FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in the wake of recent whistleblower allegations put forward by Sen. Chuck Grassley that the FBI purposely mishandled potential criminal information regarding the president’s son, Hunter Biden, in the leadup to the 2020 national election.
These allegations served as the backdrop for larger concerns expressed by Senators that the FBI and the Department of Justice have become “thoroughly politicized,” as Sen. Ted Cruz put it – and this was all before the recent, highly controversial FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Resort.
Of particular concern to Cruz was an FBI training document obtained and published by Project Veritas, a nonprofit that “investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions” just two days before the hearing.
The document outlined a guide to so-called “Domestic Terrorism Symbols,” including phrases and events that are supposed to help federal agents identify American citizens who are “MVEs,” or “Militia Violent Extremists.”
Prominent in the guide were pro-gun slogans, as well as “Revolutionary War imagery,” such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag.
Pointing to a blow-up of the alleged document during the hearing, Cruz chided Wray, “Also included on this is a text that I was particularly struck [by] … the Gonzales Battle Flag — ‘Come and Take It’ — as indicative of being a violent extremist militia. Well, I will self-report right now that every day in the Senate I wear my boots that have the Gonzales battle flag on the back of them.”
Cruz put his Gonzales Flag-clad boots on the dais facing Wray and then said, “Director Wray … what are y’all doing?”
When pressed on whether he agreed with the FBI training document’s conclusions, Wray proclaimed that he was not familiar with that particular document and could not comment directly on it.
Cruz was not the only Senator to aggressively question Wray.
Sen. John Kennedy pressed the FBI director hard on the alleged partisanship demonstrated by Special Agent In Charge Timothy Thibault of the Washington FBI Field Office in some of his social media posts.
Thibault was involved in both the Trump-Russia investigation and the Hunter Biden investigation, according to Kennedy.
The situation involving Thibault was first brought to light in a May 2022 letter from Grassley to FBI Director Wray.
Wray told Kennedy, “I should say that when I read the letter that describes the kinds of things that you’re talking about, I found it deeply troubling.”
“I feel very strongly, and I have communicated consistently since I started as director, that our folks need to make sure that they’re not just doing the right thing, that they’re doing it in the right way and that they avoid even the appearance of bias or lack of objectivity,” Wray continued.
While Wray avoided direct comment on the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation, he did signal support for protecting the current and former FBI employees who have allegedly provided information regarding widescale misconduct in the handling of this criminal investigation.
“If there are allegations of misconduct by FBI employees, we want to make sure that we get that information so we can use the tools we have to go after that conduct. But certainly, I condemn in the strongest possible terms any prospect of retaliation against whistleblowers,” said Wray.
Even though Grassley made the claims of these whistleblowers a matter of public record, he did not pursue a line of questioning on the matter directly. Instead, he drilled Wray for what he perceived as the FBI’s failure to address rising crime in favor of furthering a political agenda.
“The Justice Department and the FBI must also make violent crime a top priority. However, instead of doing so, it seems like the Biden Justice Department and FBI have focused on intimidating parents who are concerned about how schools treat their children,” Grassley remarked.