Director Chris Wray defended what he called the "real FBI" during a contentious congressional hearing Wednesday, rejecting a list of grievances from angry Republicans who are threatening to defund some operations and claiming the Justice Department is unfair to political conservatives, including Donald Trump. Wray, who testified for nearly six hours, refused to engage specific questions about ongoing federal investigations, including those involving former President Trump and Hunter Biden, the AP reports. The son of President Biden recently reached an agreement to plead guilty to misdemeanor federal tax charges; Republicans have derided that as a sweetheart deal.
In testy exchanges with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, Wray rejected the GOP assertion that the bureau was favoring the Biden family and said the notion that the bureau was involved the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was "ludicrous." Referring to his own background, he labeled as "insane" the idea that he harbors bias against conservatives. "The work the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines," said Wray, a registered Republican whom Trump nominated to lead the FBI after firing James Comey in 2017.
The director spelled out the bureau's crime-fighting work breaking up drug cartels, taking some 60 criminal suspects off the streets each day, and protecting Americans from "a staggering array of threats." He said, "That is the real FBI." It's the latest display of the new normal on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who have long billed themselves as the champions of police and "law and order" are deeply at odds with federal law enforcement and the FBI, accusing the bureau of bias dating to investigations of Trump when he was president. This new dynamic has forced Democrats into a position of defending law enforcement agencies they have long criticized.
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The committee chairman, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, said he is trying to stop what his party calls the "weaponization" of the federal justice system. Jordan opened the hearing reciting a federal judge's recent ruling against the government's efforts to halt misinformation on social media and listed other grievances over the FBI's treatment of conservatives. During one tense exchange with Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, Wray noted that in Florida, the congressman's home state, the number of FBI applicants is up by more than 100%. "We're deeply proud of them, and they deserve better than you," Gaetz said.
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