[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INSIDE THE BIDEN FBI: WASTE, FRAUD, ABUSE,
AND A BUREAU LEADERSHIP IN DECLINE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-14
__________
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
59-948 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
CHIP ROY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia
BEN CLINE, Virginia ERIC SWALWELL, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas TED LIEU, California
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas J. LUIS CORREA, California
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
BRANDON GILL, Texas
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey, Chair
BARRY MOORE, Alabama JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas, Ranking
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri Member
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
BRANDON GILL, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
Georgia
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
JULIE TAGEN, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Jefferson Van Drew, Chair of the Subcommittee on
Oversight from the State of New Jersey......................... 1
The Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of Texas.............. 4
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 6
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland....................... 7
WITNESSES
Stewart Whitson, Senior Director, Federal Affairs, Foundation for
Government Accountability
Oral Testimony................................................. 11
Prepared Testimony............................................. 13
Richard Stout, Director, Reform The Bureau
Oral Testimony................................................. 23
Prepared Testimony............................................. 25
Nicole Parker, Former FBI Special Agent
Oral Testimony................................................. 27
Prepared Testimony............................................. 30
Dr. Luke William Hunt, Associate Professor, Univeristy of Alabama
Oral Testimony................................................. 35
Prepared Testimony............................................. 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted by the Subcommittee on Oversight, for the
record......................................................... 62
An article entitled, ``No Bias Found in F.B.I. Report on Catholic
Extremists,'' Apr. 18, 2024, The New York Times, submitted by
the Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of Texas, for the
record
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member
of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland,
for the record
An article entitled, ``Waltz's team set up at least 20 Signal
group chats for crises across the world,'' Apr. 2, 2025,
Politico
A letter to the Honorable Pam Bondi, Attorney General, U.S.
Department of Justice, and The Honorable Kashyap Patel
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mar. 26, 2025,
from the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland
INSIDE THE BIDEN FBI: WASTE, FRAUD,
ABUSE, AND A BUREAU LEADERSHIP
IN DECLINE
----------
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Oversight
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:09 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jefferson
Van Drew [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Van Drew, Jordan, Moore, Onder,
Schmidt, Gill, Crockett, Raskin, and Johnson.
Mr. Van Drew. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at
anytime.
We welcome everyone here today on this hearing on waste,
fraud, and abuse at the FBI.
I now recognize the gentleman--who should I pick on--from
Missouri to lead us in the flag salute, and we will stay
standing for a moment of silence.
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.
Mr. Van Drew. Please stay standing for a moment.
[Moment of silence.]
Mr. Van Drew. I will now recognize myself for an opening
statement.
First, I want to welcome everyone to the second hearing of
the Subcommittee on Oversight.
Today we are continuing the important work we began in our
first hearing: Exposing the weaponization and politicizing of
Federal law enforcement agencies against the American public.
This time we'll be focusing squarely on the Federal Bureau
of Investigation under the Biden Administration, a bureau
bloated by bureaucracy, a bureau that burned through billions,
not millions, but billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars to
chase political enemies, a bureau that silenced dissent and
trampled on our constitutional rights, all while real threats
to our safety were ignored.
This isn't just a leadership failure. It was a betrayal of
the American people and of the American trust.
This hearing is more than oversight. This is about
restoring trust. This is about standing up for every American
who believes that government should protect them, not target
them.
Let me be clear: The FBI should be a shield for the
American people. Instead, under the Biden-Harris
Administration, it became a sword to use against them.
Let's start with parents, parents who spoke up for their
kids, parents who voiced concerns about radical school agendas.
What did they get in return? A surveillance file, a Federal
investigation, for just trying to be a good parent. That's not
law enforcement in my book and in most Americans' books. That's
intimidation.
Let's talk about people of faith. The Biden FBI branded
certain Catholic Americans as, quote, ``radical traditionalists
and potential domestic terrorists.'' They even discussed
infiltrating churches by having parishioners spy on their own
people by their own fellow parishioners.
It wasn't just Catholic churches. In 2021, the FBI raided a
Hindu temple in the State of New Jersey. Using overwhelming
force, agents stormed sacred grounds--and listen to this--they
held guns to the faces of the holy men. They disrupted
religious life, all based on loose, untrue allegations which
are now, thankfully, unraveling in court.
Our sacred places--our churches, our synagogues, our
temples, our mosques--they should be sanctuaries, not scenes of
government surveillance.
Let's talk about free speech.
The FBI knew Hunter Biden's laptop was real. They knew it.
They colluded with big tech to frame it as Russian
disinformation. They tried to bury the story from the American
people. That wasn't law enforcement. That was raw political
election interference.
All of this, the worst part of all, it wasn't free. It came
with a price tag. In Fiscal Year 2024--listen to this--the FBI
spent over six billion, not million, billion dollars on
intelligence, counterintelligence, and countering terrorism,
all on American soil, more than half of its entire budget.
Instead of using those billions to fight violent crime or
keep our communities safe, the money was funneled into
politically driven investigations and abuses of power.
The waste did not stop there. The $220,000 paid to Igor
Dan-chenko, a key source behind the discredited Steele dossier.
Plus, another $300,000 to planned before the FBI can finally
close him as a source. Up to $1 million offered to Christopher
Steele to try and corroborate--which he couldn't do--his own
baseless claims.
The $200 million more secured for a new FBI headquarters, a
reward, in Greenbelt, Maryland, despite widespread public
distrust and concern and strong opposition from the Judiciary
Committee.
That is only scratching the surface. The FBI couldn't give
us enough real numbers, and we're going to continue to pursue
that and just find out how much this really cost us.
For four long years under the Biden Administration
Americans had to suffer through this. Groceries got more
expensive, rents kept rising, families struggled to make ends
meet, and some working two or even three jobs just to stay
afloat.
While they were scraping by, Americans, working hard,
trying to survive, the Federal Government was using their hard-
earned tax dollars not to help them, not to protect them, not
to make things better, but to surveil them and fund political
hit jobs.
People--and I'll use the vernacular--they're pissed off.
They're tired. They're tired of it. They have every right to
be.
They want the FBI focused on real threats--the Southern
border, cyber attacks, violent crimes in our neighborhoods and
our cities, foreign adversaries that are hacking our
elections--not on chasing down somebody you don't agree with,
not on chasing down a political opponent.
All of this pointed to a clear conclusion: The Biden FBI
picks and chooses its priorities based on politics, not on
public safety. Ladies and gentlemen, that is wrong.
If it weren't enough, whistleblowers tell us about a
corrupt bonus structure, just to make it even worse. Bonuses
for opening more cases. Bonuses for inflating the numbers.
Bonuses for manipulating timesheets.
Imagine being rewarded not for catching criminals, but for
cooking the books. You couldn't make it up, but it's true.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It's not a Republican
walking point. It's not a political talking point. This isn't
speculation. This is documented, well-documented abuse verified
by brave whistleblowers and confirmed by this Judiciary
Committee.
Some may say, and good question, well, what are you doing
about it? I'm going to tell you. We're working to fundamentally
reform the FBI from the ground up.
We are drafting legislation to rein in abuse, cut waste,
and refocus the Bureau on real threats to public safety. We are
investigating every single dollar spent and every abuse of
power uncovered. We are demanding accountability from those
responsible and pressing for transparency at every single
level. Yes, yes, we are exposing the truth, because, as they
say, the truth shall set you free.
The first step to real change is making sure the American
people know exactly what's going on, what was done to them with
their own money. That's the cruel part of it. By their own
government. The cruelest part of it.
Director Kash Patel is leading a new FBI, one that returns
to its roots, one that Americans can be proud of. He moved
agents out of Washington, DC, back into communities, back to
fighting violent crimes, as they should be.
Attorney General Pam Bondi took swift and decisive action
to dismantle the most politicized units within the Department
of Justice. She redirected resources toward real law
enforcement priorities, scaled back abusive practices, and made
clear the DOJ's mission is to uphold the law, not to serve any
political agenda--any political agenda.
You know it's the old saying: If it happened to us, it can
happen to you. This isn't Republican. This isn't Democrat. This
is just doing the right thing.
Together they are rebuilding the Bureau from the ground up.
They're doing it the right way, with transparency, with
accountability, and with a focus on the Constitution of the
United States of America. This is the FBI that the American
people deserve.
Today we're going to hear from those who know the truth,
former agents, former insiders, people who saw firsthand what
went wrong and what we can do to fix it.
Because this isn't just about the past. It's about a better
future. It's about restoring our faith in American
institutions. It's about protecting our freedom. It's about
demanding that taxpayer dollars go to protecting Americans, not
targeting them.
The only way that we will understand where we are and where
we want to go is by understanding where we were. It's about
doing the right thing.
I thank you, and I look forward to this testimony.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Crockett, for an
opening statement.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I'm sure you can
assume, we see this a little bit differently.
Here we go again, talking about Biden, Biden, and more
Biden. Today is nothing more than a dog-and-pony show for
Republicans to avoid facing the American people for their trash
policies that are killing the economy and our democracy.
Despite Republicans' claim of backing the blue and being
the party of law and order, we're here today because
Republicans are willing to throw our country's top law
enforcement agents under the bus to appease Trump and execute
his political vengeance.
Now, I know remembering things is hard for some of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, like remembering not
to add reporters into a Signal chat discussing military war
plans.
Let me remind my colleagues that it was Trump who decided
to store national secrets and classified documents next to his
oversize bathtub and toilet in Mar-a-Lago. It was Trump who
took the documents out of the boxes and shared them with his
guests. It was Trump who told his staff to move the boxes when
the FBI was coming. It was Trump who appointed Director
Christopher Wray as head of the FBI, the same Director that
allowed the investigation to move forward.
As much as Trump and Republicans hate to accept it, we are
still a country with laws. When you break them, there are
consequences.
Now, make no mistake, we should all be concerned about the
FBI, but my concerns as Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, as
a Member of Congress, and as an attorney, as well as a citizen,
are based on things called facts. When I say facts, I mean
clear, indisputable facts, not those alternative facts my
Republican colleagues continue pushing onto the American
people.
Let's talk about facts.
Fact: Even prior to being confirmed by the Senate, Kash
Patel was directing officials within the FBI to fire members
within the Bureau simply because they worked on the lawful
investigations into Trump.
Fact: Patel failed to disclose his previous work and
financial ties with the country of Qatar, a country that, had
you had read the Mazars report released last year by the House
Oversight Committee, you would know paid close to half a
million dollars to Trump while he was the President of the
United States.
