you allow that to occur in
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle, say the elite law enforcement agency
of the United States? How does that occur?
Mr. Wray. I can't at the moment discuss a pending personnel
matter. I can tell you that every employee who in any way
touched the Crossfire Hurricane matter has been referred to our
Office of Professional Responsibility, our disciplinary arm.
Mr. Roy. Are you concerned about this activity by the FBI
and what was communicated to the FISA Court? Does that concern
you as the Director of the FBI?
Mr. Wray. I consider the conduct that was described in the
Durham Report as totally unacceptable and unrepresentative of
what I see from the FBI every day and must never be allowed to
happen again.
Mr. Roy. Have there been consequences as a result? Is Mr.
Auten--has he had consequences?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I can't speak to pending personnel
matters, as you would perhaps remember from your own time in
law enforcement. Because we were working closely with Mr.
Durham and I assigned agents to help him, at his request we
slowed down the administrative process to allow his
investigation to complete itself.
Now, that it is complete, our personnel processes are very
much ongoing.
Mr. Roy. Well, I think it is more than troubling that under
your watch, we see that this continued to occur. You have Auten
continue to be empowered after there was an investigation and
after there was an effort by the FBI to look into why he would
go to the FISA Court and give wrong information.
The issue here has been wrapped up in a cloud of politics,
but the fact is the American people deserve to know how the
FISA Court is being abused and how it is being abused against a
former President and against them in light of the reports that
we saw Mr. Johnson of Louisiana put forward that was in a court
filing, in a court report.
Want to move on to another topic. On September 23, 2022, 20
heavily armed agents stormed the home of Mark Houck. You are
familiar with this?
Mr. Wray. I am familiar with the Houck case, a little bit,
yes.
Mr. Roy. This was after Mr. Houck's lawyer reached out and
said he would appear voluntarily because the incident in
question occurred almost a year earlier in October 2021. So, a
year earlier.
The question here I have, local authorities investigated
the incident, but concluded there was no case. After the jury
met for roughly an hour, Houck was acquitted. How on earth did
Mark Houck end up having the FBI send several armed agents
along with local authorities to arrest him at gunpoint? Do you
approve it, did you approve of that?
Mr. Wray. Well, let me start where you ended. Decisions
about the manner of an arrest are not something that the FBI
Director approves. I defer to and rely on the judgment of the
experienced career agents on the ground, who have both the most
intimate understanding of the facts and have the training
experience to decide how best to effectuate an arrest.
Mr. Roy. Do you know who did order it?
Mr. Wray. My understanding is that this arrest was
conducted in our Philadelphia Division by career agents with a
combined 40 years of FBI experience.
Mr. Roy. Do you approve of the raid now in retrospect? Do
you think it was appropriate? Do you think it was appropriate
for a father to have armed FBI agents along with local agents
go to his home, arrest him at gunpoint for alleged violation of
the FACE Act a year after the alleged incident after the father
had said through his lawyer that he would appear voluntarily?
Do you believe that FBI agents should go to the home of a
father in Philadelphia suburbs?
Mr. Wray. I'm not going to second-guess the judgment of the
career agents on the ground who made the determination.
Mr. Roy. You job is to second-guess--
Mr. Wray. I think your description--
Mr. Roy. Look at what they are doing. Your job is to review
what they do. Your job is to protect the American people from
the tyrannical FBI storming the home of an American family.
Mr. Wray. I could not disagree more with your description
of the FBI as tyrannical, and I think--
Mr. Roy. You don't believe it's tyrannical that FBI were a
part of storming a father's home in suburban Philadelphia?
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman--the time of the
gentleman--
Mr. Wray. Mr. Chair?
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
witness may respond, and then we will move to our next witness.
Mr. Wray. So, respectfully, they did not storm his house.
They came to his door. They knocked on his door and identified
themselves. They asked him to exit. He did, without incident.
Mr. Roy. [Off mic.] Armed at gunpoint.
Mr. Wray. Whenever our agents--well, not at gunpoint.
Whenever our agents conduct an arrest, they are armed. Our
agents are armed virtually all the time, as you may remember
from your own experience as a prosecutor.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Ranking Member
has a unanimous consent request.
Mr. Nadler. I ask unanimous consent that this document be
placed in the record.
Chair Jordan. That's pretty--that's not too specific.
Mr. Nadler. I ask unanimous consent to enter the full
January 15, 2021, email thread between the Bank of America and
the FBI that is about threats to Inauguration Day, instead of
the edited version that was shown on the--
Chair Jordan. I'm happy to have that into the record.
Without objection. We champion that. We are going to bring that
up again here if we get a chance.
The gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, good to see you. I thank you for being here
today. I just want to remind those who are watching at home or
here in the room that we are here as an oversight function. We
are not here as a political tool to hammer you or your 38,000
public servants, law enforcement men and women, and to try to
use you politically.
It surely doesn't feel that way all the time during this.
So, I thank you for your service. I thank the men and women for
their service. I have a first cousin, technically I guess a
first cousin-in-law who for a very long time in the
Philadelphia suburbs served as an FBI agent with integrity and
honor. So, I think of him, I think of Jack today, as I am doing
this.
I read your testimony. Often, over and over, you State the
mission of FBI, to protect the American people and uphold the
Constitution of the United States. Twofold, protect the
American people, uphold the Constitution. Do it by the rule of
law. That is what we should be asking about, are we doing that
to the best of our ability.
I want to use and examine the case of the Mar-a-Lago
documents, because it has been used by the former President as
a pitying moment, as though he has somehow been victimized.
None of that is normal. These are serious times, and your
people have serious missions about the safety of the American
people and doing it lawfully.
Director Wray, a ballroom, a bathroom, a bedroom, are those
appropriate places to store classified, confidential
information?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I don't want to be commenting on the
pending case, but I will say that there are specific rules
about where to store classified information, and that those
need to be stored in a SCIF, a secure compartmentalized
information facility. In my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms,
and bedrooms are not SCIFs.
Ms. Dean. Mine too. Yet, that is where the former President
chose to put vital information about our national security. He
exacerbated the risk, as alleged in the damning 37-count
indictment, by evading law enforcement and allegedly even
showing some of these classified documents to others who were
not either in a SCIF or up to having these informations sent to
him.
It was January 2021, having lost the election, 2021, when
at noon Mr. Trump has to leave the White House. Of course, it
is shown in the affidavit and in the indictment that he left
with quite a few boxes.
In May 2021, the National Archives emailed requesting the
missing documents from Mr. Trump. His lawyer said that he would
provide them, and then never did.
On January 18, 2022, so we are talking a full year later,
Mr. Trump finally turned over 15 boxes. Fourteen of them
contained documents with classified markings, 30 documents Top
Secret.
In June 2022, this is now a 1\1/2\ years later, DOJ and FBI
recover an additional 38 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago,
your FBI, our FBI. A lawyer for Mr. Trump signed a statement at
that point. To the best of her knowledge, she said, ``all
classified materials had been returned.''
Surveillance footage of course showed that wasn't the case.
In August 2022, a Federal judge approved a warrant to
search Mar-a-Lago. This was not a raid, as some on the other
side would like to have a pity party for Mr. Trump. This was
not a raid.
They then retrieved another 102 documents with classified
markings. Three hundred and some documents taken by the
President, improperly stored, and then tried to evade and
obstruct justice, as is alleged.
Do you think that the FBI went over the top or was out of
line in your participation in retrieving these documents?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I don't want to discuss the
specifics of a pending case. From everything I have seen, our
folks in this case have proceeded honorably and in strict
compliance with our policies, our rules, and our best
practices.
Ms. Dean. It seems from what overview we can do, I am
taking a look here at the affidavit to get the search warrant
to go on in, it was one of your special agents assigned from
the Washington Field Office, obviously, we don't know who.
Pointed out and made the case for probable cause to go in and
to collect these documents.
So, let's take a look at the flip side. What is the harm,
what is the danger to either human assets, your employees,
national security for Mr. Trump holding onto, moving around,
showing Top Secret documents, where is the harm? Eighteen
months of this going on.
Mr. Wray. Well, again, respectfully, I am not going to
comment or weigh in on a case that is now pending in front of
Federal judges. Speaking more generally, the rules governing
the handling of classified information are there for a reason,
and people need to be very mindful of those rules.
Unfortunately, the FBI has a steady part of its docket a
number of investigations involving mishandling. The reason
those rules are there is because classified information, if it
gets into the wrong hands, can put human sources in jeopardy.
It can put other kinds of intelligence collection at
jeopardy. It can jeopardize our partnerships with foreign
liaison services, which are the lifeblood of the intelligence
community in many ways.
So, it is serious business, and it needs to be taken
seriously. Again, I am not speaking about a particular case, I
am just speaking generally.
Ms. Dean. I very much appreciate it, Mr. Chair. I
appreciate it, but I do want to just point out to the world,
none of this is normal. It was not normal what took place here.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. Bedroom,
bathroom, ballroom. How about a box in a garage.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair--
Chair Jordan. A beach house in Delaware and the Biden
Center. I don't think those are SCIF--
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, point of order.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Gooden. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to talk about China, but before I do, I want to just
comment, in the last exchange with Mr. Roy, I heard you say
certain practices were outrageous to you, and I appreciated
that.
I think maybe we would have liked to have heard more of
that this hearing, about things, acknowledging failures. I
realize there are a lot of positives to talk about, but we do
as a Committee want to work with you.
When Chair Jordan asked why so much is redacted in a
document, could we perhaps sit down with you, even if it is
privately, and you tell us why that needs to be the case? If we
ask for the names of these employees that were behind the
Catholic issue in Virginia, can we get a commitment that we
will eventually get those names? I didn't hear that in that
exchange with Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Wray. Well, you certainly have my commitment that we
will work collaboratively with the Committee. We obviously have
rules that govern what we can share, and we have to be mindful
of those too.
In my experience, that is what the longstanding
accommodation process between the Executive Branch, especially
law enforcement agencies, and Congress is there for. We
absolutely will pursue that in good faith.
I know we have been providing an enormous amount of
information. If there are places that we can do better on that,
we want to try to do better on that. Again, consistent with our
rules.
I'm very mindful of the fact that the whole reason I am in
this job is because my predecessor was fired. In a fairly
scathing Inspector General Report, one of the things he was
criticized for was sharing more information both with the
public and frankly with Congress than was consistent with
Federal Rules.
Mr. Gooden. Thank you, thank you for that pledge.
Now, to China. Most Americans don't realize, I don't think,
that U.S. companies doing business in China are required to
have joint venture agreements. That has been around since 2017
or 2018 I believe. It requires the Chinese Communist Party to
have political cells within these enterprises, American
enterprises in China.
In the last few weeks, it has come to my attention that
they have taken that up a notch and actually gone further, the
Chinese have, and said that not only must they be present and
have access, but they now control these American businesses.
So, they are in essence nationalizing American enterprises in
China.
The CEOs I have talked to are afraid to say something. They
say they have gone to the FBI; the FBI I think is aware of
this. I am about to turn it over to you. My question is: Is
this happening and what can be done about it, what do we need
to do about it?
Mr. Wray. Well, I think you have put your finger on a very
important issue, and frankly, one that does not get the
attention that it really deserves, so I appreciate you bringing
it up.
I will say that in my view, there is no country, none, that
presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our
innovation, our economic security than the Chinese Government
and the Chinese Communist Party. In many ways, it represents I
think the defining threat of our era.
When it comes specifically to the business community, while
there is no law against joint ventures, the problem that we
have is that the Chinese Government all too often has exploited
those joint ventures to then use them as ways to get improper
access to companies' secrets and information.
Mr. Gooden. Do you find that they have stepped it up,
though, to where they are in essence nationalizing U.S.
companies quietly?
Mr. Wray. In a variety of ways, I hadn't really thought of
using that term, but I think you are on to a very important
point.
I will give you an example that I think a lot of people in
America still don't know about and would be shocked to hear,
which is that really any company of any size in China is
required, required by Chinese law, to have what they quaintly
call a Committee. It is essentially a cell inside the company,
whose sole function is to ensure that company's compliance with
Chinese Communist Party orthodoxy.
If we tried to install something like that in American
companies or if the British tried to do it in British
companies, or any number of other places, people would go out
of their minds, and rightly so.
Mr. Gooden. Agreed. Well, thank you. I would like to work
with you more on that. I would yield the balance of my time to
the Chair. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. That is exactly what you did. The judge said
it last week. Every week you were meeting with Big Tech
companies saying hey, look at this, this violates your policy.
Take this speech of Americans down. You were doing the same
darn thing you just described the Chinese about.
Can we put up the email that Mr. Nadler entered into
unanimous consent request. We put this up from the FBI to Bank
of America. Because I want to know something. This is the full
email. Go to the bullet point where it says, ``Any historical
purchase going back 6 months generally for weapons, weapons-
related vendor purchase.''
Do you see that, Director? You see that bullet point, the
one that says ``ANY'' in all caps, that bullet point. This is
the email. How did you know? How would you know if it is a
firearm purchase? How is the FBI going to know this? Would you
put your mic on, please.
Mr. Wray. I am sorry. I am not going to start engaging on
specific correspondence. I don't have the whole string here. As
I have said before, my understanding is that our engagement
with Bank of American was lawful, but that we also took steps,
as we discussed in our earlier exchange--
Chair Jordan. If it is lawful, why did you take steps not
to use the material? You can't have it both ways.
Mr. Wray. I disagree with that, actually.
