It’s been nearly four months since Christopher Wray stepped down as FBI director, effectively fired by an incoming President Trump who accused him of weaponizing law enforcement against him on behalf of President Biden. Now, with Republicans in full control of the government, a House subcommittee is holding a hearing to see whether the FBI was used by the Biden White House as its own personal attack dog.
Wednesday’s hearing, before the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight, is titled “Inside the Biden FBI: Waste, Fraud, Abuse, and a Bureau Leadership in Decline”. The hearing promises to examine whether the bureau strayed from its core mission of fighting crime, and devoted its resources toward “partisan investigations, ineffective procedures, and abusive tactics.” Critics say Mr. Wray’s time as director was marred by politically motivated activities, such as the raid on Mar-a-Lago to seize classified documents, and the bureau’s work with Facebook and Twitter to suppress news coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), the subcommittee’s chair, told The Daily Wire the hearing will “uncover the full extent of these misused resources and the damage done to the American people.” Mr. Van Drew and Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the subcommittee’s ranking member, did not respond to requests for comment.
Among those expected to testify are two former FBI special agents: Nicole Parker, now a Fox News contributor, and Richard Stout, the director of Reform the Bureau, a coalition of former and active FBI Special Agents. Mr. Stout told the Sun he plans to address the foundational problems that have weighed the bureau down for the past 24 years, which he blamed on the overbearing style of former Director Robert Muller’s 12 years in office, when the FBI turned into “more of an intelligence operation.”
Much of the committee’s focus, however, will likely be on the August 8, 2022, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, which was authorized by Mr. Wray. The raid – in which officers entered Melania Trump’s private chambers as well as Barron Trump’s bedroom – enraged Mr. Trump, who, long after the classified documents case was thrown out, the charges were dismissed and Mr. Smith sent packing, still wants everyone involved to be held accountable.
The House hearing has been long in the works. “It was planned before (now-FBI Director Kash) Patel was confirmed,” according to Reform the Bureau.
“If you have Congress taking a look at how an organization spends taxpayer money, I wouldn’t characterize it as strictly unnecessary. It would have been more impactful maybe six months ago,” said John Nantz, a retired FBI supervisor.
This could explain why the Subcommittee will also use the hearing to highlight how the bureau “is focused on regaining public trust and returning to its original mandate of protecting the American public” under Mr. Patel’s leadership.
Since taking office, Mr. Patel’s FBI has focused its efforts on targeting fentanyl traffickers, violent criminals, terrorist financiers, and members of the bureau’s Top 10 Most Wanted list.
Last week, Mr. Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of Henry Josue Villatoro Santos, a 24-year-old Salvadoran and one of the top-3 alleged leaders of the violent MS-13 gang, on an outstanding immigration warrant. “That is not done easily. That is done with brilliant law enforcement,” Mr. Patel said during a press conference. The bureau has also arrested three fugitives from its Top 10 most wanted list, including Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales, a suspected MS-13 leader, who was nabbed in Mexico and extradited to the United States on charges of racketeering, narco-terrorism conspiracy, and alien smuggling.
Mr. Patel has also vowed to “reorient” its agents, analysts, and SOS operatives from its Washington D.C. headquarters and relocate them into the field. The goal is to “take on this violent crime explosion that has occurred over these last four or five years,” Mr. Patel told Fox News last month, which Mr. Stout is “pretty excited about.”
“This new administration is attempting to fix the problem, and they’re trying to do it in a way that just hasn’t been done before,” Mr. Stout added.
Wednesday’s hearing is one part of a multi-pronged effort by the Trump Administration to root out what they believe is deep-seated corruption in the FBI and the Justice Department. On her first day as attorney general in early February, Ms. Bondi launched a “Weaponization Working Group,” designed to probe what it considers to be wrongdoing by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, as well as by state and country prosecutors who pursued Mr. Trump in New York and Georgia. Even before Ms. Bondi started, Mr. Trump’s lieutenants fired dozens of DOJ prosecutors and FBI officials who were involved in Mr. Smith’s investigation or the Mar-a-Lago raid.
The hearing is slated for 2:00 pm on Wednesday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