Unsurprisingly, the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force was
recently disbanded and the DOJ also cut back on its Foreign
Agents Registration Act enforcement. Our enemies are jumping up
and down now that we're doing their work for them.
Another fact: Patel has never even been an FBI agent and is
now leading the Bureau. Even one of today's Republican witness'
organization, the Reform the Bureau, has advocated having an
FBI agent led by--I'm sorry, having an FBI agent lead the
Bureau. Rather than confirm a Director with credible, dedicated
experience, the Republicans confirmed a political loyalist with
no Quantico or FBI training. Talk about DEI: Didn't Earn It
hire.
Another fact: Patel, who rails against telework, what he
calls lazy agents, was working part-time in and out of Las
Vegas commuting back and forth between there and D.C., while
also living in the home of a GOP megadonor.
Think about that for a second. Could you imagine what
Republicans would have done had, say, James Comey had been
living in New York part-time as the FBI Director and if his New
York home was owned by, say, George Soros? Speaker Johnson
would have forced a floor vote on articles of impeachment
within days of this news coming out. Nevertheless, my
Republican colleagues are willing to sacrifice safety for
stupidity as long as it's loyal.
Another fact: Patel- and Trump-backed FBI leadership have
redirected FBI agents who are working on investigations
involving violent crimes against children and child
exploitation and transferred them to work on anti-Tesla attacks
and redacting Jeffrey Epstein files.
Talk about FBI waste and abuse. You simply can't make this
stuff up.
To be clear, Director Wray testified before Congress last
year, noting that, quote,
If each one of the FBI's cyber agents and intelligence analysts
focused exclusively on the China threat, China's hackers would
still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.
Yet, rather than hire more agents to protect against these
cybersecurity threats, Director Patel is reassigning agents to
redact Epstein files. Someone please tell me how this makes
America safe. It's almost as ridiculous and wasteful as Patel's
idea to contract the Bureau with UFC fighters.
While I have very real concerns about the current State of
the FBI today, I want to be very clear. My concerns aren't with
career agents, the men and women dedicating their lives to
protect our country and communities. It's with the
irresponsible leadership and reckless decisions coming from
Patel, Trump, and DOGE staff within the FBI.
Our Bureau needs resources to do its job effectively. What
it doesn't need is 20-something-year-old ``DOGEbags'' reviewing
materials without having undergone proper vetting and
clearance.
The American people have a right to be worried, but these
worries shouldn't be based on Republican baseless conspiracy
theories.
Our country is already on a dangerous path, pushing closer
to causing irreparable harm. Republican Members need to wake up
and put Trump loyalties aside to engage in real oversight of
the current FBI before it's too late. Congress deserves it, the
brave men and women at the Bureau deserve it, and the American
people deserve it.
I want to add one more point. As a civil rights attorney, I
have had to sue law enforcement. There have been times that I
can truly say that law enforcement has crossed the line, and I
truly believe that there can be one or two in a bunch that can
ruin everyone.
The problem that I have right now, though, is that we have
decided to focus in on something that my Republican colleagues
have decided to term as being political.
What is political is when somebody says that they are going
to come back and seek retribution.
What is political is firing people because they simply were
following the evidence and doing their jobs as law enforcement
has been trained to do.
Ultimately, regardless of whether or not anyone believes
that it was right to indict the President not once, not twice,
not three, but four times, he was indicted.
Ultimately, each of you knows enough to know that at the
end of the day it is citizens that sit on a grand jury that are
the ones that decide whether or not evidence exists to go
forward with an indictment. Ultimately, when this President was
convicted by a jury on the State level, it was a jury of his
peers.
I want to say thank you so much for your time, thank you so
much for your commitment, and thank you so much for the
testimony that you will provide.
With that, I will yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Now I'm going to recognize the Chair of the
Full Committee.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The previous speaker talked about facts. Here's one fact I
know: It's night and day dealing with the Bondi-Patel Justice
Department versus the Garland-Wray Justice Department.
Under Pam Bondi as Attorney General, the Foreign Influence
Task Force, that group that was responsible for censoring
Americans, has been disbanded. The school boards memorandum has
been rescinded.
We sent seven subpoenas to Kash Patel five weeks ago. The
response we've gotten is unbelievable compared to what we got
under the previous Justice Department. He's actually given us
thousands of documents already. New information that we tried
to get from Director Wray that he wouldn't give us we've
already received. We'll be talking about some of that.
That is the fact. Complete change from where we were with
the previous Justice Department--the previous Justice
Department, of course, that couldn't tell us who planted the
pipe bombs, who leaked the Dobbs opinion, who put cocaine at
the White House, couldn't tell us the answer to those
questions.
Oh, they had plenty of time to put together the memo to say
we're going to investigate moms and dads at a school board
meeting, as the Chair pointed out. They put together a
memorandum we've now learned that wasn't just in the Richmond
Field Office, but in other field offices where they were
equating prolife Catholics to extremists.
We know they raided the President's home. We know they
retaliated against whistleblowers.
They even put together--the previous speaker talked about
politics. Politics? The FBI created a questionnaire where they
asked their employees about other employees who were maybe
giving information to us as whistleblowers, did that person
support Trump? That is as political as you can get.
The real thing here is it's literally night and day, the
difference between the kind of information that we are able to
receive, the help that we're getting, and the focus on going
after traditional bad guys, not having half your agents and
half your budgets focused on surveilling the American people.
Let's go get the traditional bad guys.
That's what Kash Patel is doing at the FBI, getting the FBI
back to the mission they've had before, which I know some of
our witnesses who served there are going to talk about.
I thank the Chair for putting this together and I thank our
witnesses for being here. I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full
Committee, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and thanks to
Ms. Crockett, for calling us together.
We are already 10 weeks into the Trump Administration and
still the Republicans are recycling the most tiresome, vacuous,
and debunked stories, conspiracy theories about the Biden
Administration, while demurely declining to conduct any
oversight at all of the current administration.
I agree with the Chair of the Full Committee, Mr. Jordan,
it is day and night, but I think he's seeing day and night
backward.
Donald Trump is turning our country into a gangster State
where agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI, and
the Department of Justice act as Presidential enforcers
conducting political deals with elected officials like New York
City Mayor Adams, corporate shakedowns against ABC, CBS, and
other media entities, and law firms like Paul, Weiss, Rifkind,
WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block, demanding pledges of loyalty
from citizens, and in some cases demanding cold hard, cash in
lawsuits brought directly by the President against private
businesses.
Meanwhile, they're offering mass pardons, immunity, and
protection to violent insurrectionists, convicted drug
beaters--and cop beaters, drug traffickers, corrupt
politicians, as long as they're willing to kiss the ring and do
the President's bidding.
Let's look at how this administration is treating the
honest men and women of the FBI.
In his first days in office, Trump targeted thousands of
FBI agents simply for doing their jobs after the mob violence
of January 6, 2021, and holding the cop beaters and
insurrectionist rioters accountable.
FBI agents had to sue to stop this purge and block them
from publicly releasing their names to the violent militias
like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whom President Trump had
already given pardons to--and those pardons, by the way, this
Department of Justice are extending to other crimes these
people have committed, including cocaine trafficking and gun
charges.
This administration isn't opposing corruption. It's opening
the door wide open to corruption every single day for his
friends.
Donald Trump ordered the FBI to stop conducting background
investigations of top White House officials. Why?
He disbanded the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force charged
with identifying and combating malign foreign influence
operations targeting the United States. Why?
He suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act and reduced enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration
Act just two days after it was reported that Director Kash
Patel had engaged in lucrative consulting work for Qatar and
for a Vladimir Putin-connected foreign arms conglomerate.
The current FBI leadership is diverting the FBI's resources
away from public safety and national security and toward MAGA
conspiracy fixations and obsessions.
According to press reports, hundreds of agents ordinarily
assigned to defending the national security of the United
States have been pulled into a mind-boggling effort where they
were pulling all-nighters and working around the clock to
review the Epstein files after Attorney General Bondi botched
the first attempt at what she said was going to be a complete
release of the Epstein files.
It's important to consider what the FBI's not investigating
in the frenzy of all these ``back to the future'' wild goose
chases.
They're not investigating ``Signalgate,'' the extraordinary
decision by a group of America's highest national security
officials, including one who was in Moscow at the Kremlin at
the time, to compromise the safety of our servicemembers and
intelligence officers by using Signal, a nonsecure commercial
application, to reveal specific confidential and classified
details about an impending military air strike, complete with
time stamps for when F-18 aircraft would launch and arrive at
their targets and when Tomahawk missiles would be fired at
buildings controlled by Houthi members.
What are the DOJ and the FBI doing to investigate this
stunning, dangerous episode of incompetence or recklessness at
the very least, that undoubtedly violates all kinds of Federal
criminal and civil laws? Nothing.
In fact, when asked about the Signal chat, Attorney General
Bondi changed the subject to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Sound familiar? That's what we're doing today. Just a week
after the story broke about this tremendous security breach,
she said case closed. No further investigation. No lessons
learned. No hearings. That's the end.
Can you imagine what they would be doing if that had
happened under President Biden, if his top national security
team had been talking about a military strike on Signal? There
would be eight Special Committees and Subcommittees
investigation and they'd all be demanding impeachment, the way
they're demanding impeachment of judges who blow the whistle on
the illegalities of this administration.
Well, what else is the FBI not investigating? Elon Musk,
his startling ties to the Communist Party of China, the CCP.
Musk is bulldozing our Federal Government while accessing the
people's most sensitive data bases, and he's traveled to China
multiple times in the last several years and met with the
highest-level Communist Party officials. He's continued to open
factories in China where he does half of his business, even as
he works as a, quote, ``special government employee'' to
dismantle and destroy our Federal Government.
Can you imagine if President Biden had done that, what our
colleagues would be saying?
Well, look, in this new State that we're in, the FBI is not
here to enforce the law. It exists to allow the President to
shake down businesses and individuals, offering them protection
and immunity if they comply and persecution if they don't.
The administration installed as the head of the FBI Kash
Patel, known for being the man who will do anything for Trump.
They also installed his Deputy Director, Dan Bongino, a
far-right podcaster and conspiracy theorist who boasted in 2018
that his entire life right now is about owning the libs.
His appointment was a particular betrayal of Patel's
promise that he would appoint a Deputy Director who would be an
on-board active Special Agent, as has been the case for 117
years.