Chair Jordan. Really?
Mr. Wray. There are plenty of things that we lawfully can
do that we decide are better not to do. That is my
understanding is what happened here.
Chair Jordan. Wow, wow.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Texas for five
minutes.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you for your testimony and thank you
for your public service.
Last week in my district and my hometown of El Paso, Texas,
a domestic violent extremist was sentenced to 90 consecutive
life terms for a horrific attack he carried out on my community
on August 3, 2019. On that day, he confessed that he drove over
10 hours from his community in East Texas to mine to slaughter
Mexicans and immigrants.
Before he walked into that Walmart, he published his screed
online. He used some of the same ugly, xenophobic rhetoric that
I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle use. Then
he walked into that Walmart with an automatic-style weapon and
began shooting indiscriminately.
He killed 23 people, injured dozens more. My community
remains profoundly impacted by that attack. The victims and the
survivors and the loved ones still live with profound pain and
trauma.
What is the FBI doing, Director Wray, in response to
racially motivated domestic terrorism?
Mr. Wray. Well, first, let me say I feel your pain. I
actually visited the Walmart crime scene shortly after the
attack and spent time with our folks on the ground who were
processing the crime scene in blistering heat in the parking
lot there. Obviously, got briefed by the investigative team and
met with our local partners.
Obviously, it was a horrific, tragic event. The individual
stories about some of the individual victims stick with me to
this day.
As to the broader phenomenon of racially motivated violent
extremism, we have done a number of things. We elevated it to a
national threat priority back in the Summer 2019, I believe it
was, which means that it is squarely in scope of all our joint
terrorism task forces and treated as a priority at the top
level. That is our highest level of priority.
We also have engaged; we created a domestic terrorism hate
crimes fusion cell. You might wonder what is the point of that?
Well, what we found was that sometimes the same acts of
violence could either be called a hate crime, or it could be
called an act of domestic violent extremism.
In the way the FBI is structured, the first is treated by
our Criminal Investigative Division. The second is focused on
by our Counterterrorism Division.
By bringing the two subject matter experts together, we
could make sure that we are not letting anything slip through
the cracks. More importantly, we can be proactive in thinking
ahead.
That same fusion cell, for example, was then very important
in us identifying and preventing a potentially devastating
attack against a synagogue outside of Colorado. It was really
one of the first times in recent memory that a hate crimes
prosecution was able to be preventative.
All too often, unfortunately, those cases are brought after
there is a horrific attack. So, we were very proud of
disrupting that plot.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Director Wray. I am also
very curious about what steps you have taken to improve
coordination between the FBI and the Department of Homeland
Security in terms of reporting the domestic terrorism data.
Mr. Wray. Well, there were a number of places--this gets a
little bit technical. The reports that Congress called for, I
have had a number of engagements with Senator Peters on the
Senate side about this, where data about how many domestic
terrorism attacks there had been and what cases there were.
I think there were different ways in which in the two
agencies what they were counting and so forth. So, to kind of
get better at providing that information as required by
Congress, we have worked more and more closely with DHS on
ensuring a common set of metrics and so forth to make sure that
the reports are getting in on time and that they are complete.
We still have some work to do to make them better, but I
think we have made significant progress.
Ms. Escobar. I appreciate it. That data is critically
important, as you know. I am just about out of time. Thanks
again for your service.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Excuse me, the gentlelady yields back. The
gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Lee. Good afternoon, Director Wray. Director, how many
sworn special agents are there currently in the United States?
Mr. Wray. You mean outside the FBI?
Ms. Lee. Oh, no, in the FBI.
Mr. Wray. Just in the FBI? I think we have about 14,000 or
so FBI special agents.
Ms. Lee. They are spread across field offices and resident
agencies in the U.S. and in some cases around the world, is
that right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Lee. All right. Now as a former Federal prosecutor and
judge I have had the opportunity to work with a number of men
and women of the FBI from my home State and one thing that I
know and that we have heard in your testimony today is that you
have very broad responsibilities. Is it correct to say that the
FBI, among other things, investigates counterterrorism,
counterintelligence, cybercrime, public corruption, civil
rights offenses, transnational organized crime, violent crime,
and domestic terrorism?
Mr. Wray. Then other things as well, but yes.
Ms. Lee. Yes. In addition to that would you agree with the
statement that the bureau provides important support to local
law enforcement agencies around the country on those subjects
and others?
Mr. Wray. I would say indispensable support and something I
hear about--I'm talking with chiefs and sheriffs probably every
week in this job since I've started and if there's one refrain
I hear from the consistently is keep it coming; we need it; can
you give us even more help? Yhat's what I hear from them.
Ms. Lee. I would like to focus on the subject of domestic
terrorism today. When we talk about domestic terrorism the
bureau's work includes investigating and bringing to justice
those who do profound harm to the homeland given the
opportunity. The bureau has been involved in cases involving
hate crimes, violent extremists, and even some of our country's
most notorious criminals like Timothy McVeigh and Ted
Kascinski. Is that right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Lee. OK. Of course, there are many such individuals who
have plans to do harm to our homeland that America never hears
about because you successfully intercept and prevent before
those incidents occurs?
Mr. Wray. Yes. In fact, one of the things that I think
people would be surprised to know because terrorism is not as
much in the news as it was during the era when I was serving in
the Bush administration in the 9/11 era--but we have, just
since I've been Director, disrupted attacks against a July 4th
parade in Ohio, any number of attacks against churches and
other houses of worship, an attack, an attempted attack, a plot
to attack a hospital during COVID, the pier in San Francisco in
sort of a peak tourism moment, a crowded beach during a
Memorial Holiday. These are not all domestic terrorism. Some of
them are--and that's important for people to know. Some of
these are jihadist-inspired terrorist attacks, too. That has
not gone away even though a lot of the public discussion has
been about domestic terrorism.
Ms. Lee. So, here is what I am hoping you can help us
reconcile today: So, we know that there are a limited number of
agents, a limited number of resources, and a vast
responsibility to prevent a broad array of very serious
offenses. What I would like to do with that in mind is turn
your attention to the decision within the bureau to use
investigative resources to investigate and surveil parents who
attended school board meetings for the purpose of sharing their
concerns about the nature of their children's education and the
efficacy of the policies that were being implemented by school
boards around the country.
Is it correct that in 2021 the FBI created a threat tag
specifically designed to identify parents attending school
board meetings?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I think it's important for people to
understand what a threat tag is and is not. It is not what we
base investigations on. It's not an investigative tool. It's an
administrative function in our system and it doesn't change
anything, anything about how we investigate, tools we use, any
of our longstanding standards for predication.
Ms. Lee. In those circumstances--
Mr. Wray. You mentioned the whole resource allocation
question--
Ms. Lee. --it is correct is it not however that agents
surveil, that agents did in fact surveil and investigate
certain parents who were attending school board meetings?
Mr. Wray. No, ma'am, that's actually not correct. We opened
25 assessments into reports that were tagged, but none of those
involved incidents at school board meetings. To my knowledge
the FBI has not opened investigations on any parent for
exercising speech at school board meetings.
Ms. Lee. Would you be concerned that to do so would be an
infringement or perhaps a chilling on the First Amendment
rights of parents to participate freely and opening in those
meetings? Do you believe that would be an appropriate function
of the bureau?
Mr. Wray. I believe that our mission is to protect the
American people and uphold the Constitution. The uphold the
Constitution part is very important to me and to our people. I
will say to you the same thing I said to all 56 of our field
offices as soon as I read that memo, which is the FBI is not
and has never been in the business of policing or investigating
speech by parents at school board meetings and we're not about
to start now. We're going to keep doing what we've been doing.
That includes when there's violence, threats of violence, we're
going to work with our State and local partners as we always
have on that and following our normal procedures and our normal
investigative steps and our normal standards for predication.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Director Wray.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, thank you for being here, thank you for your
testimony, and thank you for your service to our country under
some pretty difficult circumstances. We are certainly grateful.
I am certainly grateful. The people of the State that I
represent, Colorado, are grateful to the 38,000 members of the
FBI team, as you have articulated, that are working every day
to keep the American people safe and to keep the people of my
State and my community safe. So, we are grateful for you being
here.
This Committee obviously has a legitimate role in terms of
conducting oversight. Generally, that oversight has extended to
the policy areas, the areas of law enforcement that, of course,
you are responsible for. Unfortunately, much of the
conversation today--and it is disappointing I think for those
Americans who have been watching--has not been focused on those
legitimate areas of inquiry, but instead conspiracy theories
and the like. Obviously, you have been given an opportunity to
respond to some of the attacks that have been made against the
law enforcement agency that you direct and the dangerous calls,
or at least in my view the dangerous calls that have been made
by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in terms of
defunding Federal law enforcement, which is deeply dangerous.
You have articulated the many reasons why.
I would like to focus in on two areas that are important to
my constituency in Colorado and that I believe are relevant to
the work that you do, and that is the fentanyl epidemic and gun
violence prevention.
With respect to the latter, you may recall you testified in
front of the Committee previously, I had an opportunity to ask
you about an incident that occurred back in 2020 in my State in
Colorado. In 2021, the GAO issued a report in response to this
particular incident. Just by way of background a gun dealer in
Colorado transferred a firearm to an 18-year-old resident of
Florida without first verifying the purchaser's age,
eligibility, and her State of residence. The guy buyer then
threatened to commit a school shooting akin to the mass tragedy
that occurred at Columbine High, causing the lock-down and
closure of multiple schools in my district back in Colorado.
The report recommended, the GAO report, that the FBI
strengthen its system for the sale of firearms to out-of-state
purchasers. Specifically, it recommended that the FBI update
the NICS system to verify the age requirements of an out-of-
state firearm purchaser in both the purchaser's State of
residence and the State of sale to ensure basic age
eligibility. We have introduced legislation that I believe the
Department of Justice is aware of to make that requirement
statutory.
Wonder if you could expound a bit on whether the--I am sure
you are aware of the report--whether the FBI has implemented
the recommendation that the GAO has made? If not, the FBI's
plans to do so.
Mr. Wray. Well, I think the specific legislation that would
require that is something, as you said, that I think the
department is studying, and so I can't weigh in on a specific
legislative proposal. When it comes to the specific issue of
18-20-year-olds, in particular, and gun purchases, that is of
course the subject of the bipartisan Safer Communities Act that
was passed.
There are a number of significant checks that now occur. We
started implementing that last October; fully implemented it
starting in January. That provides for enhanced checks for
that--that critical population, the 18-20-year-old range.
Juvenile criminal records, mental health records for that
population, and contact in some ways--most importantly contact
with local law enforcement in that person's community.
I've actually be out to NICS, met with and sat with the
operators who process those checks. So, I've seen kind of
firsthand how it works and the important work it represents. I
think if you were to talk--I'm talking to chiefs and sheriffs
all over this country every week and you will hear most of
them--if you talk to them for very long, you will hear about
their concern and our concern about juveniles and violence--
almost guarantee you with the first 10 minutes of any
conversation. It's a real problem in this country.
Mr. Neguse. Well, I thank you for your answer and I think
it underscores the importance of the NICS program and would
look forward to perhaps following up with your team on this
particular administrative issue of trying to just make sure
that the data base is working efficiently.
Limited time left, but I just want to give you an
opportunity--I know we have talked a bit about the fentanyl
epidemic devastating communities across the country. Certainly,
in Colorado it is one of the reasons why we created a Fentanyl
Prevention Caucus here in the Congress. It is bipartisan.
Representative Issa is one of our Co-Chairs.
Wonder if you just might be able to, for those Americans
who are watching, kind of provide us with your sense of some of
the trends, the most dangerous and disturbing trends that you
think the American people and policymakers should be aware of?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are a whole bunch of trends, but in
the limited time--but because of the importance of this topic,
I'll hit a couple.
(1) We were just discussing this recently internally, we
are finding over the course of the last year that, maybe even a
little less than a year, almost every gang takedown we have
now, and we're doing them all over the country all the time--
almost every single one now seems to involve as well a seizure
of fentanyl. We've been doing gang takedowns since
Congresswoman Lee was a prosecutor as well. So, that's not new.
What is new is that over and over and over again it seems
consistently we're finding fentanyl in these--again these
violent crime takedowns.
(2) A phenomenon, which is deeply disturbing, and I know
the DEA Administrator is very concerned about as well, is that
we're seeing more and more adulteration or lacing of fentanyl
into all sorts of different kinds of prescription drugs that
lots of Americans take all the time.
If you think about the phenomenon of the youth of this
country, which is itself a problem, of getting prescription
drugs from their friends or their friends' parents or whatever
it happens to be, they may not know that there's potentially a
lethal dose of fentanyl in some prescription drug that they're
taking. So, it just underscores the importance of only getting
your prescriptions from an appropriate medical provider.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is expired.
The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. Tiffany. Is the Southern border secure?
Mr. Wray. I think the Southern border represents a massive
security threat.
Mr. Tiffany. So, what we have heard from you today is that
fentanyl has become a really big problem and that you are
having to put more resources to it. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. Toward fentanyl, yes. Yes, we are.
Mr. Tiffany. The related gangs. You just regaled us with
some of the story.
Mr. Wray. Right.
Mr. Tiffany. So, this all happened over the last couple
years as the border has become unsecure. Is the Southern border
secure?
Mr. Wray. Well again, we're not--I want to defer to the
Homeland Security which has responsible for the physical
security of the building. I will just tell you from the FBI's
perspective that we are seeing all sorts of very serious, very
serious criminal threats that come from across the border.
