FBI Director Christopher Wray is expected to face a wide range of questions from GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary panel who argue that his agency has been weaponized against political opponents. Wray was nominated by former President Trump. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FBI Director Christopher Wray is expected to face a wide range of questions from GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary panel who argue that his agency has been weaponized against political opponents. Wray was nominated by former President Trump.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FBI Director Christopher Wray will be before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning as Chairman Jim Jordan focuses on the agency’s handling of investigations into President Biden’s son, Hunter, and the current federal charges against former President Donald Trump.
The hearing is billed as an oversight session of the agency, but Jordan and other Republican members of the panel are expected to reiterate their belief that the FBI has been “weaponized” by political appointees to target Trump and others conservatives, while the president’s son and other Democrats are not pursued as aggressively.
In an excerpt from his prepared statement to the panel, Wray said the FBI protects the country “from a vast array of threats.”
“The work that the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes far beyond the one or two investigations that seem to grab all the headlines,” the statement said. He cited the office’s work against violent crime, illegal drugs and intellectual property theft as examples.
Recently, David Weiss, Trump’s appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware, announced a plea deal after a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden. Biden was charged with two minor tax violations and a firearms offense. GOP lawmakers strongly criticized the deal, calling it a “sweetheart deal” and saying it did not reflect all the evidence developed by government investigators.
“There are a lot of issues,” Jordan said in an interview with Fox on Monday about the FBI, when asked what he would focus on at Wednesday’s hearing. It cited information reported by whistleblowers about agency practices, the treatment of parents by law enforcement officials during COVID, and questions about the federal program known as FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. which expires at the end of the year and carries out surveillance of foreign persons. entities for reasons of national security.
Three House panels step up Hunter Biden probe
The court hearing is part of a three-pronged investigation, along with the House Oversight and Ways and Means committees, to examine various aspects of Hunter Biden’s legal problems related to his tax returns and his ties trade with foreign companies in Ukraine and China. Oversight Chairman Jim Comer says his focus is on the president, but has produced no evidence that President Biden received any payments related to his son’s business dealings or engaged in any improper activity during his tenure. stage as vice president or later.
Jordan and other Trump allies have criticized the FBI for its role in the investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, so Wray is likely to face questions on that issue.
Comer says his investigation looks into “the Biden family business,” citing whistleblowers who say they have evidence that Hunter Biden coordinated with his father in business deals that enriched several family members. Comer recently threatened Wray with contempt of Congress if he did not turn over internal FBI reports related to the agency’s investigation into Hunter Biden.
But a whistleblower whom Comer has publicly named as having evidence about Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign companies, Gal Luft, was indicted by the Justice Department on Monday. In an eight-count indictment, Justice alleges that Luft acted as an unregistered foreign agent, engaged in arms trafficking and made false statements to federal agents. Luft, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, was arrested in February in Cyprus but fled and remains a fugitive, according to the Justice Department.
The indictment alleges that Luft worked with the Chinese government without registering as a foreign agent to negotiate arms sales from China to Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Kenya. It also says Luft conspired to sell Iranian oil to a Chinese energy company.
On Monday, the Congressional Integrity Project, a liberal advocacy group created to crack down on the GOP probes, released a report of the first six months of House Republican oversight efforts. Kyle Herring, the group’s executive director, said the House GOP had little to show for their probes: “Instead of working across the aisle to address the issues that keep Americans awake in the night, like health care, gun violence, etc. and the economy – James Comer, Jim Jordan and their colleagues at MAGA have wasted half a year chasing conspiracy theories and spewing nonsense on Fox News.”
IRS whistleblower says GOP panel’s Hunter Biden probe was ‘slow’
The House Ways and Means Committee voted last month to release the closed-door testimony of two whistleblowers who were involved in the government’s investigation into Hunter Biden.
Gary Shapley, a 14-year veteran IRS investigator he told the panel in a statement in May that agency directors “went slow” on examining years of tax violations and gave preferential political treatment to Hunter Biden. Shapley also recounted a meeting with Weiss, who he said requested, but was denied, the appointment of a special counsel to decide how to proceed with possible charges in the case.
But Weiss sent a letter Monday to the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-C., in which she specified that she wanted to “clear up an apparent misperception and avoid future confusion” and stated that she did not did. requested the designation, but had discussions with Justice Department officials about his authority to file charges in a jurisdiction outside his own. Weiss wrote that he “has never been denied authority to file charges in any jurisdiction.” Jordan signaled to tweet he as skeptical of Weiss’ claim.
David Weiss says he wasn’t limited to where he could file charges in the Hunter Biden case.
Two IRS whistleblowers say the opposite was true.
Do you trust Biden’s DOJ to tell the truth?
— Representative Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 10, 2023
And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Tuesday that he wants Weiss to come to answer questions about the Hunter Biden investigation and said Weiss’ letter about the investigation was not enough.
Following allegations by Shapley and another unnamed whistleblower about the multi-agency handling of the investigation, Comer has requested transcripts of interviews with Weiss and a dozen other officials from the IRS, FBI and United States Secret Service. Because Weiss has said his investigation is ongoing, he is not expected to agree to appear until the matter is concluded.
GOP effort to defund the FBI
Jordan and other FBI critics plan to use the upcoming debate on federal spending bills to block money for some FBI programs and costs, including a planned new headquarters for the agency. Lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia have been pushing to secure a site in the suburbs outside of DC for the new facility.
In a letter to House Appropriations Speaker Kay Granger on Tuesday, Jordan recommended that the annual bill funding the Justice Department “eliminate any funding for the FBI that is not absolutely essential to the agency to carry out its mission, including as a starting point eliminating taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarters facility and instead examining options for relocating FBI headquarters outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area.” Jordan also called for the spending bill to prohibit “retaliation against FBI whistleblowers, including by prohibiting taxpayer dollars from being used to pay the salary of any employee of the Department of Justice or the FBI found to have retaliated against a whistleblower.”
Since the spending bills will need bipartisan votes to clear the House and Senate and be signed into law by the president, the push to cut money for FBI priorities will face an uphill battle. But it’s part of a growing public effort to roll back the agency, which has become a lightning rod among the GOP base.
House GOP Considers Impeachment of Attorney General Garland
President McCarthy has raised the possibility of opening an impeachment inquiry into Attorney General Merrick Garland if the Justice Department does not turn over materials that House panels have requested. The move follows months of GOP lawmakers criticizing Garland for what they believe is a “two-tier” system for handling investigations of Republicans and Democrats, and in the wake of Hunter Biden’s plea deal.
Wray has also come under fire from some GOP lawmakers and 2024 presidential candidates. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said shortly after announcing his bid for the 2024 presidential nomination that he would shoot Wray if he is elected to the White House. Wray was appointed by Trump in 2017. FBI directors serve 10-year terms unless they resign, retire or are removed from office.
Garland isn’t the only Biden cabinet official House Republicans are considering removing. Many conservatives are pushing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the House opened an impeachment inquiry into President Biden in June, related to GOP arguments that he has failed to enforce immigration laws.
But House Republicans are divided on efforts to remove the president or members of his cabinet. While far-right conservatives insist it’s time to vote soon to remove one or more officials, more moderate GOP lawmakers tell NPR it’s important to build a case that an official is guilty of wrongdoing. Several GOP members say the party’s base is eager for the House to vote to impeach the president and others as payback for the two impeachment votes against Trump, but the speaker has made it clear that the House will conduct any investigation of ‘impeachment by regular order: holding hearings. and consider evidence through the corresponding committees, before any vote is taken in the Chamber.
NPR’s Carrie Johnson contributed to this report