Already stories of intimidation and pressure in this DOJ
and this FBI are trickling out. Seven veteran prosecutors were
forced to resign rather than take part in a corrupt bargain to
dismiss charges that were brought by a grand jury in New York
against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Danielle
Sassoon, who clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Scalia
and was active in the Federalist Society, resigned, saying
nothing had changed in the facts of the case, nothing had
changed in the law of the case, nothing had changed in the
evidence. It was simply this political deal that Donald Trump
had cooked up with the mayor of New York who traveled down to
Mar-a-Lago.
The longtime criminal chief in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's
Office was forced to resign rather than open the current bogus
investigation into Biden era clean energy projects.
What we see at the Trump FBI and DOJ is part of a broad
pattern. They're targeting lawyers who took up causes or
clients that Donald Trump doesn't like, and they've issued
illegal Executive Orders intended as threats against them.
The President and his friends are threatening Federal
judges that ruled against them to halt their blatantly illegal
executive actions, calling for impeachment of the judges. There
have been threats against their families made online.
The President and his friends are threatening journalists
and deporting legal immigrants for exercising their First
Amendment rights, sending a clear message to anyone thinking of
speaking up against the administration.
The FBI's leadership are threatening to take the FBI down a
very dangerous path today, one that's entirely incompatible
with the values of the men and women of the FBI and the best
traditions of the agency.
Once again with today's hearing my colleagues are turning a
blind eye to what's going on right now, choosing instead to
regurgitate and recycle debunked and discredited lies about the
Biden Administration and somebody having an investigation into
parents and school boards. It's been debunked a million times.
That was an investigation into people making violent death
threats against school board members. Nobody was ever arrested.
Nobody was ever charged with anything. Yet, they've been dining
out on that, I think it's for five years now, talking about
something that led nowhere and there was nothing wrong with it
in the first place.
The men and women of the FBI deserve to know that Congress
is watching, and we've got your back. We're not going to stand
idly by while this administration tries to turn the FBI into an
arm of a pay-to-play gangster State.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
Real quick. The gentleman said that these aren't facts,
they're debunked theories. They are facts, and we have it on
video. We have the Attorney General apologizing for what
happened and what they did. We have the Director of the FBI
finally having to apologize for what they did. We have Mark
Zuckerberg apologizing for what was done. That's only
scratching the surface. I can't go into all of it.
I will now, without objection, that all the other opening
statements will be included in the record. I'm going to talk
about the smart people that we have here to testify.
Mr. Stewart Whitson. Mr. Whitson is the Senior Director of
Federal Affairs at the Foundation for Government
Accountability. Prior to joining the FGA, he served with the
FBI, including as supervisory Special Agent in the Directorate
of Intelligence.
Mr. Richard Stout. Mr. Stout is the Director of Reform the
Bureau, an organization comprised of former FBI Special Agents
that advocate for returning the Bureau to its core mission. He
served with the FBI for more than two decades, working on cases
involving drug trafficking, terrorism, financial crimes, and
other matters.
Ms. Nicole Parker. Ms. Parker is a former FBI Special
Agent, having spent more than 10 years with the Bureau. She
specialized in cases involving securities fraud before being
transferred to a team focused on violent crime where she
focused on cases involving murder for hire, murder in general,
sexual assault, and human trafficking.
Dr. Luke Hunt. Dr. Hunt is an Associate Professor at the
University of Alabama where he is a member of the philosophy
faculty. He previously served as an FBI agent for six years.
We will begin by swearing you all in. Would you please rise
and raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm under the 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 reflect that the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative.
Please be seated.
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.
Mr. Whitson, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF STEWART WHITSON
Mr. Whitson. Chair Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, Chair
Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, and the Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Elections have consequences. In just four years, the Biden
Administration managed to politicize and weaponize the FBI in
ways never seen. Whether targeting then-candidate Trump,
parents at school board meetings, or Catholics doing nothing
more than practicing their faith, the Biden Administration
hijacked the FBI to promote the Left's political objectives.
It gets worse. While the full investigative resources of
the FBI focused on the January 6th protestors and other
perceived political enemies, the Biden Administration
manufactured the worst border crisis in our Nation's history,
allowing criminals, terrorists, and drugs to flood into our
country at unimaginable levels.
The result was predictable: An explosion of human
trafficking, violent crime, and drug-related deaths. With more
than two million known gotaways on Biden's watch, the threat of
a terrorist attack on the homeland is greater than it's ever
been.
There's another big problem. Not only did the Biden
Administration's actions undermine public safety, but they also
caused a majority of Americans to lose trust in the FBI. This
loss of trust is a crisis not only for the FBI, but for the
country.
There's good news. Again, elections have consequences. With
President Trump back in office, the FBI now has a new Director
working aggressively to right the ship.
It's not going to happen overnight, and regaining the trust
of Americans is going to require significant and sweeping
changes.
Here are seven such changes.
First, clean house. With new leadership poised to get the
FBI back on track, one big hurdle stands in the way: Entrenched
bureaucrats.
We've already seen this play out in dramatic fashion with
the now former FBI leader in New York who tried to coerce his
subordinates to, quote, ``dig in'' against the administration.
This was a clear act of insubordination that deeply embarrassed
the FBI and only further undermined public trust.
There are surely other FBI employees still entrenched in
the Bureau that will resist meaningful change in less obvious
but equally harmful ways.
Look, it's simple. While the vast majority of FBI employees
are incredible, hard-working people who will faithfully execute
their duties, the few who undermine the new leadership cannot
be allowed to do so. Those who have engaged in past behavior
warranting dismissal or who refuse to come to work when ordered
to do so must be fired. Period.
Second, drain the swamp. Director Patel should drastically
reduce the size of the FBI headquarters, keeping a small
footprint in D.C. to promote accountability while shifting more
staff and resources to the field offices in other locations
outside the Beltway.
Relocating the FBI outside of D.C. would save money and
reduce political influence by allowing the FBI to hire
professional staff from outside the D.C. bubble.
Third, moving the bulk of FBI headquarters out of D.C. will
present a natural opportunity to consolidate and reorganize
existing units that perform duplicative or outdated missions.
Director Patel should seize this opportunity to promote
efficiency and save taxpayer dollars.
Fourth, get DEI out of the FBI. Under the former Director
Comey the FBI moved away from merit-based hiring and instead
toward race-based hiring. Moving forward, Director Patel should
ensure that all hiring decisions are based purely on merit and
talent.
Fifth, the FBI should be refocused back to a law
enforcement agency that uses intelligence to advance its law
enforcement mission rather than an intelligence agency that
also engages in law enforcement.
Patel could start by eliminating the intelligence branch
and merging its personnel and missions into the FBI's other
operational units. Intelligence in the FBI should be a tool to
advance investigations, not its own stand-alone department.
Sixth, we need more oversight and accountability within the
FBI. To earn back the trust of the American people, Congress
must get involved. Besides conducting your own oversight,
Congress should also consider creating new criminal penalties
for FBI employees who knowingly abuse the FBI's investigative
powers.
Seventh, finally, to get the FBI back on track, Director
Patel should execute his own DOGE effort to identify waste,
fraud, and abuse within the FBI.
At the end of the day, America deserves and needs a world
class law enforcement agency it can trust. With the current
leadership in place, the FBI is well on its way to becoming
that agency once again, because after all, elections have
consequences.
With that, I thank you for the opportunity to testify in
today's hearing, and I look forward to your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Whitson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Whitson.
Mr. Stout, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD STOUT
Mr. Stout. Good morning, Chair Van Drew, Ranking Member
Crockett, and the Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. It is an honor to share
my perspective drawn from nearly four decades of public service
in law enforcement, national security, and counterintelligence.
My name is Richard Stout. I'm a 35-year veteran of law
enforcement and currently serve as Director of Reform the
Bureau, a nationwide group of former and retired FBI Special
Agents committed to restoring the FBI to its core mission:
Protecting the public, fighting crime, and upholding the rule
of law.
I took on this position with Reform the Bureau as a private
citizen because I was frustrated and disheartened to see the
FBI, the world's most renowned and iconic law enforcement
agency, fall into such disarray over the past few years.
When I was 19 years old, I became a Deputy Sheriff while
attending college in Southwest Virginia. Driven by a strong
sense of duty and commitment to community safety, I went on to
become a Virginia State Trooper and later State Police Special
Agent. These early roles grounded me in the foundational
principles of public trust, discipline, and ethical
responsibility.
In 1997, I joined the FBI as a Special Agent and was
assigned to the Miami Field Office. There I was assigned to a
Colombian drug trafficking squad where I initiated
multijurisdictional complex investigations and was responsible
for overseeing Federal wiretap operations, known as Title IIIs,
targeting significant DTOs.
Following 9/11, I became part of a specialized team tasked
with tracking the hijackers' movements before their attack. Our
work proved critical in tracing connections and providing
timely intelligence to our Federal and military partners
supporting the broader counterterrorism effort in the aftermath
of the attacks.
Throughout my tenure with the FBI, I served as a case agent
in several high impact criminal investigations. Notably, I led
the public corruption investigation into the Scott Rothstein
Ponzi scheme, then the third largest of its kind in U.S.
history.
In 2005, I was deployed to Haiti as part of a team of FBI
SWAT and hostage negotiators to assist in the rescue of a
kidnapped nine-year-old American girl. She had been abducted
from her home and was found in a remote mountainside shack
being held for ransom. This operation demonstrated the Bureau's
global reach and our unwavering commitment to safeguarding
American lives abroad.
Between 2017-2018, I responded to two active shooter
events. First, the attack at Fort Lauderdale International
Airport where I assisted Special Agent Nicole Parker in
gathering evidence.
Second, far more personal. My daughter was a student at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and
was inside one of the classrooms hardest hit during the
shooting.
The memory of that tragedy has deeply influenced my
perspective on public safety, the importance of preparedness,
and the deep concern I carry over the FBI's failure to act on
two prior reports regarding the shooter's intent.
In 2018, I was part of a small team that apprehended Cesar
Sayoc who targeted high-profile Democrats and media figures
with mail bombs.
Internationally, I represented the FBI in coordinating with
foreign partners on reintegrating deportees formerly
radicalized by extremist groups. I've lecture at the
International Law Enforcement Academies in Hungary and Botswana
and proudly graduated from the FBI National Academy, Section
272.
Since retiring, I've continued to serve the public through
Reform the Bureau. We at Reform the Bureau support Director
Patel, AG Bondi, President Trump, and their reform-minded
approach to the FBI.
Our intent is to not harm the Bureau but to restore it. The
stories and data we've brought forward represent deeply
ingrained issues repeatedly experienced by dedicated
professionals.