Mr. Tiffany. Getting worse, correct? You are putting more
assets toward it.
Mr. Wray. We certainly do. We have, as I said--
Mr. Tiffany. So, it is becoming more of a priority for you?
Mr. Wray. It is becoming more and more of a priority for
us, yes.
Mr. Tiffany. So, in the Durham Report, and we heard from
Mr. Durham just a couple, weeks ago, he said the FBI failed to
uphold the important mission of strict fidelity to the law.
That predates you. Do you agree with that statement that Mr.
Durham made?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I do.
Mr. Tiffany. Was Russia collusion a hoax? So, in light of
the Durham Report in that was Russia collusion a hoax?
Mr. Wray. Well, what I would say is this: First, as to the
Durham Report itself, as to the issue of Russia malign
influence. As to the Durham Report itself--
Mr. Tiffany. Be quick.
Mr. Wray. --I will try--the conduct it describes is conduct
that I consider unacceptable and unrepresentative of who I see
the FBI is every day and must not ever be allowed to happen
again.
Mr. Tiffany. On the other side?
Mr. Wray. Second, on the other one it is not seriously
disputed that the Russians, among other foreign adversaries,
have attempted to interfere in our elections. There have been
any number of findings to that. In fact, President Trump
himself rightly declared a national emergency about foreign
interference in our elections in 2018.
Mr. Tiffany. So, as a result of the actions of James Comey,
the disgraced James Comey and the FBI, they have interfered
with the elections in both 2016 and 2020. Will that
interference happen again in 2024 by the FBI?
Mr. Wray. The FBI is not going to be interfering in
elections.
Mr. Tiffany. They did in 2016.
Mr. Wray. Well, I don't know that's what Mr. Durham found.
What I would tell you again is that it was conduct that I
consider unacceptable and unrepresentative.
Mr. Tiffany. You can be in denial if you want to.
Mr. Wray. I'm not in denial, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Director, you can be in denial on this.
That is exactly what happened.
Last year, the FBI gave a defensive briefing to my home
State Senator Johnson. You can see the slide up there now. Then
that defensive briefing was leaked to The Washington Post. Who
ordered that briefing?
Mr. Wray. So, defensive briefings, when it comes to
election matters, including in the last administration, under a
procedure set up by the last administration, are an interagency
process coordinated by the Office of Director of National
Intelligence. The way that works is the interagency concludes
that a defensive briefing is appropriate and the FBI is given
information from whatever intelligence community agency
supplies it and then we provide it. Defensive briefings, it's
important to understand--
Mr. Tiffany. Senator Johnson. That is his quote. He is up
there with you and Hunter Biden. ``I knew it was a setup.'' He
asked you this question back in November of last year and he
said ``I knew it was a setup.''
That goes back to the point about interfering in elections.
Senator Johnson was one of the most vulnerable Republican
incumbents, if not the most vulnerable Republican incumbent,
that was a target of the Democrats in the 2022 election. Then
you see this briefing happen and he knew what was happening,
that there was someone or some people within the FBI and the
intelligence arena that were going after him.
Did Joe Biden take payment from Barisma or any other
foreign companies as Vice President, President, or Private
Citizen Biden?
Mr. Wray. As you may know there is an ongoing investigation
being led by the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, Mr. Weiss,
appointed by President Trump in the last administration, that
our Baltimore Field Office is working with. I would refer you
to him as to what if anything can be shared.
Mr. Tiffany. So, the President is under investigation?
Mr. Wray. I'm not going to confirm or speak to who is or
isn't under investigation for what. I'm simply going to tell
you--
Mr. Tiffany. So, he is not under investigation?
Mr. Wray. I didn't say that either. By longstanding
department policy and practice I'm not going to be confirming
or denying who is or isn't under investigation or for what.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you. I will close with this: Russia
collusion started it, Mr. Chair, and the targeting and the
suppression and the censorship has continued until this point.
We need to thoroughly review what the FBI is doing. At a
minimum I will be allowing FISA to sunset if we are not going
to see significant reforms in the agency. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from North Carolina is recognized.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Director Wray, for your service and your
patience. In 2018, 10 leaders of Temple Beth Or, a synagogue in
my district, received threats mailed to their homes. These
threats led to the cancellation of programming and continued a
disturbing trend of rising antisemitism in North Carolina.
In the years since my State has confronted new threats from
domestic terrorists at minority institutions. This past April a
man was arrested on the campus of North Carolina A&T State
University, the largest HBCU in the country with multiple
firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition as well as a
makeshift explosive, brass knuckles, crossbow, knives, and
other weapons. Thankfully this man was arrested before he could
cause any harm, but the threat he posed to the campus mirrors
threats we have seen to HBCUs around the country.
In North Carolina and across the United States we have also
seen increased threats against reproductive care providers in
the wake of the Dobbs decision last summer. North Carolina
recently enacted a 12-week abortion ban that has severely
restricted access to reproductive healthcare in my State and
people often have to go through threatening crowds to be able
to access the care that they need. While some in North Carolina
have highlighted vandalism of crisis pregnancy centers since
the overturn of Roe, they have failed to acknowledge or respond
to the increase in violence at abortion providers.
Does the FBI currently provide antiterrorism training to
civilians, to HBCUs, places of worship, religious centers,
individuals providing abortion services, and LGBTQ groups? Does
that training include a domestic terrorism component, so that
they can help you and law enforcement?
Mr. Wray. Well, we do a whole bunch of things to engage
with the community, institutions that are targeted with
violence that include a number of the kinds of institutions you
mentioned. I know, in particular, we work very, very closely
with the Jewish community, which has the unfortunate
distinction of despite the percentage that they represent of
the American population of being [audio malfunction] around the
country and nationally.
We also spent a lot of time engaging with campus law
enforcement including at HBCUs. We spent a lot of time on that
especially last year with the bomb threats that were coming in.
I was just recently with all the campus law enforcement leaders
from around the country just the last couple weeks. We
certainly try to provide awareness to different kinds of
institutions about how to deal with potential mass casualty
events and things like that. We also provide information about
things to be on the lookout for in people's communities.
I should say though, when you mention on the abortion side
reproductive facilities, of course, I would be remiss if I
didn't also point out that there has been a pretty significant
uptick in violence going the other way since the Dobb decision.
Ms. Ross. Yes.
Mr. Wray. In fact, most of the investigations that we've
opened since the Dobb decision, probably about 70 percent of
them have been violence against prolife facilities. We recently
had a significant charge in the Madison, Wisconsin area of a
guy who was trying to firebomb a prolife facility there.
So, we're out there with communities across the spectrum.
Ms. Ross. OK. How would an investigation differ if it is
domestic terrorism as opposed to just an ordinary criminal
case?
Mr. Wray. Well, our investigation focuses on the violence
first and foremost.
Ms. Ross. Yes.
Mr. Wray. I think there is no domestic terrorism statute.
There's no offense of domestic terrorism--
Ms. Ross. Yes.
Mr. Wray. --but we define domestic terrorism for purposes
of opening an investigation as having three things: Violence or
threat of violence in furtherance of an idealogy; in other
words, that's what's driving the violence in that particular
instance, and in violation of Federal criminal law. If we have
those three things, enough evidence to indicate that might be
what's going on, then we would treat that as a domestic
terrorism investigation.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
We have got votes, director. We are going to do one more on
our side, then we will take a break and come back for the
remaining Members.
The gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized.
Ms. Hageman. Yes, Director Wray, we have established that
the FBI and other Federal agencies met weekly with executives
from major social media companies including Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Verizon. Were
you involved in any of those meetings, yes or no?
Mr. Wray. I wasn't involved in the kind of meetings that
you're talking about, or I didn't participate I guess in
meetings like that.
Ms. Hageman. OK. Are these meetings still occurring? If so,
how frequently?
Mr. Wray. Well, right now as you may know there is a
preliminary injunction that's been entered--
Ms. Hageman. Prior to the preliminary injunction were these
weekly meetings taking place?
Mr. Wray. I don't know if weekly meetings occurred again
before the injunction, but certainly we've been very open about
this, engaged with social media companies.
Ms. Hageman. Does the FBI intend to continue to have such
meetings leading up to the 2024 election to police election-
related speech?
Mr. Wray. Well, we're not going to be policing election-
related speech.
Ms. Hageman. That what you previously did?
Mr. Wray. That's not--I do not agree with that description.
Ms. Hageman. OK. Well, here is what I would say: This
committee has learned that the FBI acted to quote, ``discredit
leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was
published,'' that, quote, ``Twitter's contact with the FBI was
constant and pervasive as if it were a subsidiary,'' and that,
quote,
. . . a surprisingly high number of requests by the FBI for
Twitter to take action on election misinformation even
involving joke tweets from low follower accounts.
Are you aware that this has been reported?
Mr. Wray. I am aware of some of what the Committee has
found in its report.
Ms. Hageman. OK.
Mr. Wray. I will add that I'm not sure I agree with the
findings in the Committee's Report.
Ms. Hageman. That is what we found. Director Wray, you and
I both know that the Federal government is forbidden from doing
indirectly what it cannot do directly. In other words, neither
you nor the FBI have any legal authority to circumvent the
First Amendment by using a surrogate to do your dirty work, yet
that is exactly what you have been doing. The bureau under your
watch has been using proxies to violate the First Amendment.
Were you the person who gave the orders to use these social
media companies to violate the First--violate Americans' First
Amendment rights?
Mr. Wray. Again, I don't agree with your description of our
engagement with social media companies.
Ms. Hageman. So, who made the decision to use social media
companies as a proxy to suppress the First Amendment rights of
American citizens?
Mr. Wray. Because I don't believe that's what we did I'm
not sure there's anyone that would have made such a decision.
Ms. Hageman. Do you really expect the American public that
you were not involved in the decisions related to using social
media companies to suppress the First Amendment rights of
American citizens?
Mr. Wray. I can't help what people believe or not. I can
only speak to what the facts are.
Ms. Hageman. Was anyone ever fired or otherwise reprimanded
for pursuing mass censorship? In other words, has anybody been
held accountable for taking the actions that were described in
the decision by the District Court out of Louisiana?
Mr. Wray. Well, the District Court's decision just came out
on July 4th as I recall--
Ms. Hageman. Has anybody been reprimanded or held
accountable for what has--
Mr. Wray. At the moment we have issued guidance to everyone
in the organization who could be affected as to how to follow
that.
Ms. Hageman. Has anyone been reprimanded?
Mr. Wray. I'm not going to speak to personnel matters
because we have not made any such determination at this stage.
Ms. Hageman. Mr. Wray, I have some letters from Lindsay
Graham and Rand Paul that were sent to you on April 20th and
June 20th requesting a meeting to discuss the Weapons of Mass
Destruction Directorate's work investigating the origins of
SARS-COVID-19. Your office has never responded to these
letters. Do you intend to respond to Senators Lindsay Graham
and Rand Paul to find out more information about the origin of
COVID-19?
Mr. Wray. Well, we try hard to respond to all
correspondence we get from the Hill. We get a lot. I'll have to
check--
Ms. Hageman. So, I assume you will be responding to this?
Mr. Wray. --but, my intention is that we would have an
appropriate response. Sometimes our responses--by longstanding
procedure our responses have to go through the department
before they go out, so it could be that it's held up there. I
don't know that's--
Ms. Hageman. So,--
Mr. Wray. --I don't know if that's the case in these
particular ones, but--
Ms. Hageman. --Senators Graham and Paul should be receiving
a response from your office pretty soon?
Mr. Wray. Some kind of response. As you may know we were
the only agency in the intelligence community, until more
recently when the Department of Energy did as well, to reach
the assessment that in our folks' view we thought--
Ms. Hageman. I understand, Mr. Wray.
Mr. Wray. --it was more likely to be a lab leak.
Ms. Hageman. OK. Mr. Wray, from the Twitter files, Missouri
v. Biden disclosures, the Durham Investigation and Report, and
exposure and collapse of the Russian collusion hoax, the
American people fully understand that there is a two-tiered
justice system that has been weaponized to persecute people
based on their political beliefs and that you have personally
been--that you have personally worked to weaponize the FBI
against conservatives.
I asked Mr. Durham about this to which he answered,
I don't think that things can go too much further with the view
that law enforcement, particularly the FBI or Department of
Justice, runs a two-tiered system of justice. The Nation can't
stand under those circumstances.
Director Wray, what are you prepared to do to reform Federal
law enforcement in a manner which earns back the trust of the
American people?
Mr. Wray. Well, first, I would disagree with your
characterization of the FBI and certainly your description of
my own approach. The idea that I'm biased against conservatives
seems somewhat insane to me given my own personal background.
As to how we are approaching our work of protecting the
American people and upholding the Constitution, it starts with
me having emphasized to all our folks over and over and over
again in everything we do that we need to do the right thing in
the right way, and that means following the facts wherever they
lead no matter who likes it.
It starts--then goes on from there to all kinds of enhanced
procedures, safeguards, approvals, double checks, triple
checks, record keeping requirement, accountability policies,
and funding of new functions like an Office of Internal Audit
that didn't exist before, the installation of an entirely new
leadership team from my predecessor.
Where I can take action, where we can take action to hold
people accountable by removing people from the chain of
command--
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady's time is expired. Director,
we are going to take a 30-minute break for votes. We will be
back--I am going to try to start right at 2:15.
