As House Republicans continue their effort to expose perceived political bias within the FBI, the agency’s director was in the hot seat this week for a hearing that was at times quite confrontational.
One of the most direct lines of questioning came from U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who focused primarily on evidence that the bureau has essentially ignored alleged criminal acts by members of the Biden family.
He began by quoting a damning message sent by Hunter Biden that seemed to suggest he had been using his father’s political ties to perpetrate a “shakedown” of a foreign figure.
Gaetz pressed Wray on the perception that the FBI has failed to investigate the Biden family because of a “two-tiered justice system.”
The back-and-forth became even more contentious when Wray refused to address the corruption ostensibly on display in the WhatsApp message.
“You seem deeply uncurious about it — almost suspiciously uncurious,” the Florida Republican replied. “Are you protecting Biden?”
He then referenced Wray’s earlier testimony that he was unaware of any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act involvement in the bureau’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, protest on Capitol Hill.
“You give answers that later a court deems are not true, and then at the end of the day, you won’t criticize an obvious shakedown when it’s directly in front of us, and it appears as though you are whitewashing conduct of corrupt people,” Gaetz added.
. @briebriejoy and @robbysoave react to Rep. Matt Gaetz and FBI director Christopher Wray's exchange on Capitol Hill over Hunter Biden's Whatsapp messages: pic.twitter.com/jAFvq22eW5
— Rising (@RisingTheHill) July 12, 2023
Although his questioning received much of the attention after Wednesday’s hearing, other House Republicans have used their respective platforms to spotlight the perceived politicization of the FBI.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) set the stage for the hearing with his recitation of various GOP concerns, including evidence that the FBI was complicit in attempting to cover up and discredit stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election.
“When the court says the FBI misled, that’s a nice way of saying they lied,” Jordan said. “They lied, and as a result, important information was kept from ‘we the people,’ days before the most important election we have. The election of the president of the United States, election of the commander-in-chief. … American speech is censored, parents are called terrorists, Catholics are called radicals, and I haven’t even talked about the spying that took place on a presidential campaign or the raiding of a former president’s home.”