Our goal is not retribution, but responsibility. We must
rebuild the Bureau's integrity and reorient to serve the
American people, not internal politics.
One of the areas we have been most focused on is Bureau
decentralization, getting more resources and agents out of
Washington and back into the field. The Director has been vocal
in his support for this approach. We applaud his efforts.
Another area is proper resource allocation. We at Reform
the Bureau believe that criminal investigations have been
deprioritized over the past few years in favor of those more
political in nature. That must end. We trust the Director will
properly allocate the resources needed to pursue, capture, and
deter criminals who wish us harm.
Mr. Chair and the Members of the Committee, our Nation is
at a crossroads in how we approach law enforcement, national
security, and the trust placed in our Federal institutions.
I look forward to contributing to this important discussion
and am happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Stout follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Stout.
Ms. Parker, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF NICOLE PARKER
Ms. Parker. Chair Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and
the Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank you for
inviting me to come and respectfully speak with you today.
It was my privilege and honor to serve America as an FBI
Special Agent for over a dozen years under three
administrations.
While extremely demanding, my pursuit of ``Justice for
All'' never once gave me reason for pause until I witnessed
social, cultural, and political agendas enter the FBI mission
to the point it impacted our ability to effectively do the job
the public and our responsibilities demand.
During my career, I observed an organizational change that
I labeled the emergence of two FBIs.
FBI 1 understands the Constitution and honors its oath to
uphold and defend it. It is indifferent to partisanship, places
the public's interest first, and aggressively seeks out the
truth. FBI 1 keeps its head down, stays under the radar, works
tirelessly, and produces outcomes all Americans can be proud
of.
On the other hand, FBI 2 is the antithesis of FBI 1 and
serves at the convenience of itself and is willing to use their
law enforcement power to push their own personal political and
social agendas without consideration to its oath of office.
Under the Biden Administration's Justice Department, it
became increasingly difficult for Special Agents to do their
jobs as Americans lost trust and confidence in the FBI.
In a June 2023, NBC News poll, only 37 percent of
registered voters surveyed said they had a positive view of the
FBI. Lady Justice was no longer blind. It seemed that equal
protection and justice under the law might not mean the equal
application of law.
DOJ and FBI 2 targeted President Trump's 2024 campaign and
the January 6th subjects in a way that I had never witnessed
before, and I say that as someone who investigated the most
violent and dangerous offenders in South Florida. They treated
Trump, in particular, as if he was at the top of the FBI's most
wanted list. Love him or hate him, it is entirely irrelevant.
FBI 2 abused its discretion and authority in both cases
while other judicial remedies remained reasonably available and
dismissed legitimate concerns raised by FBI 1, yet the FBI
seemed to turn a blind eye to crimes committed by those on the
opposite end of the political spectrum.
On February 2, 2021, FBI Miami Special Agents Laura
Schwartzenberger and Daniel Alfin were shot and killed in the
line of duty while executing a search warrant on a child
predator.
It is disturbing to me that during the same timeframe we
regularly heard of FBI SWAT resources liberally being
dispatched for the arrest of first-time nonviolent January 6th
offenders.
The widespread use of SWAT appeared to be for political
intimidation. Yet, in contrast, there was no SWAT presence when
FBI Agents Schwartzenberger and Alfin were murdered.
Child predators are known to be the most dangerous and
violent offenders. If SWAT had been there that morning, they
would still be alive.
To add to the pain of their deaths, the FBI did not even
pick up the tab for their memorial services. A private donor
was asked by the FBI if they'd be willing to pay for them since
the FBI did not have the funds to do so.
Yet, the FBI was spending exorbitant amounts of money on
nonmission-based projects, such as moving to electrical
vehicles, January 6th investigations, and diversity
initiatives.
The FBI became laser focused on its Office of Diversity and
Inclusion programs. There were 19 different diversity
committees, clubs, and groups.
Focusing on anything other than the FBI's mission is a
dangerous distraction. I've never once consoled a grieving
family that requested I ensure the most diverse agent brings
justice to their loved one.
The Bureau must hire and promote fully based on meritocracy
and the FBI should focus on what unites us, not what divides
us. It is one mission to protect all Americans and uphold the
Constitution.
When my colleagues were murdered in the line of duty it was
highly troubling to me that there was never an FBI-wide after-
action review by Director Wray, not even an email outlining
what transpired, and lessons learned to mitigate risks going
forward.
Yet, during the same timeframe, FBI 2 flooded my email
inbox with diversity promotions, celebrations, cultural
committee activities, climate change messaging, and several
requests to go to Washington, DC, for temporary duty
assignments for January 6th investigations. Unconscionable.
I left the FBI close to two years after their deaths, and
still radio silence from leadership regarding what transpired
that horrific morning.
Further, the DOJ changed its deadly force policy in July
2022 for the first time in 18 years on the heels of the two FBI
agents being murdered in the line of duty. Tone deaf.
When agents should have been given more support and
protection by the policy, many interpreted it that we were
given less protection and more legal scrutiny with an
additional de-escalation section.
This can be fatal where decisionmaking is measured in
fractions of a second, action versus reaction, and many believe
the changes were a result of social justice pandering.
The list of issues and concerns myself and others had with
the FBI was growing long. No one felt that their voices
mattered or that any changes were possible as Director Wray and
AG Garland believed that all is well while many at the FBI were
deeply troubled by what was transpiring. After much prayer and
reflection, it was time for me to walk away.
It is remarkable that several fugitives from the FBI's most
wanted list have already been taken into custody since
President Trump took office January 2020--excuse me, January
20th.
I am hopeful and confident that under this new
administration, with AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel
at the helm, that with time, effort, and serious reform the FBI
will regain Americans' and FBI employees' trust again,
dismantling the political and social weaponization, and return
to its greatness.
That is what our current, retired, and fallen FBI heroes'
legacies deserve, and most of all, it is what Americans
deserve.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Parker follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Ms. Parker.
Dr. Hunt, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF DR. LUKE WILLIAM HUNT
Dr. Hunt. My goal is to briefly share my understanding of
the FBI's important mission in a way that I hope is free from
partisanship.
I had the good fortune of serving my country as an FBI
agent in a variety of settings. In a small office, I worked
whatever criminal case that walked through the door, from bank
robberies to crimes against children. At Washington Field
Office on violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Finally, the FBI headquarters where I focused on national
security policy.
Now, as a professor, I draw on these experiences in
teaching and research related to legal and philosophical issues
in policing. I'm not interested in the ivory tower today.
One of the academic questions in my work is directly
related to this Committee's work: Is the FBI a liberal or
illiberal institution?
By liberal, I'm not referring to politics or whether you're
a liberal or conservative Member of Congress. I instead mean
the philosophical tradition with which I assume everyone in
this room agrees, the philosophical tradition going back to
John Locke on which this country was founded.
At its core, the political morality of liberalism tells us
that all people are free and equal and should be governed by
the State in accordance with the rule of law.
What is the alternative? Illiberal regimes governed not by
the rule of law, but by arbitrary power and the official whim
of State agents who are above the law.
The FBI can and should be an agency that promotes the rule
of law. However, I want to raise three concerns about the
current State of affairs that could lead to the erosion of the
rule of law.
First, lack of predication. Predication is the basis of an
investigation, the information or allegation that justifies a
case.
While most FBI investigations require predication, so-
called assessments do not. In other words, the FBI has the
discretion to investigate almost anything, without any factual
basis to do so.
Investigation without predication is contrary to the rule
of law because it may be based not on fact, but whim or
arbitrary discretion. It is thus crucial for Bureau leadership
to avoid any appearance of impropriety and partisanship in both
actions and rhetoric.
The second worry I raise is the selective enforcement of
corruption. Corruption includes the use of entrusted authority
for unethical benefits. This is, of course, an issue in
politics, but corruption also arises in social and economic
domains such as business.
It should go without saying that corruption is contrary to
the rule of law. It undermines institutional reputation,
circumvents fair processes of economic development, and
denigrates democracy and justice.
Recent developments suggest the decision to investigate
corruption may be based in part on political and business
expedience.
Prominent cases of political corruption have been dropped
suddenly for reasons unrelated to the legal merits of the case.
Investigation of corruption under the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act has been paused.
The FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and DOJ's
Kleptocracy Team have been disbanded.
A lack of transparency into this sort of selective
enforcement of corruption could politicize the FBI, undermining
the rule of law.
Predication suggests a righteous investigation, regardless
of whether the target is a regular citizen or a powerful
politician or corporation. If we don't want to slide toward
illiberalism, then no one should be above the law.
Finally, I raise a concern about the selective enforcement
of national security threats.
We are all familiar with the horrific pattern of political
and ideological mass killings in recent years. The 2015 killing
of nine Black people in a Charleston church by a White
supremacist hoping to spark a race war. The 2018 killing of 11
in the Pittsburgh Jewish community. The 2019 killing of 23
people in El Paso motivated by claims of a Hispanic invasion.
The 2022 killing of 10 Black people in Buffalo based on a
manifesto on racial purity. We should add the assassination
attempt of President Trump, a very heinous act that occurred in
2024.
Now, listen, I have no personal information about the FBI's
plan to stop politically motivated violence. On one hand, I've
read reports that the disgusting vandalism and arson directed
at Tesla will be prioritized as domestic terrorism. On the
other hand, I've read reports that the FBI's new reorganization
will move resources away from the investigation and analysis of
other domestic terrorism threats.
My only point is that we should not prioritize domestic
terrorism investigations based on whether they're motivated by
the Left or the Right. Investigations should be based on
predication and follow the evidence wherever it leads. That is
the rule of law.
Thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Dr. Hunt follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Dr. Hunt.
Thank you all for being here. We appreciate your time,
which is a precious resource in itself.
I'm now going to recognize the gentleman from Alabama for
five minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly appreciate all
the witnesses being here today.
First, let's make it clear we're not here to harm the FBI
in any kind of way, but I think restoring credibility in the
justice system within America is very, very important.
One of the top issues when I was touring the District in
2021, and that was shortly after the Biden Administration, was
the weaponization of government agencies against certain
political opponents.
Certainly, President Trump, some of the January 6th
defendants. We've heard from Ms. Parker that there was a
mobilization to go and locate those people and arrest them when
those resources could have been used elsewhere.