Ms. Hageman. Unanimous consent to introduce statements into
the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection it will so be entered.
We will start with Ms. Bush and then Mr. Bishop on our side
when return. We will stand in recess for approximately 30
minutes.
[Recess.]
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order.
The gentlelady from Missouri is recognized.
Ms. Bush. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being
here, Director Wray.
Before I get into the primary topic of my remarks, I want
to ask you about a separate issue. On June 16th my esteemed
colleague, Ranking Member Raskin of the Oversight Committee,
sent you a letter asking the FBI to publicly reiterate certain
nonclassified information that it provided in an oral briefing
about Form FD-1023 subpoenaed by Oversight Chair Comer.
It has now been almost a month since Mr. Raskin sent his
letter. When can he expect a response?
Mr. Wray. I'll have to check with my staff because we have
gotten so many letters from so many Members and that's--each
one of them is important to me. As I sit here right now I don't
know when the timing is but we'll get back to you on that.
Ms. Bush. OK.
Mr. Wray. More importantly, we'll get back to you on that
one.
Ms. Bush. OK. OK. All right. Thank you, and we will
followup. OK. Especially because I did ask directly of your
staff. So, we'll followup.
Now St. Louis and I are here today in continuing solidarity
with the protesters, the advocates, and movements that are
actually targeted by surveillance and other law enforcement
abuses in this country.
Director Wray, I know that you are aware of the FBI's long
and sordid history of targeting Black protesters and activists.
At a hearing before this Committee in December 2017 you
characterized the abuses related to Cointelpro as, quote,
. . . one of the darker moments in the FBI's history. It's
something we're not proud of, but it is also something we have
learned from.
Director Wray, isn't it true that an FBI agent improperly
ran a batch query of unminimized FISA information using the
identifiers of 133 individuals arrested in connection with the
protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020? Just a yes
or no is fine.
Mr. Wray. Well, I am aware of the incidence you're talking
about. Whether that correctly describes it or not I'm not 100
percent sure. I know it's in the most recent FISC opinion.
What I will tell you is that this incident is noncompliance
I considered unacceptable and most importantly, it predates all
these fixes and corrective measures and reforms that we have
put in place, which I think would have prevented it from
happening now.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. Now on to ZeroFox.
Isn't it true a firm hired on a $14 million contract by the
FBI, which we have heard already today, to monitor social media
threats previously labeled Black Lives Matter activists as
threat actors requiring constant surveillance? Yes or no.
Mr. Wray. I'm not sure that's a correct description of the
way we do work with ZeroFox. I don't know that's a correct
description of how we do it.
Ms. Bush. So, did the FBI hire the firm?
Mr. Wray. My understanding of ZeroFox is it has a tool
which allows us to, in certain instances, engage in social
media searches to prevent threats. The specifics of--
Ms. Bush. So, the FBI--so they were hired?
Mr. Wray. Well, I don't know, again, the terms of our
arrangement, whether it's a retention or what. I've heard the
term ZeroFox before and my general experience is it's usually
used in connection with preventing violence out of a particular
critical incident of some sort.
Ms. Bush. So, to the tune of $14 million, though, there is
reporting that threat actors was actually what they labeled
Black Lives Matter activists, two of whom I know very well, and
I served more than 400 days on the ground during the Ferguson
uprising myself, more than 400 days, many of those days with
those two people that were named and who are not violent.
Isn't it true that the FBI has been actively involved in
the law enforcement response to people protesting the Atlanta
Public Safety Training Center, a response that has included
State charges of domestic terrorism against protesters? Yes or
no.
Mr. Wray. Well, our Atlanta division is working in support
of our State and local partners when it comes to violence and
threats of violence that occurred amid the unrest that you're
referring to.
Ms. Bush. So, the FBI is involved. These are not isolated
incidents and, as I said, they're part of a long history of
abuses by the FBI against Black and Brown communities and
progressive movements.
These are the real oversight issues. They matter to my
district where there is real and justified skepticism of
whether the civil rights of Black and Brown people are
adequately protected.
I know this from personal experience in the Ferguson
uprising and from other protest movements that I have been a
part of. That's why I asked you about the targeting of
protesters the last time that you were before us because they
also included me.
What my district is not concerned about is the Republican
conspiracy theories and selective targeting of law enforcement
agencies who tried to hold their twice-impeached twice-indicted
cult leader Donald Trump accountable. The Insurrection Caucus
wants to use this hearing to score immediate political points.
They want to evade oversight. They don't want to conduct it.
We're talking about real issues, real reform that can
actually save lives. So, once again, I urge my Republican
colleagues who claim to care about government overreach and
weaponization to do the exact same.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
I would just remind the lady that what we'd actually likely
to do is work with you to protect Americans' privacy whether
they've been targeted on the right or on the left.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair, point of order. Point of
order. Point of order.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman may State his point of order.
Mr. Ivey. It's not your time.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate the point of order, and I was
just getting ready to yield to the gentleman from North
Carolina who--
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I greatly appreciate that.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate the reminder.
Mr. Bishop. I want to followup, Director Wray, about the
Foreign Influence Task Force. There have been exchanges with
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana and Ms. Hageman over that, and I
understand the difference. I want to respect the differences in
characterization.
Earlier this weekend in denying a stay of its order the
Federal Court essentially said this isn't complicated. Follow
the law as articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the area of
the First Amendment and that was it as far as it was concerned.
The Foreign Influence Task Force is not a predecessor's
decision. You set that up, right?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. You've known about the continuous interaction
with social media companies. You've known about--I'm sure you
know about testimony of Elvis--agent Elvis Chan, correct?
Mr. Wray. I don't know everything he's testified to, but
I'm aware that he was--
Mr. Bishop. Did you read his testimony?
Mr. Wray. I've read parts of it, yes.
Mr. Bishop. That there were thousands of posts that were
flagged by the social media companies. These meetings with
social media continued across time on a periodic basis and this
court has found--and I understand where the point of
disagreement is, I guess, at this stage is and I believe it's
fairly common sense--that if you've got constant, expectant
suggestions from the FBI to social media companies with respect
to social media posts at some point in times it becomes a
government decision or it becomes coercive in nature. That's
what the Courts preliminarily found. That apparently is the
line you decided to walk in setting this up.
Today it's striking that you come in and you sort of
casually acknowledge and among other things that we did pass
through, I think you said, information from the Ukrainian SBU
to social media as if it's normal for the FBI to serve
effectively as the agent of a foreign power to help pull
information out of circulation to which Americans otherwise
would have access because the foreign intel service doesn't
like it.
Now, those are my characterizations. I have tried to be a
little bit more neutral in my language and you can differ with
them. Here's what I'm wondering.
Why would you walk that fine a line with respect to
Americans' fundamental constitutional rights at scale
especially with knowledge of past abuses by the FBI like
Cointelpro?
You said earlier that the FBI wasn't even concerned about
disinformation, per se, but the foreign origins of the
information. Assuming so, how does that comport with Lamont v.
Postmaster General?
Mr. Wray. Well, I'm not going to try to engage on Supreme
Court jurisprudence, but what I can tell you is that the--
Mr. Bishop. Well, that's the point, though, Director Wray,
and let me just ask you, do you know about that case? Do you
know that case?
Mr. Wray. I've heard of the case.
Mr. Bishop. All right. Right in the heart of the cold war
at the behest of an American plaintiff--a communist, by the
way--the Supreme Court said that Americans have a First
Amendment right of access to information even if it is
propaganda originating abroad and, in that case, the United
States Postal Service could not interdict it.
Do you know that, in essence?
Mr. Wray. Again, I'm not familiar with the holding of the
case. I'd have to review it to be sure that--
Mr. Bishop. That's seems to me the trouble. I keep
wondering as I read all these revelations how that could be.
Then let me go to this. That the FBI engaged with the social
media companies, continuously warning them of hack and leak
operations in 2020--not 2018, by the way, but before the 2020
election--lots of warnings about hack and leak. You're aware of
that?
Mr. Wray. I'm aware that we gave them lots of information
about intelligence that we were receiving from some of our
intelligence--
Mr. Bishop. At the time you were giving them those warnings
the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop for more than nine months
and--but, of course, Cointelpro itself was the mother of all
hack and leak operations.
Leftist activists at the time broke into the FBI's office
in Media, Pennsylvania, stole the files, gave them to the media
and the newspapers published them. You're bound to be aware of
New York Times Company v. The United States--The Pentagon
Papers case?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. That says that even if information had been
stolen or inappropriately taken that you can't get a prior
restraint in almost any circumstance to prevent their being
distributed.
So, how is it that your Foreign Influence Task Force is out
warning of hack and leak operations to innocent--not involved
in the hack--that would be criminal--but news or social media
organizations where information may be circulating?
Mr. Wray. Well, first, we're not engaging in any prior
restraint. Second--the second--
Mr. Bishop. Wow.
Mr. Wray. Let me--if I could finish, please.
Second, there is no serious dispute that foreign
adversaries have and continue to attempt to interfere in our
elections and that they use social media to do it.
President Trump himself in 2018 declared a National
Emergency to that very effect and the Senate Intelligence
Committee in a bipartisan--overwhelmingly bipartisan way, by
the way, not only found the same thing but called for more
information sharing between us and the social media companies.
Mr. Bishop. I hate to say this, Director--I hear you, but
it doesn't justify trampling the established First Amendment
rights of Americans as the Supreme Court has declared them
whether or not, frankly, I agree with them, or you agree with
them. I just don't--that's what I don't get.
You come here and the comments are sort of blase answers.
Accountability is always down the road. It never arrives and
I'm not trying--I guess I'm joining the gang up.
What I'm concerned about and I think Americans are
concerned about is they just never see it. I don't know of an
answer other than to take an appropriation from you that's very
significant or to do something to take your intel powers away
and put them in another agency.
I honestly want to know.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair?
Mr. Bishop. I think Americans want to know.
I yield.
Chair Jordan. They sure do.
The gentleman from Maryland who keeps us on time is
recognized.
Mr. Ivey. Until it's my turn. Then I'm going to run
overtime.
Mr. Bishop. Wait until he gets his five minutes. Yes.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time is about ready to start.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director, I appreciate you coming in today. I saw a
characterization of this hearing as a GOP-FBI grudge match. I
must say that the only grudge that's been seen here is from the
Republican side.
I think you've done an outstanding job with your testimony
today. Even though you've been admitting that there are
shortcomings by your office, that mistakes have been made, I
appreciate the fact that you are willing to do that because
it's not easy for agency heads to do that and also, more
importantly, to point out the changes that you've made to try
and address those concerns.
I want to say this, too. There are a couple points that
have been made here about--you were just talking about the
Foreign Influence Task Force and I know there's a lot of talk
about this as being some kind of prior restraint or First
Amendment violation.
I want to say that I'm on the side that thinks this is a
very important tool for the FBI and the U.S. Government to
have, especially with respect to potential intervention or
interference especially by Russian State actors with respect to
American elections.
There are some people who think, and I'm kind of starting
to agree, that one of the reasons some of my colleagues are
pushing so hard against this and other aspects of information
protection within the United States is because they want to
have Russian interference in the 2024 election.
Chair Jordan. Oh, please.
Mr. Ivey. I certainly don't. So, I certainly thank you for
continuing your efforts on that front.
There was an issue that was raised about whistleblowers
earlier in the hearing and I wanted to bring this up. I know
you can't speak to this, Mr. Director, but these are the two
checks that were written to some of these witnesses--two of the
witnesses that testified here--and they are for over $250,000.
Now, they came after they gave their testimony I think by a
few days. From my perspective, this is something that the
American public should know when they evaluate the testimony of
these individuals. Hopefully, I don't know if the majority knew
about this, but didn't disclose it at the time or what was
going on with it.
In my book, this really brings the credibility of these
witnesses' testimony into question, and I think we should keep
this in mind when we evaluate the allegations that they've
made.
I also want to say this, too. My Republican colleagues have
come a long way from the law-and-order days of the Republican
Party back when I was a kid. Now, we're a defund the FBI, I
think one of them selling T-shirts to try and raise money using
that slogan.
Another colleague is talking about abolish the ATF. Another
one wants to say defund the Department of Justice. As you
mentioned in your testimony earlier, the FBI is doing a lot of
great work protecting the country from terrorism, foreign
intelligence threats, international cartels. There are weapons
of mass destruction that you mentioned in your testimony. I
appreciate that.
Also, there has been a great deal of talk about the
domestic terror threats. For me the planned attempt to kidnap
the Governor of Michigan and apparently kill her was showing to
the extreme and I appreciate the fact that you were able to
intervene on that.
I want to say this quickly, too. I'm running short on time.
The misinformation and weaponization claims that have been made
by my Republican colleagues I want to offer these two articles.
One is called--it's by Aaron Blake of the Washington Post,
``All the ways Trump, not his foes, sought to weaponize the
government,'' and then another one--this is Philip Bump. This
is on the Missouri v. Biden case, which was quoted extensively
at the beginning of the hearing, ``A deeply ironic
reinforcement of right-wing information.''
The point of this article is that the Missouri v. Biden
decision, which--and I know you can't comment on it because
it's pending litigation, but I also think it's being challenged
by the Department of Justice and rightly so because it's
riddled with factual inaccuracies and legal inaccuracies as
well.
One other article for the record--this is by Leah Litman
and Laurence Tribe, ``Restricting the government for speaking
to tech will spread disinformation and harm democracy.'' I'd
like all those admitted.
