At a U.S. Senate oversight hearing on Thursday, Josh Hawley (R-MO) got his chance to confront FBI director Christopher Wray about whistleblower allegations of FBI misuse of power.
Hawley highlights whistleblower claims that the FBI is trying to augment the actual domestic terrorist threat of those seen as “right-wing”.
Benny Johnson shared on Twitter part of the exchange between Hawley and Wray captioning it, “Sen. Josh Hawley leaves FBI Director Chris Wray in PANICKED silence after EXPOSING woke FBI for 2 straight minutes”.
The clip starts with Hawley, “Whistleblowers who have come forward to this body, to members of the House. The FBI has been sending more than, in one instance, more than a dozen agents to a rural Pennsylvania home of a catholic pro-life demonstrator to arrest him at gunpoint. In front of his children, in early morning hours, despite the fact that he posed no risk of violence or threat and had previously offered to turn himself in.”
“Numerous whistleblowers, field agents alleged that DC your headquarters has pulled them off of working on child sex abuse cases, working on human trafficking cases. In order to work on January 6th matters, for this reason, to give the appearance, they say, they say there are hundreds of new domestic terrorism cases in the country, when in fact there are not,” Hawley continued.
“Whistleblowers, field agents, have also said DC has ordered the use of SWAT teams on nonviolent suspects who may have attended a January 6th rally and they have been ordered to conduct surveillance and knock on doors of people who were not even in DC on January 6th. And again all of this, according to the whistleblowers, these are your agents, all of this in order to make it look as if there is a mass surge in domestic terrorism all across the country. When in fact the stats are being padded by the political directive of your office,” He added.
Hawley went on, “They also say, these whistleblowers, the DC leadership deliberately suppressed investigations into Hunter Biden, contrary to FBI procedure and have also retaliated against FBI agents and whistleblowers who have contacted Congress. Which by the way they are protected by statute to do so. THIS is what’s happening at your FBI, while you are evading oversight hearings. Mr. Director do you think you’re still up to this job?”
Wray not addressing anything Hawley laid out replies, “I absolutely think I’m still up to the job and I think our workforce feels the same way.”
Hawley quickly retorts, “Well I don’t, frankly I think you should have been gone a long time ago. And given your behavior recently, I think it only makes it more clear.” Hawley then goes on to make sure Wray won’t be dipping out on the second round of questioning as he did in August.
Sen. Josh Hawley leaves FBI Director Chris Wray in PANICKED silence after EXPOSING woke FBI for 2 straight minutes pic.twitter.com/8BJaOfzNCE
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2022
Hawley is very concerned with the whistleblower accusations coming from the rank and file within the FBI. He also called out FBI Director Wray for heading off to vacation in August instead of sticking around for the second round of questioning.
You can see the full exchange between Hawley and Wray below:
- Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Answer Directly the Question of Whether or Not Donald Trump is Still ‘Eligible’ to be President in Midst of State Ballot Fiascos - January 7, 2024
- Idaho AG Joins 18 Other Attorneys General to Halt Jack Smith’s Move to Speed up Donald Trump’s Trial with SCOTUS - December 21, 2023
- Leo Terrell Emphasizes that Firing Harvard’s Claudine Gay Wouldn’t be Racist, Keeping Her Would be - December 21, 2023