I guess we want to get to the general point of this
hearing, is how do we restore credibility in these agencies? We
saw the Durham report where, in fact, Barack Obama, Joe Biden,
Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General at the time, and James
Comey were sitting in the Oval Office when Clapper, the CIA
Director, walked in and said: Hey, by the way, this Russian
collusion narrative, we know that's being driven by the DNC and
Hillary Clinton. Yet, within a few hours, the FBI started the
FISA situation and spying on General Flynn.
Those kinds of stories, as the reports come out after the
fact that we know now that Russian collusion was made up and
the time and resources spent on the Mueller report, even the
people in leadership in the Democratic Party driving those
narratives, were very dangerous to this country.
As the American people look back and go, wow, this system
does seem to be weaponizing its political opponents, and that's
certainly a concern.
So, Mr. Whitson, I'll start with you. What steps do you
think the FBI should take today to reform the agency and regain
the trust of the American people? What would be a couple steps
you think we need to look into?
Mr. Whitson. Thank you for that question.
First and foremost, the most important thing to understand
is that Director Patel has two missions here: (1) He has to fix
the FBI, and (2) as you're alluding to, is he has to restore
trust.
To fix the FBI, you have to do a bunch of things, make
sweeping changes. To restore trust, you have to do even more.
You have to go beyond actually what is necessary to fix the
FBI, because that's not going to be enough to get the rest of
the American population back on board. How does he do it? It's
one word: Transparency.
Mr. Moore. I was going to ask you, where does transparency
come in and how much transparency do we need at this point?
Mr. Whitson. We need as much as we can get. You heard Chair
Jordan mentioning that you're already seeing that out of
Director Patel.
It's very simple. Congress has an important oversight role.
When Congress asks for documents that the law requires the FBI
to provide to Congress, then the FBI needs to do that. Director
Patel has already shown that he gets that and that he's
delivering.
Mr. Moore. Any other mistakes that you think Director Wray
made as opposed that Director Patel needs to avoid?
Mr. Whitson. It would be that right there.
Director Wray had a tendency to shield information and drag
out responses. Toward the end of his tenure, he kind of became
a little smug and kind of put out to be here, to be asked
questions, and that's the entirely wrong approach.
The FBI Director, or whoever his designee that he sends
here, needs to be highly responsive to you, because you have a
job to do and they need to provide you all the information that
the law requires them to provide you right away, no delay.
Mr. Moore. Initially, Mr. Whitson, that this transparency
may be a little painful for the FBI. In the long term that's
what it's going to take to restore the credibility of that
agency.
Mr. Stout, what do you believe the role of the FBI is?
Mr. Stout. Very simply, we need to eliminate the bloat.
There's too many Senior Executive Service members in roles with
limited utility. They need to eliminate or demote nonessential
roles and align headquarters with more field-based leadership
models.
The more emphasis we put in the field will have a greater
output, greater response to crime and anything that involves
the American citizens.
Mr. Moore. Do you believe it's possible for the FBI to
return to those roots?
Mr. Stout. Yes, sir, absolutely. The men and women of the
FBI are some of the best people that I've ever worked with.
They're honest people. They have families. They can transition.
They can transition well and with enthusiasm.
Mr. Moore. Gotcha.
Ms. Parker, you said in your previous testimony over the
course of the 12-plus years of service the FBI's trajectory
kind of transformed. What do you mean by that?
Ms. Parker. I joined the FBI. I was a witness to the 9/11
terrorist attacks in New York City when that occurred, and I
went on to join the FBI because I wanted to give back to our
country. I wanted to serve America.
When I joined the FBI, that's really what we were doing.
There was very little talk about politics. You just went in and
you did your job. I was originally focusing on White collar
crime. I then transferred over to violent crime.
As I mentioned, there really did become two FBIs, and the
weaponization and the politicization started seeping into the
agency. It was a common topic of discussion and you were
bombarded with requests to work certain investigations, and it
just became overwhelming. It was only one side of the political
spectrum that was ever being held accountable.
The FBI agents were thinking: Why are we doing this? We're
supposed to be--Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. Lady
Justice is no longer blind.
For me, I just started seeing over and over examples of
politicization, and it just--that's not what I signed up for.
When I witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and I wanted to
serve, that's not what I signed up for. I wanted to stop
violent criminals and terrorists.
Mr. Moore. Thank you.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'm out of time. I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentleman.
Now, I'm going to recognize the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ranking
Member.
Mr. Parker, after--excuse me--Ms. Parker, after serving
your country as a Special Agent for the FBI, you landed in a
soft, cushy position as a paid contributor at none other than
FOX News. Isn't that correct?
Ms. Parker. Actually, that was not correct. When I
initially left the FBI--
Mr. Johnson. You're not a contributor?
Ms. Parker. I am at this point, but when I left the FBI, I
was not initially a paid contributor for FOX.
Mr. Johnson. You are a paid contributor now?
Ms. Parker. Today I am. When I left the FBI, I was not.
Mr. Johnson. You get paid to create content at FOX News.
Isn't that correct?
Ms. Parker. I get paid to speak the truth.
Mr. Johnson. You create content at FOX News, don't you,
giving your view on things?
Ms. Parker. What I do--
Mr. Johnson. That's content creation, isn't it?
Ms. Parker. What I do is I speak the facts, and I speak the
truth based on my experience at the FBI.
Mr. Johnson. You get paid to do that? You get paid to do
that?
Ms. Parker. I get paid to speak facts, and I get paid to
speak the truth.
Mr. Johnson. Are you on the clock right now?
Ms. Parker. Am I on the clock right now?
Mr. Johnson. Yes.
Ms. Parker. No.
Mr. Johnson. You're not getting paid right for being a
lobbyist?
Ms. Parker. No, sir. I'm not getting paid to be a lobbyist.
Mr. Johnson. For any other purpose?
Ms. Parker. Excuse me?
Mr. Johnson. You're not getting paid as you sit here right
now to be here?
Ms. Parker. I am not getting paid to be here, no, I am not,
sir.
Mr. Johnson. OK. All right. Fair enough.
Mr. Whitson, you also served as an FBI agent before falling
into a very lucrative position as the Legal Director at the
Foundation for Government Accountability, correct?
Mr. Whitson. That was my former position, yes.
Mr. Johnson. What is your current position now?
Mr. Whitson. I currently serve as the Senior Director of
Federal Affairs.
Mr. Johnson. It's a pretty lucrative upgrade from where you
first started?
Mr. Whitson. The position I'm in now?
Mr. Johnson. Yes. You're making more money now than you
were when you first started, right?
Mr. Whitson. Yes.
Mr. Johnson. Would it surprise you to know that your
funding between 2013-2022, six conservative foundations tied to
billionaire donors sunk $44 million into your organization,
correct?
Mr. Whitson. I don't know the precise numbers.
Mr. Johnson. You don't know that? It wouldn't surprise you,
though?
Mr. Whitson. That wouldn't surprise me at all.
Mr. Johnson. Your largest known source of funding between
2013-2022 was a foundation controlled by Illinois billionaire
Dick Uihlein, who invested over $18 million into your
operation. Another source of your funding was the 85 Fund,
which gave you $2 million between 2013-2022. It is among the
network that is controlled by Leonard Leo who received over a
billion dollars in contributions from a single billionaire to
fund his continued takeover of our court system.
You get paid to promote an agenda which includes rolling
back child labor laws and stripping child workplace
protections. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Whitson. No, that's not correct.
Mr. Johnson. Your organization has also worked to stop
Medicaid expansion and to slash food stamps, correct?
Mr. Whitson. What do you mean by slash food stamps?
Mr. Johnson. Well, it means cutting food stamps and cutting
the money. You all have been advocating for that. You also were
among the organizations that wrote the notorious Project 2025,
which is the radical Rightwing agenda, the blueprint that
President Trump is implementing, along with Co-President Musk,
correct?
Mr. Whitson. I'm not aware of us writing anything in
Project 2025.
Mr. Johnson. Now, Mr. Stout, your organization must be
brand new because I haven't been able to come up with anything
on Reform the Bureau, which is the name of your outfit,
correct?
Mr. Stout. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. Johnson. You just started it?
Mr. Stout. I started it in December.
Mr. Johnson. Have you been successful at recruiting any
billionaire donors for your efforts?
Mr. Stout. No, sir, I haven't. It's a grassroots level.
Mr. Johnson. If I had more time, I would ask Dr. Hunt a
question, because he's the only nonpaid individual up here not
promoting a Rightwing agenda. I've run out of time. So, gosh, I
yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentleman. I will now recognize--
you know, just a word before that.
Probably most of the people who appear before us have to
make a living somehow. That's OK. We all get paid salaries or
whatever. Not unusual. Not scary.
With that being said, I will recognize the gentleman from
Missouri for five minutes.
Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the
witnesses for coming here to testify today.
Ms. Parker, thank you for your testimony. In your
testimony, you relate the misuse by the FBI of SWAT resources,
and you give the example of nonviolent first-time January 6th
offenders, one SWAT team spending overnight in a hotel 4\1/2\
hours away to arrest grandparents in their late 1970s. Sounds
like some dangerous hombres to me.
On September 23, 2022, we're all familiar with the case of
a prolife activist and homeschool father of seven, Mark Houck,
with no criminal record. He was arrested in a SWAT raid, guns
drawn, in front of his family. Then, there's 73-year-old
prolife activist Chester Gallagher, who was arrested for
nonviolent violation of the FACE Act. Then there was prolife
activist Paul Vaughn arrested in an early morning raid by the
FBI, guns drawn, in front of his seven children. Sound like
some really dangerous offenders to me.
Prolifers aren't the only ones who have been targeted by
the Biden's FBI. Vanessa Sivadge, a nurse at Texas Children's
Hospital, read the story of whistleblower Eithan Haim, who
we're familiar with, who exposed gender transition procedures
being done at Texas Children's Hospital despite the hospital
having proclaimed that they were no longer doing those
procedures because the Attorney General of Texas was
investigating that clinic for child abuse. Vanessa stepped
forward and basically confirmed Dr. Haim's story. She was then
visited two months later by the FBI.
Then, of course, the anti-Catholic memorandum that we're
familiar with. I have that here in my hand right now.
Just some simple questions. First, this is labeled as a
domain perspective. Ms. Parker, what is a domain perspective?
Ms. Parker. That's a document that, from my understanding,
was distributed within the FBI as intelligence. Someone
formulated that document, and it was published internally and
had a stamp of ``intelligence'' on it that was signed off by
multiple individuals within the Richmond Field Office.