Then, last, with respect to the Hunter Biden issue there's
a letter from Abbe Lowell, who represents Mr. Biden--this is to
Representative Jason Smith, but I think also to Chair Jordan as
well--that raises the push back on the allegations that points
out that the investigation began during the Republican Trump
Administration, was supervised by two Republican Attorney
Generals, was carried over by a holdover Republican U.S.
Attorney.
The last point I want to make--I promise I won't run over
my time much--I happen to represent the district where we
contain two of the sites where the FBI headquarters could be
moved to.
The Chair made a reference to maybe not wanting to fund the
move, but I must say I think I had an office near your building
that got nets around it to keep parts of the building from
falling down and hurting pedestrians. If the move is important
and also would give you a chance to consolidate hopefully,
you'll bring it to Prince Georges County, and we'll save $1
billion for the taxpayers.
With that, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Indiana is recognized.
Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Wray, the FBI's mission is to protect the American
people and uphold the U.S. Constitution, correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Spartz. OK. So, we had a couple of years ago--it was in
hearing and I actually looking in all the concerns and I've
seen was really warrantless surveillance and abuses of Section
702 of FISA.
I compared the agency to KGB, and spending two years on
this Committee reading a lot of reports, now doing a lot of
hearings I'm really shocked that your agency is involved not
just unlawful surveillance of American citizens, intimidation
of American citizens, censorship of American citizens,
potential coverups of convenient political figures, potential
setups of inconvenient political figures, and a lot of my
colleagues has a lot of questions.
I think when we look at that and, unfortunately, we haven't
been doing our job authorizing spending which was not
authorized by our Committee already for over a decade, we're
going to have this serious conversation and including
reauthorization of Section 702.
I want to talk about some other issues that you mentioned
about that my colleagues were talking about and you mentioned
that you focus on malign foreign actors.
So, in Durham Report, which describes 2020, he states, and
this is a quote,
Steele's sources could have been compromised by the Russians.
FBI never gave appropriate consideration to the possibility
that the Steele Report was Russian disinformation.
No vetting happened. You have some falsified FISA court
application. You have some very shady confidential human
sources that you can pay for them. Nothing was vetted. Some of
your head of counterintelligence division was accused of taking
money from a Russian oligarch just recently this year.
So, you said all those bad. Now, we go to 2022. Your agency
is involved with SBU, security service of Ukraine to actually
provide information to big tech to censor, just use, of
American people. No vetting, it seems, is happening. This is
information.
Actually, a lot of this information was pro-Russian against
Ukraine and pro-Putin. Your agency just passed it along. It
seems like nothing happened. It's interesting for me that when
I raised some issue actually the beginning of July and what's
happening in Ukraine, I don't have any confidential human
sources, just using common sense and intelligence that
something is wrong happening in Ukraine. It seems like there
was a lot of infiltration. I was attacked--oh, my gosh, how can
you question.
Well, strangely enough, after me raising this question in
the middle of July President Zelenskyy fired his SBU top guy,
opens over 600 investigations as potential infiltration by
Russians and then fire a lot of other people for corruption. An
anticorruption prosecutor was suddenly installed.
What is really interesting for me, is how could you have
these processes, and are you doing actually any investigation
to look? Because it seems to me, as I understand you still have
our agencies working with SBU with coming from KGB time and FSB
time has a lot of potential to have this infiltration. Are you
doing any investigations on those issues?
Mr. Wray. Doing investigations on--
Ms. Spartz. Yes, to look at that, why we're doing unvetted
information we're taking from SBU which actually was
infiltrated and given to censor Americans to our big tech
companies. Are you looking into that as an agency?
Mr. Wray. I'm not sure there's an investigation that is
directly on point to what you're saying. Certainly, the SBU is
an agency that we have worked with for a long time.
Ms. Spartz. So, we're not doing an investigation. So, did
we change the processes now since we know your guys work with
SBU, SBU was infiltrated by Russia and big tech was censoring
American citizens. This unvetted information that actually was
provided by Russians did you change any processes or it's still
happening? You have some of the same processes that happened?
Is this still happening now?
Mr. Wray. Well, the engagement that we had with SBU was
during--
Ms. Spartz. I'm talking right now.
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Spartz. Because recently some of your agents had
actually a joint meeting and they were bragging how their top
corporation was SBU. Did you change processes?
Mr. Wray. I'm not sure what processes you're talking about.
Ms. Spartz. To vet information.
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Ms. Spartz. What's happening?
Mr. Wray. Again, during the period at the beginning of the
invasion--
Ms. Spartz. No. No. I'm talking right now. Do you change--
do you vet information that you get from agencies like SBU? I
mean, I don't know. If we're trying to--are we being stupid? I
understand--are we being infiltrated by Russians or corrupt?
I don't understand why we're not vet information was such a
real challenge in the agency. So, are you changing anything of
that? I would like to have a briefing or something on this
because if you're not looking at it, I have a huge problem with
that.
Mr. Wray. I'm happy to try to see if we can arrange to get
you a better briefing on the subject.
Ms. Spartz. Because this is a serious national security
issue. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from South Carolina.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Oh, I'm sorry. The gentlelady from Texas is recognized.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chair, the
Lone Ranger on this side.
Chair Jordan. Thanks for sticking with us.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We appreciate you for a moment and all my
members.
Let me just quickly indicate that I have a document that is
a tweet that is--I'm wanting to submit it into the record. Two
of the Republican witnesses were gifted $255,000 checks--
$255,000 in checks immediately after they testified before this
Committee. It seems to be quid pro quo.
The fact of--the tweet that I'm submitting from Mr. Kyle
Seraphin says the fact that Mr. Allen has not yet cashed the
check is not that he did not receive the check. So, I submit in
the record the tweet from Mr. Seraphin who indicated that two
gentlemen, Garrett and Marcus, receiving a check of--
Chair Jordan. Continuing your attack on whistleblowers,
without objection those are--those are--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Just for clarification, Mr. Chair.
Then finally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
Department of Homeland Security's strategic intelligence
assessment and data on domestic terrorism dated October 2022,
Appendix A--the document itself, Appendix A, Appendix B, and
the categories of domestic violence extremism.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Your kindness is appreciated. Thank you
very much.
Chair Jordan. Thank you. The gentleman from South Carolina
is recognized.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A few weeks ago, Special Counsel Durham confirmed the FBI
had bias against President Trump and took unprecedented steps
to go after him during the 2016 Presidential Election.
The Durham Report showed:
(1) The FBI did not have an adequate basis to launch the
investigation;
(2) it didn't verify or examine all the evidence; and,
(3) the FBI was politically charged against then candidate
Trump.
This, of course, was before your time. Here we go again. In
August 2022, the FBI raided the personal residence of President
Trump. This unprecedented raid was a shocking escalation in
what we talk about with the weaponization of the Federal
government against political opponents.
Our country is almost 250 years old. We have had 46
Presidents. This is unprecedented and when we say it's
unprecedented, we mean it. This has never been seen before in
our country's history. Just like we saw in the Durham Report,
the FBI did not follow traditional protocols and this
investigation was chock full of abnormality.
So, I kind of want to go into those a little bit. Director
Wray, as you know, the Committee recently conducted a
transcribed interview with Steven D'Antuono, the former
Assistant Director in charge of the FBI's Washington Field
Office. He has over 20 years of FBI experience and he expressed
some strong concerns with your department's handling of the
case, the DOJ's handling of the case.
The first abnormality deals with the FBI office, that they
conducted the raid themselves.
Director Wray, generally speaking, which FBI office
oversees Palm Beach, Florida?
Mr. Wray. The Miami office has an office in Palm Beach. To
the question you're asking it is not unusual for a field office
that is investigating the case to send the case team down to be
involved in conducting the search.
Mr. Fry. President Trump's residence is in Palm Beach,
Florida. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Fry. Director Wray, did the Miami field office conduct
the investigation and search at Mar-a-Lago?
Mr. Wray. The Washington Field Office conducted the search,
although I think there was some assistance by people from
Miami.
Mr. Fry. It was primarily run out of Washington and not the
Miami field office?
Mr. Wray. Which was the case team that had opened the
investigation based on a referral--
Mr. Fry. Did the FBI headquarters--
Mr. Wray. --based on a referral from the National Archives,
which is in DC.
Mr. Fry. Did the FBI headquarters in Washington instruct
the Washington Field Office to start that investigation and
that raid at Mar-a-Lago?
Mr. Wray. Well, the investigation was opened in the field
by the Washington Field Office.
Mr. Fry. Right. So, it was not Miami. It was Washington.
Mr. Wray. Which the Washington Field Office opened the
investigation based on a referral from the National Archives,
which is also in DC, so that made sense.
Mr. Fry. Who made the decision to have the Washington Field
Office execute that search warrant rather than the Miami field
office?
Mr. Wray. I can't speak to the specific individual. As you
know, this is an ongoing case and internal deliberations are
ongoing on the case.
Mr. Fry. We're not asking about--I'm not asking about the
facts of the case. I'm asking you about who made the call to go
to Washington and use the Washington Field Office as opposed to
Miami. Would that had been you?
Mr. Wray. Well, no. The Washington Field Office opened the
investigation because they're the office where the National
Archives is, which is what referred the investigation and
kicked off the whole investigation.
Mr. Fry. Director, on May 15, 2023, the FBI, your special
counsel--or excuse me, not your special counsel, your general
counsel--sent a letter to Special Counsel Durham in response to
his report. In that letter the FBI wrote, quote,
FBI executive management has instructed investigations to be
run out of the field and not from headquarters.
So, despite the location of the search occurring in the
territory of the FBI's field office the Washington Field Office
instructed the raid. This is inconsistent with the FBI's
statement from two months ago.
I want to move on to a second abnormality.
Mr. Wray. Sir, I'm sorry. It's actually not--it's not--
Mr. Fry. I've got 1 minute left. I've got 1 minute left,
Director. Now, is it normal for a U.S. Attorney to be assigned
to an investigation--a high-profile investigation?
Mr. Wray. Well, that's a decision that's made over at the
Justice Department as to how they allocate responsibilities.
Mr. Fry. That's normal protocol. Is that correct?
Mr. Wray. There are investigations, prosecutions in cases
that are handled by main Justice. There are trial attorneys
there. Again, I only speak to the FBI's decisionmaking, not to
the Justice Department.
Mr. Fry. A U.S. Attorney was not initially assigned to this
investigation, were they?
Mr. Wray. I think that's correct. Again, I would refer you
to the Justice Department for any questions about what--U.S.
Attorneys versus main Justice.
Mr. Fry. The third abnormality that I find really
troubling--probably the most troubling, quite frankly, is the
FBI did not first seek consent to search the residence, did
they?
Mr. Wray. Well, there is a fairly detailed filing in court
that goes through in fairly excruciating detail the process
that was followed that led up to the execution of the search
and it goes through in great detail the efforts that were made
to secure documents and because this case is now pending and
moving forward in Federal Court I want to respect that and not
engage in more discussion beyond. I will refer you to the
filing--
Mr. Fry. You can hear the frustration, Director Wray.
Mr. Wray. --which lays out in great detail, the answer to
your question.
Mr. Fry. Here's the frustration that I see, Director.
The Durham Report laid out very clearly that in cases just
in general that you cross every T and dot every I, that this
was not done here. You didn't run it out of the field office.
You didn't have a U.S. Attorney assigned to the case.
Senior officials did not listen to people on the ground as
the testimony of Mr. D'Antuono talked about. You didn't ask for
a consent from their attorney. You didn't ask for a consent
search despite the President having cooperated and handed over
documents for a long period of time, and you refused to wait
for President Trump's own attorney to get to Mar-a-Lago to do
this with you.
So, what has changed since Durham? You've acknowledged this
in 2023 that things should be run out of the field, that you've
made internal process changes, but nothing has really changed
since 2016 and that's my big concern.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Wray. I could not disagree more, but we'll just have to
disagree on that one.
Chair Jordan. Well, here's what he said. This is questions
from the Democrat lawyer in the depositions to Mr.--in the
deposition of Mr. D'Antuono--``Can you explain to the attendees
here why the case was not assigned to, for example, the Miami
field office?'' and Mr. D'Antuono's answer was, ``I have
absolutely no idea.''
Then they said the investigators handled it differently and
he said--his answer was,
It was handled differently than I would have expected to be
than any other case is handled.
So, I think that was the Member's point and that's the
concern that we have in spite of the letter we got from your
general counsel.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas for five
minutes and then we'll go to Wisconsin.
Mr. Hunt. A recent poll found that 37 percent of Americans
have a positive view of the FBI and that's from an NBC poll. I
wouldn't exactly call that right media propaganda and I think I
know why.
Here's what the American people know and believe about the
FBI today, sir. If you are a Trump, you will be prosecuted. If
you are a Biden you'll be protected, and the American people
that I represent are sick and tired of this double standard.
It seems like every single hearing that we have in this
room we talk about the two-tiered justice system of Biden's DOJ
and the FBI and, as we were talking earlier, here we are again.
President Trump endured an unprecedented raid at his home
in Mar-a-Lago. President Biden's home, however, was
respectfully browsed.
President Trump is facing up to 400 years in Federal prison
for allegedly being in possession of classified documents he
obtained as the Commander in Chief of these United States of
America and meanwhile President Biden is facing no charges for
the classified documents he had held at his time as a Senator
and a Vice President, not the President of these United States
of America, and last I checked he had no legal authority to
declassify those documents.
Assuming President Trump was in possession of some
classified documents would those documents be more secure
surrounded by Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago or in a box in a
garage behind your Corvette? You don't have to answer that
question.
A question for you, sir. What can you tell us about the
status of the FBI's investigation of President Biden's
classified documents found next to his Corvette in Delaware and
those found at the Penn Biden Center? Do we have an update on
that, sir?
Mr. Wray. What I can tell you is that there is an ongoing
Special Counsel investigation led by Mr. Robert Hur and we have
FBI agents affiliated with it, working on it, working very
actively and aggressively with him on that case.
I, obviously, disagree with your description of the two
standards. In my view, at least under my watch we have one
standard--
Mr. Hunt. OK.
Mr. Wray. --and that is we're going to pursue the facts
wherever they lead no matter who likes it, and I add that last
part because especially in sensitive investigations almost by
definition somebody's not going to like it.
Mr. Hunt. So, I understand that and that's actually why I
led with the sentiment of the American people. I understand
that sentiment.
Mr. Wray. So, let me--
Mr. Hunt. I do want to finish this. So, I want everybody to
talk about this dichotomy that we have seen. I get your point,
sir, but that's just not what we see as the public as We the
People.
We see one case being fast tracked and one case being slow
walked. We see one person's home being raided; the other
person's home being kindly searched. You have one government
agency--the Secret Service--protecting the former President and
his home and another government agency--the FBI--raiding the
same home.
Now, to me, sir, that's tragically ironic and we expect
more from a functional Constitutional republic and these things
shouldn't be happening.
Now, it's my opinion that Joe Biden is the most unpopular
President we have seen in a century and that's why he knows the
only way to stop President Trump from beating him in November
is by putting him in jail.
You talked about this, Mr. Fry. In the 247 years of this
existence of this great Nation only one President has ever been
indicted by the DOJ and his home raided by the FBI.
Now, some have said that President Trump's indictment means
that no one is above the law. OK. All right. I would love to
see that.
What about Hillary Clinton and what about Joe Biden and
what about Hunter Biden, who was America's favorite son?
Let me tell you something. I got a four-year-old daughter
and a two-year-old daughter at my house. Hunter Biden, to me,
is like glitter. He is on everything, and you cannot get rid of
him, and yet nothing is going to be done about this and we're
sick of it.
James Comey decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton
despite overwhelming evidence that she committed crimes, and as
I recall it was the position of the FBI to not prosecute
because they didn't want to interfere with a Presidential
Election.
What do you call this? The Iowa caucuses are in six months.
Six months. I think the American public would expect to see
this from Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and China, but not here.
The people expect us to have blind justice. They expect
equal justice under the law. It is not the job of the DOJ or
the FBI to prosecute Joe Biden's top political opponent who was
leading in every single primary poll and the Iowa caucuses are
in six months.
Let the people decide. It's our job to uphold the
Constitution. As a West Point grad, a military veteran, this is
the Constitution I'm giving my life to protect, and I expect us
all to uphold it likewise.
Thank you so much for being here.
Mr. Wray. Mr. Chair, may I briefly respond?
Chair Jordan. Sure.
Mr. Wray. So, first, as to the investigations related to
Ms. Clinton, as you noted that happened under my predecessor,
and I'm not going to either speak for or defend that decision.
Mr. Hunt. I recognize that. I recognize that.
Mr. Wray. Second, as to your descriptions of the
investigations related to Hunter Biden, as you know there is an
ongoing investigation being led by the Delaware U.S. Attorney
appointed by President Trump and we are actively working on
that investigation with him.
Mr. Hunt. Well, we look forward to seeing the result of
this quickly and swiftly.
Mr. Wray. Third and finally, to your point about the
American people and their views, I worry less about NBC polls
or polls by any other news outlet. I will tell you that the
number of people in Texas applying to work for us since I've
been in this job has gone up 93 percent and, in fact--
Mr. Hunt. I'm not going to quote Mr. Gaetz. I heard the
responses earlier.
Mr. Wray. In fact, we have--
Mr. Hunt. That's great.
Mr. Wray. --more applicants from the State of Texas
annually in the last several years than any other State in the
country.
Mr. Hunt. That makes sense because Texas is the greatest
State in the country.
Mr. Wray. Then I think that speaks very well of the view of
Texans about the FBI.
Chair Jordan. Director, are any agents who served on the
Crossfire Hurricane investigation or the Mueller
investigation--are any of those agents on Mr. Hur or Mr.
Smith's special counsel team?
Mr. Wray. I don't believe so, but I can't from the top of
my head go through the list of--there's a lot of agents
involved in the two investigations and so let me check into
that and see if there's any way we can get back to you on that
because I don't want to get out over my skis.
Chair Jordan. Thank you. The gentleman from Wisconsin is
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Director Wray, thanks for being here today.
On June 21st, the Committee heard testimony from Special
Counsel John Durham. Have you reviewed his findings, and did
you dispute any of those?
Mr. Wray. I have reviewed them. It is a big multi 100-page
binder sitting to my right on my desk and I refer to it
frequently.
I can't say that I'm aware of anything specific that I
would dispute in it. I would certainly--as you may know, not
only did we fully cooperate with him in the investigation, as
he noted in his report, but I actually assigned a bunch of
agents and FBI personnel to work on it with him to help him and
I'm very proud of the fact that the reforms that we have put in
place in response to the inspector general's investigation,
also in the Crossfire Hurricane as well as some other changes
that we made working closely with Attorney General Barr.
If those reforms had been in place back at the time that
all this stuff that Special Counsel Durham found, I don't think
any of this would have happened.
Mr. Fitzgerald. So, the confirmation bias which was brought
up time and time again when Durham was here before the
Committee you feel those have been addressed? I think Jason
Jones says that he put together a letter and that includes a
lot of that information. Do you feel it's adequate or--
Mr. Wray. Well, I'm ambitious by nature for us as an
organization so we're constantly looking for more things we can
do. I'll give you an example on this issue of bias because I
think it's so important.
One of the things that I did as FBI Director, and I did
this a couple of years ago and this, frankly, was in reaction
in many ways more to both the Hillary Clinton investigation as
well as the Crossfire Hurricane investigation--was that I put
in place training for the entire workforce that focused
specifically not just on the importance of avoiding bias, but
the importance of avoiding even the appearance of bias.
One of the things that I did to make sure that I was
sending that message was that rather than like what normally
happens in a bureaucracy where all the training gets saddled on
all the folks on the front lines right out of the gate, I
started with the top 200-300 or so people in the organization,
brought them all to Quantico for an entire day's stand down.
We heard from the Federal judiciary, the Inspector General,
the Hatch Act Office of Special Counsel, and the whole point of
it was the importance of not just objectivity but making sure
that we are faithful to the appearance of objectivity as well.
Then we had a smaller version of this that went out to the
whole workforce. The idea was to send the message that
everybody at the top has to take the medicine first.
Mr. Fitzgerald. So, there's two other things that were in
there. Serious lack of analytical rigor was one of the other
things that Durham brought up numerous times, and then I'll
just--there was a noticeable departure from how it approached--
how the FBI approached matters involving possible attempted
foreign election interference plans amid, as you just brought
up, at the Clinton Campaign.
So, the question would be: Has the FBI protocols
surrounding investigations--I want to know specifically in the
Presidential Campaigns what's the policy now? We're on the
verge of another nationwide election and I'm wondering is there
anything specific in writing that you could inform the
Committee of this afternoon?
Mr. Wray. Well, we have put in place a whole slew of
reforms that help to try to mitigate against the kind of
concerns you're raising. Whether there's a specific one that I
would think is kind of--I don't think there's any one that's a
single silver bullet.
I know that Attorney General Barr and I put in place
certain reforms that dealt with particularly sensitive
investigations and approvals that would have to be required
before anything like that could happen. I know that was very
important to him and we worked together on that.
We have a whole slew of additional approvals, sign offs,
triple check safeguards, et cetera, that go into a lot of these
kinds of issues. When you raise the issue of analytical rigor,
obviously, that's--I talk about rigor.
I bet my folks would tell you they hear the word rigor
coming out of my mouth probably every single day and that is
something that we're always aspiring to get better at.
Mr. Fitzgerald. So, if you had somebody within the FBI that
you found out was involved in trying to manipulate or rig an
election, especially at the national level, how would that be
handled by the FBI? How would you handle it as the Director?
Mr. Wray. Well, it obviously would depend on the specific
facts as to exactly what it is the person was doing. Accepting
your premise, that's the kind of thing that would have the
person referred to our disciplinary process.
Mr. Fitzgerald. To be fired or terminated?
Mr. Wray. The process would play itself out. We have a
whole offense code that goes into what different rules we have
and different punishments and there's a whole complicated
system that goes into the disciplinary process. Our
disciplinary process is, for the most part, I think, one of the
better ones in Federal law enforcement. There is a process that
we have to follow.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Has anybody that was involved in that type
of action in the past been disciplined for that at the FBI?
Mr. Wray. Well, let me answer that this way. Obviously,
former employees--the important point here is that all the
senior managers in any way involved in the Crossfire Hurricane
investigation are all gone from the FBI for a variety of
reasons in a variety of ways.
To the extent that there's anybody left you're talking
about a small handful of currently line level employees, all of
whom have been referred to this disciplinary process. That
process, as you may have heard me say in response to an earlier
exchange, as is typical working with Special Counsel Durham we
had put that kind of on a hold until he could finish his case
because the criminal case had to come first, and that process
is now fully underway.
Again, you're talking about a few relatively line level
people where we erred on the side of inclusion so anybody who
touched it we sent them to the process, and we'll see where
that plays itself out.
The key point is that all the main players, if you will--
the senior people--are all gone. I put in place an entirely new
leadership team.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very good. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director,
for your patience.
So, you're very, very good at your job as illustrated by
the last four hours and I just want to say that you're way
better at defending than you are at explaining what you're
going to do about the problems that led to your dismal public
profile.
I wish it was better, but I have the most recent poll here
from--I think it's from Harris. Yes, it is--the Harvard CAPS
Harris poll. Seventy percent of respondents said that they were
either very or somewhat concerned about interference by the FBI
and other intelligence agencies in elections. Seventy-one
percent agreed that changes post-2016 had not done enough to
prevent further interference and that wide ranging reform is
still required.
Now, I also--pretty interesting article, the Inquirer I see
damning the Durham Report and I'll just read from you this
quote from Mr. Durham.
The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be
learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be
a fruitless exercise.
So, you must have done something more than promulgating
additional rules and regulations because, to me, that doesn't
do much at all when we're going to an issue that probably is
cultural.
To that end, I just want to share with you some of the
things I hear from my sheriffs across my 20 counties. So, I
have 20 county sheriffs. In fact, one of my brothers used to be
one for 15 years.
So, I called him--my brother--and I said, hey, what was
your experience with the FBI? He said, they're very qualified
but when they appear you know you have to be aware that part of
their job is to enforce Section 1983, and he pointed that out
just because there's a constant tension between FBI and local
law enforcement. Would you agree?
By the way, when you go out and you talk to sheriffs
nobody's going to say to the Director of the FBI, we don't like
you. Why would they do such a crazy thing? They want your help.
By the way, I asked for your help down in southern Oregon
against all the drug cartels and to your credit and your office
out of Portland's credit you did your best to help. You don't
have very many people there, but you did your best to help.
For you to come in here and say, I've never heard from a
sheriff that we're doing a bad job, well, no, you haven't. Now
tell me, am I wrong? Am I saying that sheriffs would just walk
right up to you and say you're doing a bad job? How many have
said that to you?
Mr. Bentz. You have done your job today to defend your
agency, and good for you. It is not what we are here today. I
want to go to Durham's, page 228 of his report, and this is
going to the heart of what your problem, part of your problem
may be. He is making his observations; he is very careful to
protect you. He says, in making observations, we are mindful of
the benefit of hindsight. Then he says this:
Some employees, FBI employees who were interviewed by our
investigators' advice, they had significant reservations about
aspects of Crossfire Hurricane and tried to convey their
misgivings. Others had doubts about the investigation did not
voice their concerns.
In some cases, nothing has been said because of a sense there
had to be more compelling information in positions closest to
the--and still other and current former employees who
maintained they did their best to take reasonable investigative
steps and acted within your procedure and guideline.
What I am getting at here is I don't think people within
your organization are comfortable calling out negative things.
I don't think they are, and I wouldn't be either. I would be
worried because I look at what happens to whistleblowers and
others. I would go, oh, man, this is not a safe place to be, I
am going to keep my mouth shut. I think that is not a good
thing for your agency.
You know where it starts? It starts with actually admitting
that you have got a problem, and I don't think you are very
good at that either. I am going to your testimony, page 13. You
might want to look at it. I am sure you wrote it, so you
probably don't have to. On page 13, the last paragraph, you
write: ``To be sure, nobody more deeply shares members'
concerns regarding past FBI''--and here is the words--
``compliance violations.'' Compliance. Is that all they did?
Aren't there a whole bunch of better terms? I went to ChatGPT
to find out, and I found these words that might have been
better. I am really asking you is that all they did? Didn't
they break a law? Didn't they do something more than failure to
comply? I am asking you. If the culture is the issue, doesn't
the leader have to at least call out bad acts a little more
aggressively is my question.
Mr. Wray. First, depending on what the violation is, that
may or may not be the right description. Some of the things
that have happened in the past are things that I have deplored
in the strongest possible terms. Some of the things that have
happened in the past I think are described as compliance
violations. So, there is no one description that fits
everything that has gone wrong at the FBI over the last five or
10 years.