Mr. Onder. Part of that memorandum, first page, says,
quote,
FBI Richmond makes this assessment with high confidence based
on FBI investigations, local law enforcement agency reporting,
and liaison reporting with various degrees of corroboration and
access.
The term--what does the term, ``high confidence'' mean to you,
Ms. Parker?
Ms. Parker. When I hear high confidence, I want to believe
that it's trustworthy, that I can count on that, that this is
factual, and that is truth. My understanding of that memorandum
is that they used sources that would not typically be used to
gather intelligence. What was happening at the FBI quite
frequently and was disturbing to many is that there were
individuals taking their personal views, packaging it up, and
creating a document, and then stamping ``intelligence'' on it
and distributing as if it was truth, as if it was almost the
Bible.
That is an example of abuse of your law enforcement power.
You're allowed to have your own personal and political
opinions, but when you go to work, you've got to leave those at
the front door, and you have to exercise in an unbiased and
fair manner and be truthful.
When you're getting an intelligence document, you want to
hope that it is factually correct, and it is true.
Unfortunately, that was the document that Christopher Wray had
to have rescinded because it was not accurate, and he found it
mind-boggling and disgusting that it had ever been published.
Mr. Onder. Well, one thing I find mind-boggling--first, I
am Catholic myself. I'm not a traditional Latin Mass Catholic.
Often such people who prefer to go to the Latin Mass are
referred to as traditionalist Catholics. Then so-called rad
trad, or radical traditionalist Catholics, are those who only
go to Catholic Mass, who some of them believe that the regular
English Mass is invalid or reject Vatican II or what have you.
Not a single one of them I know even own guns, much less
are they radicals or whatever. Then when I look at this
memorandum, I see they're quoting the Southern Poverty Law
Center, a viciously political defamatory group. I've worked a
lot on immigration issues. The Southern Poverty Law Center has
declared every immigration reform group to be a racist or White
supremacist group. They're just a walking defamation factory.
Have you seen the Southern Poverty Law Center quoted in
other FBI memos over the years?
Ms. Parker. I have not.
Mr. Onder. OK.
Ms. Parker. I have not. Again, that was entirely
inappropriate and never should have happened, and the FBI had
to walk that back. That is an example of weaponization. That is
social weaponi-
zation at the FBI. It's entirely inappropriate, and it never
should have happened.
Mr. Onder. The FBI is not going after bad guys, but going
after enemies of the political regime, Third World stuff.
Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your
testimony.
Ms. Parker. Thank you.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentleman.
By the way, the Director of the FBI had to apologize for
that. It's not a debunk theory.
With that being said, I will recognize the Ranking Member
of the Full Committee, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chair.
One of my colleagues referred to the weaponization of the
DOJ and specifically focused on the January 6th defendants.
That startled me because 140 American police officers were
violently assaulted on that day, wounded, hospitalized, some of
them disfigured, disabled, and forced to leave police work. He
said that there would have been a better use of FBI and
prosecutorial investigative resources, and I wonder what he was
referring to.
In any event, Dr. Hunt, do you agree with that assessment?
Dr. Hunt. Thank you for that question.
January 6th shocked and horrified me. That was a shameful
day, not least because of the many attacks on our law
enforcement officers. Any suggestion that is a low priority and
should not be investigated is shocking to me. I can't imagine a
more important devotion of resources by the FBI to anyone who
would attack our Nation's Capital.
Mr. Raskin. Some of our colleagues have again been going
back to the idea that the Biden FBI was converted into some
kind of political instrument. When I look at the prosecutions
that come out of it, I'm thinking about the one of Senator Bob
Menendez from New Jersey, who's a Democrat; of Henry Cuellar,
who's a Democrat; lots of other Democrats.
Other than Donald Trump, I really can't think of any others
on the Republican side, and I'm just getting the feeling that
they think Donald Trump really should be above and beyond the
law, and that's what this whole weaponization thing is about,
other than setting the conditions to turn it into an instrument
of revenge and retribution as Donald Trump has promised.
Do you think the FBI was acting as an instrument of
partisanship in the last administration?
Dr. Hunt. I can only speak from my personal experience, and
I can say this. When I was an FBI agent, the men and women that
I worked with, they based their investigations on facts and
law. They based their investigations on predication.
The worry I have is with respect to corruption today when
there's selective enforcement. Just as a regular American
citizen--and I'm not an insider now--when I see a high-level
politician and charges are dropped and there's no reason, I as
an American citizen, don't understand why that's the case.
Mr. Raskin. You're referring to Mayor Adams?
Dr. Hunt. That's correct.
Mr. Raskin. There was a reason, which was he agreed to play
on Donald Trump's political team. The very Republican
conservative U.S. attorney for the Southern District said
nothing had changed in terms of the facts of the case, nothing
had changed in terms of the law, and nothing changed in terms
of the evidence. All that had changed was that he made this
political alignment with Donald Trump.
She resigned rather than participate in that corrupt
bargain, as did her deputy, who said, ``it would take a fool or
a coward to accept that deal.'' He also clerked for a
conservative Supreme Court Justice and was active in the
Federalist Society. Five other lawyers dropped out rather than
do it, until finally they had to force somebody to do it from
D.C., who said he'd be willing to do it because he was about to
leave his job.
You say let's base it on the facts. I'm really curious
about the Signal group chat thing because the country is in an
uproar about the fact that the most precious national security
information was shared on a Signal group chat where a
journalist was actually invited accidentally by somebody to
participate. Some of my colleagues seem to say, well, it was a
one-shot deal, let's just let it go, and it's no big deal. The
FBI Director has already said, no, no, nothing to see there.
If this were a standard practice--just a yes or no--do you
think it would be a problem?
Dr. Hunt. That would be a problem, yes.
Mr. Raskin. Ms. Parker, do you agree it would be a problem
if it were a standard practice.
Ms. Parker. My understanding--I was not on the Signal chat.
I just know what--probably similar to you.
Mr. Raskin. Just yes or no, because I've got little time.
If you can't--
Ms. Parker. A mistake was made, and it was taken--
Mr. Raskin. OK. Mr. Stout, can you say--would it be a
problem for it to be standard practice to conduct sensitive
foreign policy on a Signal chat group?
Mr. Stout. Yes, I would.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Mr. Whitson, do you agree?
Mr. Whitson. Yes.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Well, it just came out like 10 minutes ago,
Waltz' team set up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises
across the world. It was, as one might expect, a very standard
practice with Mr. Waltz, and I'm sure this will raise the
question of whether or not he really should continue in that
position.
Do you think that the FBI should investigate what the
national security implications and what the public safety
implications are of his having done that, Dr. Hunt?
Dr. Hunt. This comes back to the rule of law. As an FBI
agent, there were strict rules about sensitive material. We had
to be in a SCIF, we had to take the utmost caution. To treat
other people that are more powerful differently definitely
suggests to me a deviation from the rule of law.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Thank you.
I yield back to you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentleman.
There's a difference between a mistake and purposeful,
perpetrated policies are wrong.
Ms. Crockett. Mr. Chair--OK.
Mr. Van Drew. I beat you to it.
I recognize the Chair of the whole Committee.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Whitson, before you got what Mr. Johnson described as
high-paying job as Senior Director of Federal Affairs,
Foundation for Government Accountability, you worked in the
FBI. Is that right?
Mr. Whitson. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Ten years in the FBI?
Mr. Whitson. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Prior to that, you were in the United States
Army?
Mr. Whitson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. Three hundred combat missions in Iraq. Is
that right?
Mr. Whitson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. In your time at the FBI, you were Special
Agent in the directorate--Supervisory Special Agent in the
Directorate of Intelligence. Is that accurate?
Mr. Whitson. Yes, Chair.
Chair Jordan. In your testimony--and I just want to get you
familiar with this subject matter.
In your testimony, you said one of the ways we can
eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse is including overspending on
confidential human sources. You said that in your testimony,
right?
Mr. Whitson. Yes, Chair.
Chair Jordan. Are you familiar with the Inspector General's
report about the confidential human sources who were there on
January 6, 2021, here at the Capitol? Have you read the report?
Mr. Whitson. I haven't read that closely.
Chair Jordan. Well, let me tell you a few things that they
say in there, and I want to ask you a few questions.
They said there were 26 confidential human sources there at
the Capitol that day. Does that surprise you?
Mr. Whitson. No.
Chair Jordan. It doesn't surprise you, OK. They said 17 of
those 26 confidential human sources entered restricted space,
space they weren't allowed to go into. Does that surprise you?
Mr. Whitson. No.
Chair Jordan. It doesn't surprise you, they did things they
weren't allowed to do?
Mr. Whitson. Well, I'd need more details about--so were
they doing it on their own or were they told to do it, were
they--that kind of thing.
Chair Jordan. We want to know the answers to those
questions too.
Mr. Whitson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. Four of them went inside the Capitol. Two of
the four who went inside the Capitol were specifically tasked,
specifically asked by the FBI to be there that day for this.
Does that surprise you?
Mr. Whitson. Not necessarily.
Chair Jordan. Not necessarily.
Mr. Whitson. I'd need to know more facts.
Chair Jordan. Does it surprise you that any of them--none
of these individuals, to our knowledge, were charged with
anything?
Mr. Whitson. If they were tasked to be there?
Chair Jordan. OK.
Mr. Whitson. I would need more information. I'm sorry.
Chair Jordan. OK. In your testimony, you talk about
overspending on confidential human sources. Do you believe--is
it likely these 26 were being paid by the FBI at the time they
were doing this?
Mr. Whitson. If they were a confidential human source
that's actually on the books, then it's highly likely that they
were paid if they were tasked to do that.
Chair Jordan. Highly likely they're being paid. Even if
they weren't specifically asked to be there that day, you think
that it's likely they were paid?
Mr. Whitson. If they weren't asked to be there, usually
they were given a lump payment periodically, so it wouldn't be
for a specific tasking necessarily.
Chair Jordan. OK.
Mr. Whitson. It'd be hard to answer that.
Chair Jordan. Are you familiar with what was released here
earlier this week, the text communications between FBI agents
regarding October 14, 2020, New York Post story on the Hunter
Biden laptop? Have you had a chance to review those?
Mr. Whitson. I haven't seen those text messages.
Chair Jordan. Well, let me just read a couple to you here.
It says, ``Nobody on the call is authorized to comment on the
New York Post story. Twitter is treating this as
disinformation.''
I just want to read something that took place earlier that
day. The way this day worked is when the story came out. That
day, Elvis Chan, a guy with the FBI, is meeting with the tech
company, something he did on a regular basis in the runup to
the 2020 Presidential election. At that meeting someone asked,
``Hey, there's this New York Post story. Is the laptop real?''