My language, in general, tends to be fairly measured. I
think that is a fair statement about me. Some people refer to
me as low key, but no one should ever mistake my demeanor for
what my spine is made out of. I have made very clear to our
people over and over and over again that I expect them to do
their work in the right way with rigor and objectivity.
As to FBI employees' willingness to speak freely and to
complain, much like our exchange about sheriffs, I will tell
you your description of our employees doesn't fit with my
experience. When I get out to all 56 field offices, one of the
things that I do, especially on this last round, my second
round, was to meet with employees without their executive
management present, just me and them, including people who are
retirement eligible. We have a term, an affectionate slang term
for people who are retirement eligible. It is called KMA. You
can guess what KMA stands for, and it reflects their ability,
because their retirement eligible, to be able to speak freely.
They complain to me about all kinds of things, and we have a
very lively conversation.
So, I am quite confident that my employees feel comfortable
talking to me about problems and things that we need to fix. My
demeanor is part of what you are--
Mr. Bentz. Forgive me for interrupting, but my time is
over. I want to thank you for your candor, and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
New Jersey, Mr. Van Drew, is recognized.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director Wray, thank
you for being here. Believe it or not, I am basically just a
simple country dentist, but I do know my dentistry. One thing I
know about are abscesses. If you have an abscess, you can have
a mild or moderate one and you treat it with antibiotics and
warm salt rinses and, in a week to 10 days, it will be better.
If you have a severe one, I am going to take a scalpel to
that abscess. You have got to cut it open, and you have got to
let the pus, blood, and the gas drain out. If you don't, that
abscess will travel. It will travel to the patient's brain
possibly or their heart, and it definitely can kill them. That
is the type of infection that I feel is within the FBI today.
It has gotten so deep that we need to get in there with a
metaphorical scalpel before it kills our Nation. We need real
structural change, and this Committee is that metaphorical
scalpel.
A clear sign of the rot is a memo where your agents, and I
know you say you feel bad about this, too, but nevertheless,
and I don't think you like to talk about it, but your agents in
a field office attempted to spy on Catholic churches and their
congregations and frame them as extremists. This is
unbelievable. How do we get there? Who exactly are the
Catholics you are going to go after here or they were going to
go after? The charitable men of the Knights of Columbus that
help their communities, that help charities, that help people
in every way they can, or maybe we meant the folks that are
fighting for the sanctity of life, or are you talking about
those who hold true to their beliefs rooted in the traditional
values and teachings of the Catholic faith?
As a Roman Catholic myself, and I believe you are, as well,
I was deeply, deeply disturbed by this memo. It is shameful it
was only rescinded after, basically, it got leaked to the
public. That should scare each and every American from parents
at school board meetings to grandmas clutching their rosary
beads. The misguided priorities of our intelligence community
put every American at risk, and it is wrong. It is un-American,
and it undermines two of our most important tenets: Freedom of
speech and freedom of religion. It is what our Nation is built
on.
Director Wray, you work for the American people. They pay
your salary. They pay all our salaries. They don't work for us;
you work for them. You are supposed to protect them from the
bad guys, and now many feel they need protection from the FBI.
I have a few questions here. Despite multiple requests, why
hasn't the FBI produced an unredacted copy of this memo that
really outlines this? It isn't public security, it isn't
national security, and it isn't public safety. This is an
internal thing that you did that was wrong, and we, as a
Committee, this Committee, have a right to look at it. When are
we going to get it? Why haven't we gotten it already?
Unredacted.
Mr. Wray. We redact information for a variety of reasons
that cover various rules that apply to us--
Mr. Van Drew. Sir, I want to know why this one--I don't
know about the rules. I told you, man, I am not a lawyer, all
right. You know what I want to know? I want to know why we
don't know what happened here, that people in their churches
had to worry, and it isn't something that is going to affect
national security. So, whatever damn rule it is that you have,
we should change that rule because when something like this
happens and it isn't a matter of national security, then we
should know. So, I would like to know when we are going to get
it. I would like a date certain.
Mr. Wray. What I can tell you is that we are almost done
with our internal review and, as I said to the Chair, we are
going to be providing a briefing to the Committee on what the
internal review--
Mr. Van Drew. When?
Mr. Wray. It should be later this summer.
Mr. Van Drew. Why do we need your internal review? Good you
are doing an internal review. You should do a lot internally.
Why don't we get the information when we ask for it, when we
subpoena for it? We clearly are not creating any risk to our
Nation or national security. You could give us that tomorrow.
Why don't we get that part tomorrow, and then you can give us
your briefing on the internal review?
Mr. Wray. As I said, we are going to give you a briefing on
the internal review, and then we can discuss additional
information that may--
Mr. Van Drew. Because you are going to try to shape it
differently and make it out that it was kind of OK.
Mr. Wray. No. On that, no. I will tell you that I am not
going to defend or excuse that memo--
Mr. Van Drew. I understand you said that. Simply yes or no.
These are really easy questions. Has the FBI created or
maintained any list of Roman Catholic churches, yes or no?
Mr. Wray. Any list of Roman Catholic churches?
Mr. Van Drew. Correct.
Mr. Wray. Well, we're certainly not targeting any Roman
Catholic churches.
Mr. Van Drew. Well, they were, they were. The field office
was since we found out.
Mr. Wray. No--
Mr. Van Drew. As a yes or no, do you have a list? If you
don't have a list, it is easy to say no.
Mr. Wray. We have 30,000 employees. We engage with churches
of all kinds--
Mr. Van Drew. So, you may have a list of churches that you
are looking at for--
Mr. Wray. No, no, no, no, no, no, not for possible
investigation.
Mr. Van Drew. How about Russian Orthodox churches?
Mr. Wray. Same answer.
Mr. Van Drew. Greek Orthodox churches? Tell me yes or no.
Evangelical churches? Tell me yes or no.
Mr. Wray. We do not maintain--
Mr. Van Drew. Yes or no.
Mr. Wray. Excuse me?
Mr. Van Drew. Please answer yes or no.
Mr. Wray. It is not a yes or no question.
Mr. Van Drew. It is a yes or no. If you have got a list of
churches that you are targeting and looking at, the answer is
yes. If you don't, the answer is no.
Mr. Wray. If your question is do we have a list of churches
that we are targeting, then the answer is, no, we do not have--
Mr. Van Drew. How about Jewish synagogues, yes or no? Same
question.
Mr. Wray. We do not maintain any kind of list of religious
institutions that we are targeting because we are not targeting
religious institutions.
Mr. Van Drew. Let me tell you, it is a sorry State of
affairs that these questions are questions I have to ask, and
it is a damn shame to see what has become of our once
universally respected FBI. We need structural change. Mr.
Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Director, the five
individuals who signed off on that memo, have any of them lost
their security clearance during this internal investigation?
Mr. Wray. I don't believe anybody has lost their security
clearance, but, again, we have an internal review pending, and
I will let that finish and come to its conclusion.
Chair Jordan. How did you become aware of the Catholic memo
that the gentleman just referenced?
Mr. Wray. How did I become aware of it?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Point of order, Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman may say his point of order.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Whose time is the Chair consuming
with his--
Chair Jordan. I thought that the Committee--it is not a
point of order. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, sir. I will say this, Mr. Wray, I am
one of those sheriffs that will be very blunt with you today. I
have had an opportunity to look at your testimony, lots of
stuff, and hear about numerous task forces, crimes being
committed against children, including even infants and
toddlers; MS-13 gang members coming across the open Southern
border; the poisoning and killing of the American people with
fentanyl; the sex trafficking; and the human trafficking. It is
quite clear, it is clear that you guys are dealing with some of
the sickest bastards in our society.
I have an article here from CNN in January 2022 calling the
January 6th investigation the biggest investigation in FBI
history, and what shocks me about this, quite honestly, is that
you don't mention January 6th, again, the biggest
investigation, not one time in your 14-page testimony. You
don't mention it one time, and that makes me ask myself the
question what the hell are you hiding?
Sir, you mentioned 38,000 agents and support personnel in
your agency. How many FBI agents and support personnel have you
assigned to the January 6th investigation?
Mr. Wray. I don't know that I know the number. I know we
have a lot of people working on it and--
Mr. Nehls. OK. Lots. Fair enough. Lots. Knowing that you
are dealing with some of the sickest people in our society with
investigations related to child sex trafficking, have you
reassigned any of these agents or personnel to investigate
January 6th, yes or no?
Mr. Wray. I don't believe we have reassigned people away
from child exploitation--
Mr. Nehls. OK. Now, let me just say this, Director--
Mr. Wray. --to January 6th, to my knowledge.
Mr. Nehls. --I find that answer disturbing because last
month Steve Friend, he testified before the Weaponization
Committee. Mr. Friend, was a domestic terrorism investigator
for you, and he was told by one of his superiors that January
6th was, I quote, ``a higher priority than pursuing child
pornography cases.'' For those of you watching in America,
understand today's FBI is more concerned about searching for
and arresting Gram and Grandpa for entering the Capitol
Building that day than pursuing the sick individuals in our
society who prey on our children. Mr. Wray, your priorities are
flawed.
Let's rehash what we know so far, all right. It is the
largest investigation in FBI history, and you don't mention it
in your testimony. Agents have been reassigned from child
exploitation cases and so on.
So, now let's get into the money, Mr. Wray. How much
taxpayer money has been spent on January 6th?
Mr. Wray. I don't know that I have the figure off the top
of my head but--
Mr. Nehls. OK, fine. Mr. Wray, I have got an article here,
December 22, 2022, two years after the events of January 6th,
and it says the Justice Department has requested another $34
million from Congress. First, you shouldn't get another dime.
The FBI shouldn't get another dime for this political witch
hunt against the greatest President in my lifetime, Donald J.
Trump.
I want to turn my attention now to this fellow, this
character, Mr. Ray Epps. We have all heard of them. We have
heard of Mr. Ray Epps. He was number 16 on your FBI most wanted
list. He was encouraging people the night prior and the day of
to go into the Capitol, and Mr. Ray Epps can be seen at the
first breach of Capitol grounds at approximately 12:50 p.m.
Play the clip, please.
[Video played.]
Mr. Nehls. There he is, breaching the line, going in at the
first breach into the Capitol grounds and restricted area. Mr.
Wray, you have arrested hundreds of people related to January
6th, and there have been people arrested for breaching Capitol
grounds. Couy Griffin is an example and Raechel Genco is an
example. Then we go to Mr. Brandon Strikta. Brandon was
arrested for disorderly and destructive conduct, which included
yelling, I quote, ``go, go, go,'' as rioters tried to enter the
Capitol. These three never went into the Capitol. They never
assaulted anyone.
So, let's be honest with each other. There is very little
difference between the actions of Ray Epps and Brandon Strikta
that day, but, yet, Strikta was arrested and Epps wasn't. Epps
also testified to the January 6th Committee he was back at his
hotel when video evidence showed that he wasn't. He lied. He
was on the Capitol grounds, just as Brandon Strikta was. Epps
even texted his nephew at 2:12 p.m. and said, I quote, ``I was
in the front with a few others, it was on the video; I also
orchestrated it.''
Now, look into the camera, sir, when you answer my next
question. Are you going to arrest Mr. Epps, yes or no?
Mr. Wray. I am not going to engage here in a discussion
about individual people who are or are not going to be
prosecuted.
Mr. Nehls. OK. Here we go. Can I get a commitment? You just
watched the video. I am an old law dog. I understand a little
bit about probable cause. He did very little, there was very
little difference what he did and Mr. Strikta. You can see him.
He is encouraging. I almost think he is inciting a riot. He is
encouraging people the night prior to go into the Capitol, the
day of, go into the Capitol, and he was at the first breach and
he breached the restricted area. Everybody, a lot of people,
getting arrested for not going into the Capitol, but they are
in the restricted area; but, yet, Ray Epps, who many people
feel fed, fed, fed, right, and there is a lot of cloud over
this.
So, my point is this, you arrested a lot of folks for
unlawful activity. You just saw the video. I will tell you, if
you don't arrest Mr. Epps, there is a reason behind it. I
believe you know what it is, and it appears to me you are
protecting this guy.
I strongly recommend you get your house back in order. With
that, I yield back.
Mr. Wray. Mr. Chair, if I might briefly.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman may respond, and then we have
got a couple of point of orders. Go ahead, Mr. Wray.
Mr. Wray. It has never been appropriate for an FBI Director
in Congressional testimony to be weighing in on who is or isn't
going to be arrested and who is or isn't going to get charged,
which is a prosecutor's decision. If you are suggesting that
the violence at the Capitol on January 6th was part of some
operation orchestrated by FBI sources or FBI agents, the answer
is, no, it was not. To suggest otherwise is a disservice to our
hardworking, dedicated law enforcement professionals.
Mr. Nehls. Can I respond to that now that--the point is he
was number 16 on your list. He was 16 on your list, and you
never arrested him. Hundreds of Americans were arrested. Shame
on you.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida for unanimous
consent.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent for all
Members have five legislative days to submit any additional
materials, as well as any questions for the record for the
Director, and I would hope that those questions for the record
we would submit would receive more timely responses than some
of our letters have. I would further seek unanimous consent
that the WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden I used earlier in
the hearing be submitted for the record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a
unanimous consent request that an article from the Daily Mail
dated today with the headline ``January 6th Protestor Ray Epps
reveals he is forced to live in an RV in hiding after death
threats over FBI informant conspiracy. Epps confirmed he has
never worked for them, as he slams right-wing theorists using
him as a scapegoat'' I would like to offer this into the
record.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Chair Jordan. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director Wray, thank you
for your time today. You said earlier in response to
Representative Issa's questions that the job of the FBI is to:
(1) Undertake criminal investigations and (2) protect the U.S.
from national security threats. Would you agree with me that,
in doing those activities, the FBI has to do a lot of that in
what are effectively confidential conditions; is that correct?
Mr. Wray. Yes.
Mr. Moran. When you are undertaking those activities and
those confidential conditions, you are going to require tools
that have been appropriated by Congress in the past, tools that
say to you we are going to trust you to use those tools
correctly and, in return, the FBI then is expected to not abuse
the trust of those tools that are provided to the FBI to
undertake its activities. Is that a correct statement, as well?
Mr. Wray. Yes, I would agree with that.
Mr. Moran. So, trust is a very important thing, both the
giving of trust when you give those tools and then making sure
that you do not abuse that trust once those tools have been
given to you.
Were you aware that, according to a recent poll by Harvard
CAPS/Harris, 70 percent of respondents in the United States
said that they were either very or somewhat concerned about
interference by the FBI and other intelligence agencies in the
elections. Were you aware of that?
Mr. Wray. I am not aware of the particular survey, poll,
study, or whatever it is.
Mr. Moran. In that same poll, 71 percent of Americans,
which is certainly a bipartisan group, agreed that internal FBI
changes post-2016 had not done enough to prevent further
interference in elections and that, quote, ``wide-ranging
reform was still required.'' Again, you are not aware of those
numbers?
Mr. Wray. No.
Mr. Moran. Does any of that shock you?
Mr. Wray. I don't spend a lot of time as the FBI Director
worrying about pools. What I do look at is whether people want
to work with us, whether people want to work for us. On both of
those metrics, we are actually going up quite significantly. In
fact, in your home State of Texas, we have got a 93-percent
increase in the number of Texans applying to work for the FBI
since I have been in this job.
Mr. Moran. Well--
Mr. Wray. In fact, it is the highest, Texas has more people
applying to work for the FBI than any other State in the Union.
Mr. Moran. Even if you do not watch polls, certainly you
appreciate the fact that you want the trust of the American
people. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely.
Mr. Moran. All right. Does it bother you that so many
Americans do not trust the FBI presently?
Mr. Wray. Well, again, I don't spend a lot of time worrying
about polls. I do care about what I hear from the American
people otherwise.
Mr. Moran. I am asking about the trust.
Mr. Wray. It bothers me any time any American has lost
trust in the FBI. Of course, that concerns me.
Mr. Moran. Earlier, you were talking to Representative
Hageman, and you said where we can take action where possible
to remove them from the chain of command, and then you got, you
ended your time, you got cutoff because we had to get to the
votes. You were going to say something further on that. Do you
have any plans to remove anybody from the chain of command or
go through a process to determine who should be removed from
the chain of command?
Mr. Wray. Well, I have already removed any number of people
at different stages of my tenure from the chain of command. I
have also referred people to our disciplinary arm, which has
resulted, in some cases, in termination.
Mr. Moran. Do you have any plans to do any more of that?
Mr. Wray. If somebody has violated a rule, absolutely.
Mr. Moran. When we talk about a good faith basis for trust
of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, does it bother
you that these legal queries have continued, even with efforts
of the FBI to try to reduce them, that we now have somewhere
between a couple hundred thousand and at least a million of
illegal FISA queries?
Mr. Wray. Well, there are two things going on there. First,
I think your numbers of what are actually illegal are off.
Second, more importantly to me, all the changes that we have
put in place to address compliance failures that I consider
unacceptable have pointed to the effectiveness of the reforms
that we have put in place. So, I am talking about--
Mr. Moran. What number of illegal FISA queries would you
put on the table as those that you know of?
Mr. Wray. Well, here is what I can tell you: The most
recent FISA Court opinion found, I think it is a, like, 98-
percent compliance rate. The most recent DOJ audit found a 99-
or 98-percent compliance rate.
Mr. Moran. Is that acceptable to you? Is that one percent
or two percent--
Mr. Wray. No, we strive for 100 percent. All of those
things, all of those things, but it is the FISC, the FISA
Court, whether it is ODNI, the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, whether it is DOJ, whether it is our own
Office of Internal Audit, which I created by the way, all four
of those things have shown that the reforms that we have been
putting in place have already had dramatic positive impact. Am
I satisfied with that? No.
Mr. Moran. Has anybody been fired or removed as a result of
their inappropriate use of FISA?
Mr. Wray. Well, the last time somebody has had truly
abusive behavior with respect to FISA goes back a way, but
those people have been gone from the organization.
Mr. Moran. Are you making a distinction between truly
abusive and just abusive? What is the distinction there?
Mr. Wray. Well, the distinction I would draw is between
intentional or reckless conduct versus somebody who makes a
good faith mistake. To me, a good faith mistake is still a
compliance violation and still somebody needs to be counseled,
trained, coached, and taught to do it right, but that is
different from somebody who intentionally or recklessly breaks
the rules.
Mr. Moran. Director Wray, I am going to go back where I
started, and that is with trust. We trust you. When we give the
FBI tools, we trust that those tools would not be abused. In
the last six years, certainly we have seen a number of abuses
of the tools given, and I think, as a result of that, you are
going to see a curtailment of some of the tools that are
provided to the FBI. That is not a choice that we are in a
position that we want to make but we have to make as a result
of the abuses of the trust of the American people. Thank you
for your time today.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Director, I have
just a couple of extra questions, but, in fairness to the
minority, I will recognize Mr. Johnson. So, he will go for a
few questions, I will have a few, and then we appreciate you
being here for this length of time, and then we will be able to
adjourn the hearing.
The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. Director Wray, you have
acquitted yourself admirably today under severe and constant
fire. So, your day is about to come to a close with your head
still held high and your soul, I am sure, further empowered to
continue doing the right thing on behalf of the American people
through your service as Director of the FBI, and I thank you
for that.
You were asked multiple times about the Missouri v. Biden
injunction. This is a preliminary injunction issued on a
holiday, July 4th, Independence Day. It makes various
allegations that, thus far, have been totally unproven but
relied on as true here by Members of this Committee. What is
your response to the allegations that the FBI has been engaged
in censoring social media platforms or anyone else?
Mr. Wray. Well, while I respect the Court's decision, I
think there are a number of factual findings that we don't
agree with and, certainly, the FBI is not engaged, in my view,
in censorship or content suppression.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. My Republican colleagues also seem
to think that the FBI is being weaponized against the American
people. What is your response to that allegation? That will be
my final question for today to you.
Mr. Wray. The FBI that I see every day and, again, when I
see the FBI, nobody gets to see it the way I do it. I have been
all to 56 of our field offices at least twice. I have spoken
with partners; law enforcement partners in all 50 States
multiple times; with Federal judges all over the country; with
business leaders; community leaders; prosecutors; victims, more
importantly, and their families. The FBI that I see every day
is working their tails off to protect the American people from
a really staggering array of threats. They are an inspiring,
incredibly dedicated group of people.
The FBI that I see is best captured by the Chicago agent
who had his arm shot up by an AR-15 chasing a fugitive and
retrained himself left-handed and then re-qualified for SWAT
left-handed, by the Atlanta agent who unexpectedly came across
a fugitive, a gang fugitive, chased the guy into a car, got
caught in the car drove. The guy drove off with the Atlanta
agent stuck in the door and the guy headed out onto the
freeway. The poor agent broke his pelvis and Lord knows how
many other things, and, yet he still managed to apprehend the
subject. The FBI that I see is captured by the Portland agent
who, out for a run, comes across a mentally ill woman down on
the train tracks and climbs down in the train tracks to try to
wrestle her out of the way of the oncoming train while she is
trying to bite him and everything else, and gets her to safety;
or the bomb tech who comes across a booby trap, blows up on
him, and the next business day he is back at work. That is the
FBI that I see. I can give you countless examples. That is the
real FBI.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, I thank you again for your
service, and I appreciate the fact that you have allowed
somewhat loquaciousness to emerge during this hearing with that
final response. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. I think the gentleman yields back. Director,
we appreciate those, the whole country does. In fact, I said
this in an interview this morning, a TV interview this morning,
two of those agents who served for years in the FBI and did
great work now work for the Committee on the Republican staff.
We appreciate the work they did then, the work they are doing
now. They share the same concerns raised by Members of the
Committee. That is why they came to work for us.
So, I just got a couple of other questions. Any of the FBI
personnel who did improper queries of the 702 data base, have
any of those individuals lost their clearance?
Mr. Wray. Well, it depends on how far back you want to go
in time. We have had individuals, if you go back to, say, like
2018 was the last I remember we had somebody who engaged in
intentional conduct, and the person, for example, is gone. I
think there were security clearances revoked for people back in
that time period, but I don't know that we have had somebody
who has engaged in intentional or reckless conduct more
recently than that.
We have, as you may know, Mr. Chair, and this actually
didn't come up today, but it is important for people to know,
we recently put in place a whole new set of accountability
policies specifically focused on 702. They go through cascading
consequences, and so that is an important--
Chair Jordan. It has been reported that donors of a
Congressional Member of Congress were illegally searched. Has
that individual lost their clearance?
Mr. Wray. I am not sure I am familiar with the specific
example.
Chair Jordan. Well, it has been widely reported that the
donor base for a Member of Congress has been searched, and I
just wonder if the person responsible for that has had any
consequences, like a loss of a security clearance.
Mr. Wray. I don't know the answer--
Chair Jordan. OK. Is the FBI assisting the Secret Service
in the investigation as to how cocaine wound up at the White
House?
Mr. Wray. Yes. I want to be a little bit careful about what
I can say here because the Secret Service is leading the
investigation. As is standard in an investigation where white
powder is found, the FBI's lab personnel did an evaluation to
determine whether or not there was a biological--
Chair Jordan. Is that the only assistance?
Mr. Wray. That is the only assistance we have done so far.
We have offered the full range of our assistance to the Secret
Service if they want to use us for that purpose, but, beyond
that, I will refer you to the Secret Service.
Chair Jordan. That offer has been denied; is that what
you're saying?
Mr. Wray. No, I didn't say that. We have offered it to the
Secret Service, but, beyond that, I would refer to them.
Chair Jordan. In October 2020, when Facebook asked the FBI
is the Biden laptop story Russian disinformation, the FBI's
answer was no comment. Who gave that answer?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Before you answer, sir, if I might
just interject the fact that we agreed that I would have two
questions and you would have two questions.
Chair Jordan. I think I said a couple of questions.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Yes, and you have asked a couple--
Chair Jordan. In fact, I don't think, I know I said a
couple of questions. I gave you five minutes. Do you want
another question?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. No, I want us to conclude this
hearing and--
Chair Jordan. We will be done in two minutes and 10
seconds.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. We appreciate that, and we obviously
appreciate the Director being here. In October 2020, when
Facebook asked the FBI is the Biden laptop story Russian
disinformation, the FBI's response was no comment. Do you know
who gave that response?
Mr. Wray. I do not.
Chair Jordan. The court knew and the Court said it was
Laura Dehmlow. Do you know who Laura Dehmlow is?
Mr. Wray. I do know who Laura Dehmlow is.
Chair Jordan. What does she do?
Mr. Wray. Laura Dehmlow is an agent in our
counterintelligence division, and she currently works with the
Foreign Influence Task Force.
Chair Jordan. Doesn't she head the Foreign Influence Task
Force?
Mr. Wray. I think she leads it, yes.
Chair Jordan. She leads the Foreign Influence Task Force.
Did you tell her to give that comment?
Mr. Wray. Did I what now?
Chair Jordan. Did you instruct anyone, when Facebook asked,
did you instruct them to give the no comment?
Mr. Wray. I don't remember giving any instruction along
those lines, although I should say I am not sure whether Laura
Dehmlow was in that role at the timeframe that you described,
but I--
Chair Jordan. Again, the Court in Louisiana said she was
and said when Facebook asked her specifically, she said no
comment. This is the Foreign Influence Task Force leader, the
Foreign Influence Task Force that you created as Director of
the FBI, correct?
Mr. Wray. I am sorry--
Chair Jordan. All that is correct. You created the Foreign
Influence Task--
Mr. Wray. I did create the Foreign Influence Task Force.
Chair Jordan. Yes, you put that together and she heads it
up. OK. When did you become, how did you become aware of the
Catholic memo, the one in Richmond that we have talked about a
couple of times today?
Mr. Wray. As I recall, in one of my regular morning
meetings, I learned that there was this product and that was
the same day that I ordered that it be removed.
Chair Jordan. Was that before or after it was already in
the press?
Mr. Wray. That I can't tell you. My guess is it was
probably around the same time, but I don't know.
Chair Jordan. Did you learn about it--did the people who
brought it up to you, did they learn about it from the press,
or was it some internal communication?
Mr. Wray. I can't speak to how they learned about it. I
just know that I was told about it by them, and we had a
conversation about it immediately, taking steps that we then
did--
Chair Jordan. We appreciate that. OK. Director, we
appreciate your time today. I know it has been a long day. We
already had the unanimous consent for Mr. Gaetz, so the
Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:47 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Committee on the Judiciary can be found at: https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116192.
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