We know this took place because we deposed Mr. Brady Olson,
and he gave us this information. He said, when that question
was asked, the response was, ``yes, the laptop is real.'' Then,
we get these text messages which we didn't have before. We just
got them this week. These text messages which relate what
happens after that.
The FBI has confirmed to Twitter at a FITF meeting on
October 14th that the laptop is real. Then we have these text
messages back and forth where they say no one is authorized to
comment further. Twitter is treating this as disinformation.
Do you find that troubling, that the FBI knew something was
real, confirmed it at a meeting, then changed their story and
went to no comment, no further comment, and allowed the tech
companies to run with the idea that this story was
disinformation?
Mr. Whitson. Yes. I do think that's problematic, and I do
think the relationships that they tried to build with members
of the FBI with these other organizations were problematic.
Chair Jordan. Yes. The Ranking Member said, ``Oh, the
Republicans want to the say the FBI was political and what
really wasn't the case.'' If this is not political, I do not
know what is, because this was the whole basis for the 51
former intel officials doing their letter. The FBI knew, now we
have written evidence they knew, coupled with the deposition we
took before where they admitted this.
Then, later in the day when they're meeting with other tech
companies, they go with ``no comment.'' They even admit here,
Twitter is running with the disinformation story even before
the 51 intel officials come out with their letter, which is
baloney. They're running with that. The FBI was part of
fostering and promoting that story.
Mr. Whitson. It's unacceptable.
Chair Jordan. Totally unacceptable.
Mr. Whitson. It shows how one bad apple, and there were
probably others, but you can see how much of a problem that is.
That one bad apple behaves that way, the entire Bureau's
reputation is impacted. Trust is lost across the country.
That's why it's so important to find folks like that. Going
back to the entrenched bureaucrats, you have to find them and
remove them because that's all it takes is one bad apple.
Chair Jordan. That was point one in your testimony, which
is exactly what Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel are doing, is getting
rid of those individuals who foster this kind of political
environment where you're going after political foes, where
you're telling things, saying things, allowing things to be
believed that aren't accurate, when you know the truth all
along.
Mr. Whitson. That's right.
Chair Jordan. I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the Chair.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee,
Jasmine Crockett.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I first just want to begin with the news alert. Guess what?
Joe Biden is not the President anymore, so maybe we can move
on. Maybe we can move into the present, because it seems like
we are living in the past.
Listen, these are not the good old days. Like you used to
sit around and your grandparents would talk to you about what
used to happen. What we need to be talking about is how we are
going to legislate, because I think that some of my colleagues
are confused what our jobs are.
I get that we're sitting in Judiciary. It may seem as if we
are here to be litigators, but we are here to be legislators,
which means that we are supposed to be writing laws, not trying
to have our own trials and determine whether or not something
is true or not or whatever the case is or who should be sued,
who shouldn't be sued.
All I know is that a great American hero, a good Senator
out of New Jersey, said something to the effect yesterday as he
was shattering the record for holding the floor, a record that
had been held by another racist in this country, as he
shattered that, he said something about the fact that this
should not be about Left versus Right. It should be about right
versus wrong.
I am going to tell you that I want us to focus on right
versus wrong. The reason that we are struggling right now in
this country as it relates to people not trusting agencies,
honestly, a lot of it is because of elected leaders.
Let me tell you, one of the things that the Chair and I
actually agree on--we don't agree on a lot--is that we both
know that there has been a sharp incline as it relates to
threats on our lives. Regardless of what side of the aisle you
sit on, we both know and agree that as sitting Members of
Congress, we both are enduring more death threats than anybody
should in this country. I believe that it is because of the
divisive rhetoric, and it is because of the selective
enforcement of things.
When we have--and I'm going to be clear because I had
remarks, and I'm going a whole other way.
To have the sitting attorney general go on--and I'm going
to call it faux news. I know some of you all love it, but it's
fake to me. To have her go on FOX News and to then decide that
she wanted to send a threat to me, it was wrong. Because here
it is, she is the highest law enforcement agent in this
country, and people are watching, and they are consuming this
information, and they are believing that simply because I
decided that I wanted to exercise my right to free speech--
which I am not abridged from doing--that she then wanted to
then politicize something that should not be politicized.
I don't like Elon Musk. I'm going to say it 50,000 times. I
don't like him. I don't like that he's going out there and he's
firing people. I think that he's a crook, because somehow the
rest of us can't sit around and get whatever Federal contracts
we want. The rest of us can't sit around and get law
enforcement and get them somehow ordained as Federal law
enforcement to protect him. The rest of us can't get our
dealerships protected by the Federal Government.
That is somebody that is operating above the law. For
whatever reason, just because he has a lot of money, more money
than everybody else--and yes, I am happy to see that on my
birthday, which is what I said, there were peaceful protests
around this world against him because he is a problem.
You never should have somebody that is sitting that high
and is going to sit up here and threaten a sitting Member of
Congress, when she knew good and well, if she watched the
entire thing, that I specifically told protestors to make sure
you consult with lawyers, just like I've told protestors over
and over and over in the history of me advising people to go
out and exercise their constitutional right.
The fact that there are other sitting Members that have
received letters of threat from this new DOJ tells me that they
are about retribution, and they are not about following the
law.
The reason that our party--I won't even say our party--our
country is torn apart is because we can't even agree on right
versus wrong. This should not be Left versus Right. The only
thing that we're asking is that we have law enforcement that
will show up when there is an actual crime.
If somebody calls and says, hey, I need you to investigate
this cybercrime, or I need you to investigate this child
pornography, or I need you to investigate this robbery, then we
want somebody to show up, and we don't want them to look at us
and act as if, just because I'm Black or because I'm a woman,
that I am not worthy of having that case investigated because
we have an administration that is continuously railing against
diversity, equity, or inclusion, or we don't need people that
show up that feel like diversity should not be valued. That is
why we should have somebody that may show up and look like me.
The final thing that I'll say--because you've been
gracious--is this. When I first became a public defender, I had
no criminal defense experience, and I walked in, and I told my
boss, Charlie, I said, ``Listen, you should hire me.'' He said,
why? I said, ``Because I'm Black.'' Charlie looked at me like I
was crazy. I said,
Let me tell you something. When I walk in, I'm going to walk in
with a level of rapport and understanding that maybe some of my
other colleagues will not.
Charlie offered me my job, and I worked my butt off, and I
worked really, really hard for all my clients, not just those
that looked like me. That is what it looks like to serve.
Thank you.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentlelady.
I recognize the gentleman from Kansas for five minutes.
Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. I do
want to give the witnesses a heads up. I do intend to ask some
questions over the course of this five minutes.
I spent a dozen years as the Chief Law Enforcement official
of my State. I've never claimed to be a cop, not a certified
officer, but I had the privilege of serving as our State
Attorney General.
I've had a lot of conversations with law enforcement
officers all over the State of Kansas, local cops, elected
local officers and sheriffs, cops that work directly for me
under our supervision, cops that worked in local agencies, and
all sorts of Federal law enforcement officers, as well as
Federal prosecutors who operated in our jurisdiction.
I will tell you, in the course of those 12 years, I never
saw an FBI agent perform less than honorably, not once. I never
recall a single time in those rooms--now, if I'd go down the
street to the political party meetings, I'd hear conversations
like we heard some today and we've heard a lot over the last
four years, I'd hear all that all the time. If I'd turn on the
television, I'd see it all the time. I never heard it among
cops that are working a case.
I heard folks who knew each other and liked each other and
cooperated with each other who said,
How are we going to get that child molester off the streets?
How are we going to solve this murder? How are we going to deal
with that case of elder abuse? How are we going to deal with
that crime that's in front of us?
That's the FBI I know. That's the law enforcement world that I
know.
I would just ask Mr. Whitson, you're first up here--is that
consistent or inconsistent with the law enforcement community
you operated in?
Mr. Whitson. It's absolutely consistent. I'd say--I had
partners that I worked with for years on cases. If you ask me
what political party those people were in, I couldn't tell you.
They couldn't tell you the same for me when I was in the FBI.
That is the real FBI. When you go up to the field offices
and you get away from headquarters, that's the real FBI, the
real work. That's what they're like.
Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Stout, you were a local or State officer
or both before being Federal. How about you, is what I just
described consistent or inconsistent with your experience?
Mr. Stout. Yes, sir, it is consistent. I would tack onto
that something earlier that Ms. Crockett said that I'm
interested about galvanizing this country. What will bring us
all together?
Mr. Schmidt. Please do it briefly.
Mr. Stout. You mentioned there's a special place in hell
for pedophiles and child pornographers, and we have systems in
place at the FBI, but we can make those systems a little bit
better, a little bit tighter. I'm prepared to talk about it
later today if you wish.
Mr. Schmidt. That sounds very good. Let me tell you a brief
story, and then I have some followup questions.
During the course of time I was serving in that role, we
had a terrible case. It was a racist, bigoted individual from a
neighboring State who crossed the line into our State with the
intent of killing a group of folks because of their faith. He
went to a religious institution, he shot the place up, he
killed, as I recall, three people. He was immediately
apprehended. He has since died in prison.
There was that the moment that happened, there was a
motivated Federal and State, through local authorities,
response. Lot of folks on the scene, everybody trying to figure
out how do we secure this thing, how do we fix it.
Then there was a professional discussion. Who's going to go
first in the prosecution, because you had a State murderer and
you had Federal hate crimes, as well as some other Federal
crimes perhaps. Man, the press loved it. Every day there was a
headline about this dispute between the District Attorney and
the United States attorney and the local cops and the Federal
cops and who's going to go first.
Finally, it was decided the State would go first. The
District Attorney announced he was filing capital murder
charges with a notice of intent to seek the death penalty under
our State law.
In the same article where the local press reported that,
they then in the next paragraph said, and next there'll be a
decision on a Federal prosecution where the penalties may be
stiffer. Think about that. Think about that.
I offer the story up for this reason. There may be a
perception outside the cops on the beat, Federal and State, who
do this work in our communities every single day that what we
talk about up here is reality and that somehow the Federal law
enforcement officers are superior to their State counterparts.
I don't think that's true. I don't think it's close to
true. I don't think what we're hearing today and heard about
for the last four years reflects what really happens with the
vast, vast majority of the Federal and State cops on the beat.
I guess I would just ask this. Mr. Whitson, you suggested
we ought to move the FBI out of Washington, DC, and the current
Director has already made some moves to that effect.
Talk to me in my remaining time about how you think that
might affect our ability to get this narrative back on track so
it's the cops on the beat keeping our communities safe that
drives it instead of all this political circus in this town
that drives it.
Mr. Whitson. Well, briefly. Right now, almost a third of
all FBI employees are stationed in the D.C. area. The crime
that's taking place across America is not all happening in the
D.C. area. It's happening everywhere in pockets all over the
country, Kansas, every Member's district.
Moving the FBI out of D.C. and back into the field offices
is going to help that. It's also cheaper. D.C. is an expensive
area. I don't need to tell anyone that, right? Moving the
headquarters to a lower cost area is not only cheaper for the
Federal Government and the American taxpayer, but it's also
cheaper for the workers, for the Federal employees that have to
commute every day to the office. If it's in a place that has a
better quality of living and easier commute, that's better.
Then the last reason, to be real brief, is the political
makeup. So, my colleague at FGA, Hayden Dublois, did a paper on
this to look at Federal Senior Executive employees, what is the
political makeup. Across the country they leaned heavily
Democrat by 30. In D.C. it goes up to 40.
That's not to say--not trying to be not Democrat or not
Republican, but we really want to put it in a place where it's
more representative of the entire country and not just one side
of the country. That's why we see that when a conservative
comes in, the whole weaponization rises to the issue, because
the headquarters is populated by people of the opposite
political--
Mr. Van Drew. The gentleman's time has expired. I thank the
gentleman.
I now recognize the gentleman from Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for having this
incredibly important hearing where we can better understand the
systematic abuses of the Biden Administration for the past four
years.
Our colleagues on the other side want to encourage us to
move on, move on from a Federal Government that was weaponized
against the American people, the American people that they are
supposed to represent and protect. Move on after our FBI was
targeting parents who were concerned that their children were
being indoctrinated into radical transgender ideologies in
their public schools. Move on after the Left weaponized the
Federal Government to create a mass censorship industrial
complex violating our First Amendment rights. We're supposed to
move on after they targeted Catholic Americans, traditional
Americans, and labeled them violent extremists.
We're told that there's a problem, that we can't agree on
what's right and wrong. I agree, that is a huge problem. It's a
problem that the other side of the aisle can't recognize that
censorship is wrong. It's a problem that the other side of the
aisle can't recognize that it's wrong for the FBI to target
parents concerned about what they're learning in their schools.
It's a problem that the other side of the aisle can't recognize
that it's a problem whenever our Federal Government goes after
Christian Americans. That's a serious problem. That's something
we should be able to agree on, but, unfortunately, we can't.
We saw unprecedented levels of weaponization under the
Biden Administration against the same American people that it
was supposed to be looking out for. Christopher Wray created an
internal memo that slandered traditional Catholics as anti-
Semites and White supremacists. It suggested that the FBI
monitor traditional Catholics and even set the stage for FBI
informants entering places of worship.
At the same time, remember, this was happening while Joe
Biden was, of course, facilitating the mass immigration of
illegal criminals into our country. Not protect--keeping us
safe in that instance, that's for sure.
Thankfully--and the American people are very thankful that
we finally have a President and a head of the FBI and head of
the DOJ who actually represent us and want to protect us.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. We really
appreciate your testimony and your time here.
Mr. Whitson, I'd like to start with you. The FBI utilized a
so-called hate map from the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law
Center, as it was going after traditional Catholics and
labeling them domestic extremists. Do you think that that's an
appropriate source?
Mr. Whitson. Absolutely not.
Mr. Gill. Do you know some of the other groups that the
SPLC labeled as hate groups or extremist groups?
Mr. Whitson. No, I don't, off the top of my head.
Mr. Gill. I can name a few. They also named the Alliance
Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, and Moms for
Liberty as hate groups as well.
Do you find it concerning that they were using the SPLC as
a source?
Mr. Whitson. Yes, I find it deeply concerning.
Mr. Gill. Do you think that Catholics who celebrate the
traditional Latin Mass are a threat to the American people?
Mr. Whitson. I don't, because I'm one that does that on
occasion.
Mr. Gill. Can you recall, before Joe Biden was in office,
any time whenever the FBI specifically targeted a group of
Americans solely because of their religious faith?
Mr. Whitson. No.
Mr. Gill. Do you think there's any evidence to suggest that
harassing Catholic Americans keeps Americans safe?
Mr. Whitson. Not at all.
Mr. Gill. Got it. Do you think that we've seen them move
away from this sort of flagrant weaponization since President
Trump has entered office?
Mr. Whitson. Absolutely.
Mr. Gill. What do you think that this Committee can do to
help ensure that we don't see a return of that sort of
weaponization?
Mr. Whitson. Well, No. 1, it's accountability, right.
That's not going to surprise you. I'm from the Foundation for
Government Accountability. It's not enough to identify a
problem and then just move on. You've got to hold people
accountable.
It's going back to the earlier point. If you want to re-
earn the trust of Americans and the FBI, they have to see
people held accountable. Then at the same time, you need to
refocus and look at what are the problems we have right now,
and that's the wide-open border, that's the violent crime. You
need to press the FBI to make sure they're pushing resources
where they should.
Mr. Gill. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank the gentleman. I'll yield five
minutes to myself.
I'm going to ask you all a question. What would you do if
you were sitting where we sit? What legislation--in other
words, every administration can come and go. The goal here to
someday be sure that, at the Attorney General's office, the
FBI, that we do not have to worry about this anymore, the
Department of Justice.
Is there any legislation--I'll start with Mr. Whitson, but
I'll go all the way down to Dr. Hunt--any legislation you would
suggest specifically to help or just to help in general if you,
again, were a legislator, if you were a Member of Congress?
Mr. Whitson. Thank you for that question. To start, I would
codify the President's authority to fire insubordinate or
unproductive employees. It's the Schedule F. I would extend
that to all Executive Branch employees.
I don't think it would have the kind of effect that some on
the left have claimed. It would just give whoever the Executive
is, whether that's a Democrat or Republican, the ability to
remove people that are, again, unproductive or insubordinate.
At the end of the day, Federal workers shouldn't have more
protection than private sector workers. Get this, Chair. A
private employee is five times more likely to get fired or laid
off from work than a government employee. That shouldn't be
that big of a disparity.
That's the problem with the way our government is set up is
there's no market forces on the Federal Government. When they
fail to address a problem, what is their solution? It's the
same every time. Just throw money at it, right? We weren't able
to fix this problem, so let's just bring more personnel in.
The people that were ineffective, that were unable to
accomplish the mission are then just transferred over to
another department so that this unit can do the mission. That's
wrong. In the private world, those people would have to be
dismissed and go find another job.
The President--and he can push that down for the FBI's case
to Director Patel, he can delegate that power, but to give him
the authority to remove those people more easily would be
great.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. Mr. Stout?
Mr. Stout. Chair, I think post-9/11, Director Mueller
changed the organization, shifted it to more of an
intelligence-based collection and got away from facts and law
enforcement. We still have that, but the emphasis was on best
guess.
That's what we need to return to is back to fact-based
investigations. I don't think that's going to take a lot of
legislative work. I just think that it's going to take internal
policy changes and working with DOJ. Shouldn't cost the
taxpayers anything. It's just a shift in thinking.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank you. You're correct. I don't think
that's necessarily a legislative change but just a change in
direction and thought, whoever is in control. Ms. Parker?
Ms. Parker. Thank you. First, just really quick, I wanted
to speak to Ranking Member Crockett. I have an appreciation for
what you're saying between right and wrong. I myself received a
message on X this morning wishing that I was inside of a Tesla
that would explode. I understand what it feels like to receive
a threat. It's entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, and I
should not be the target of violence.
I just wanted to tell you that is wrong and that should
be--someone needs to be held accountable for that.
Ms. Crockett. I will say, likewise that that is wrong.
Ms. Parker. Thank you That is wrong.
Mr. Van Drew. Just to chime in for a second. Unfortunately,
I'm getting used to it. It's a sad commentary, but I think we
all are. That is one thing that I believe there could be
bipartisan agreement, to just cut that out. It's our
responsibility to try not to promote it, all of us in whatever
position we have, and to make sure that we protect those that
are in harm's way.
I thank you for that remark as well. Legislation.
Ms. Parker. In answer, legislatively, getting back to what
the FBI's core mission is. I'm not sure how you're going to
legislate this, but the bottom line is there has to be
transparency, there has to be accountability, and there has to
be consequences.
Again, it's not about what side of the political spectrum
you stand on. It should be completely irrelevant. Again, when
you walk into the door as an FBI agent, it shouldn't matter if
you voted for this person or that person. You put your
political persuasions and opinions to the side, and you do the
right thing for the right reasons.
I am a very big proponent, obviously, of stopping violent
crime, stopping human trafficking, and keeping all Americans
safe.
Mr. Van Drew. Do you think there should be, for those that
misuse their power in the FBI or in general, Department of
Justice, should there be enhanced penalties or penalties?
Ms. Parker. Absolutely. If you're abusing your law
enforcement power to push your political and social agendas and
doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, you must be held
accountable.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
Ms. Parker. Again, I agree with Whitson. In the private
sector, I came from a hedge fund and worked on Wall Street
before this. That would not be tolerated. If you're not doing
your job and you're not contributing to the mission, it is not
OK to be a Federal employee and just come and collect a
paycheck when you're actually not contributing to the mission.
Unfortunately, I saw that quite frequently at the FBI. I
would say a small percentage of the agents are doing a lot of
the work.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
Dr. Hunt?
Dr. Hunt. I have a very concrete suggestion. I would
request that Director Patel, Deputy Director Bongino put into
policy that no investigation can be opened without predication.
That's currently not what policy is. That should also be, as
far as I can tell, legislated.
Moreover, the second point I would request was that all FBI
agents serve the Constitution, not any political agenda. The
concrete one is assessments, investigations are based only on
predication.
Mr. Van Drew. I thank you for that.
I want to thank everybody for being here today. Like I
said, time is treasure. It's a big deal. We appreciate all of
you.
It concludes today's hearing. Without objection, all
Members will have--
Ms. Crockett. Oh, sorry. I have a UC.
Mr. Van Drew. OK.
Ms. Crockett. Sorry about that. I'd like unanimous consent
to enter into the record an article titled, ``No Bias Found in
FBI Report on Catholic Extremists.''
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Mr. Van Drew. All Members will have five legislative days
to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or
additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:54 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on Oversight can be found at: https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=118055.
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