Chris Wray Has Failed His Fundamental Duties as FBI Director

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-10 14:39:28 | Updated at 2024-12-25 16:47:47 2 weeks ago

Chris Wray Has Failed His Fundamental Duties as FBI Director
grassley.senate.gov via RealClearPolitics ^ | Sen Chuck Grassley

Posted on 12/10/2024 4:49:06 AM PST by RoosterRedux

The Honorable Christopher Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Director Wray:

Seven years ago, I presided over your confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after President Trump nominated you to become only the eighth FBI Director in the Bureau’s 116-year history. The Senate confirmed you to your current position in hopes you’d bring needed change to the FBI after the politicization and scandal presided over by your predecessor, Director James Comey. While I sincerely congratulated you on your nomination, I reminded you that an FBI Director’s ten-year term is a ceiling, not a floor, and laid down my expectations for your service.1 These included foremost the prompt and thorough compliance with congressional oversight requests and the protection of whistleblowers, whom I’ve spent my career defending.2 As we stand at the threshold of a new Congress and a new administration, with seven years of water under the bridge, you’ve failed in these fundamental duties as director. Even President Biden, who denied weaponizing his administration against President-elect Trump, has finally admitted that political bias has indeed infected law enforcement.3 These failures are serious enough and their pattern widespread enough to have shattered my confidence in your leadership and the confidence and hope many others in Congress placed in you. Rather than turn over a new leaf at the FBI, you’ve continued to read from the old playbook of weaponization, double standards, and a relentless game of hide-and-seek with the Congress. As your tenure as FBI Director comes to an end, I want to take this opportunity to tell you where you went wrong, for the benefit of the Bureau and that of your successor.

Contrary to the assurances you made to gain confirmation to your position, the FBI has shown outright disdain for congressional oversight during your tenure. By doing so, it has hindered Congress in the exercise of its constitutional duty to oversee the actions of executive branch agencies and officials. You pledged under oath at your confirmation hearing to assist members of the Judiciary Committee and the entire Senate with oversight requests, and said you would do everything in your power to make sure the FBI is “appropriately responsive and prompt” in responding to these requests.4 You didn’t live up to your word. Promises made, promises broken has become a recurrent theme under your leadership.

One of the most egregious examples is the FBI’s failure to provide basic information I requested more than two years ago related to the FBI’s ongoing mishandling of sexual harassment claims made by the FBI’s female employees. This request was not pulled out of a hat. It was based on credible whistleblower disclosures alleging hundreds of FBI employees had retired or resigned to avoid accountability for sexual misconduct.5 Whistleblowers also alleged the FBI had disciplined senior officials less severely than their subordinates for this misconduct.6 In November 2022, I released internal FBI documents corroborating these disclosures.7 I and my staff ever since have asked repeatedly for information sufficient to determine how FBI handled these serious claims and how widespread the problem really is. The FBI, for its part, told the media it would provide the information to me.8 You personally told me at a December 5, 2023, Judiciary Committee hearing, when I confronted you with the FBI’s blatant inaction, that you would check with your team and then follow up with me.9 Your Deputy Director, Paul Abbate, also publicly stated the FBI is serious about removing officials for sexual misconduct.10 After a year since you made that pledge, over three years since Deputy Director Abbate’s public comments, and after many more requests to FBI to provide this information, neither of you have followed up or followed through. This inexcusable delay and obstruction by you and Deputy Director Abbate has prevented Congress and the Judiciary Committee from addressing the shocking sexual misconduct at the FBI. This is a promise made and broken, on an issue of utmost importance.

Likewise, in May and August of 2022, I wrote you requesting information about the vetting of individuals evacuated from Afghanistan through Operations Allies Welcome (OAW).11 These letters highlighted troubling revelations in a February 2022 report from the DOJ Office of Inspector General, which revealed Afghanistan evacuees weren’t vetted against all available DOD tactical data prior to being paroled into the U.S. by the Biden-Harris Department of Homeland Security.12 The report revealed the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) flagged at least 50 Afghan evacuees for the FBI as “potentially significant security concerns.”13 FBI failed entirely to answer my inquiry on this serious national security issue. Instead, in July 2022, FBI participated in a classified multi-agency briefing to congressional staff on the issue, which revealed new information about additional individuals beyond the 50 individuals initially flagged by NGIC, but failed to answer my outstanding questions.14 At an August 4, 2022, Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, I asked you directly whether the FBI knows where certain flagged evacuees are located. Your answer left the impression that you hadn’t even looked into the matter, despite my repeated inquiries. You said, “I can’t sit here right now and tell you that we know where all are located at any given time. That’s probably true.”15 Since that time, on October 7, 2024, the FBI arrested Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi after he allegedly planned an election day terrorist attack in the U.S. on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).16 The DOJ’s criminal complaint claimed Tawhedi, an Afghan national, entered the U.S. in September 2021 during the same time period as the Biden-Harris Administration’s Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome, and was placed on parole status pending his immigration proceedings.17 You’ve failed to respond to my inquiries on that serious matter as well.18

(Excerpt) Read more at grassley.senate.gov ...

TOPICS: News/Current Events
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1 posted on 12/10/2024 4:49:06 AM PST by RoosterRedux

To: RoosterRedux

this was a bad choice for trump so was bill barr

To: ronnie raygun

Recommended to Trump by Chris Christie, back when Trump still thought Christie was trustworthy.

3 posted on 12/10/2024 4:58:32 AM PST by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative.)

To: All

Here's great excerpt from pages 5 and 6.. As an aside, I would have posted the entire letter but it's really long and there are many footnotes.

President Trump has been subjected to a continuing double standard, an area where your failed tenure is consistent with your predecessor’s. While the FBI under your leadership turned a blind eye to information contained in the FD-1023 that was prejudicial to President Biden, FBI agents conducted an unprecedented raid of President Trump’s home in Florida to serve a warrant for records.35 In that raid, roughly 30 armed agents entered the home of a former president of the United States, with full authorization to use lethal force if needed to execute its warrant, and even searched the former First Lady’s clothing drawers.36

This raid occurred despite serious questions about the need for it. President Trump apparently was cooperating with the investigation, notwithstanding liberal press reports. He voluntarily turned over 15 boxes of documents months before the FBI’s drastic escalation.37 Further, on June 3, 2022, two months before the raid on Trump’s home, Jay Bratt, Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the DOJ’s National Security Division, accompanied by FBI agents, visited Trump at his Mar A-Lago residence. President Trump told the group, “I appreciate the job you’re doing,” and added, “[a]nything you need, let us know.”38 Bratt days later sent a letter to a Trump lawyer requesting placement of a stronger lock on the door where remaining records were kept “until further notice,” which was done.39 Following this, on June 22, 2022, the Trump organization complied with a subpoena for security footage taken at Mar-A-Lago, the last official action before FBI entered his home to execute a search warrant, treatment no former president has had to endure, which was approved under your leadership.40

No such raid took place at Hillary Clinton’s premises, even though she and her staff mishandled highly classified information while using a non-government server after repeated warnings from State Department security personnel it was a security risk, and despite the fact her associates destroyed potentially-incriminating evidence.41 Indeed, in an unheard of agreement that my oversight exposed, the FBI agreed to destroy records and laptops associated with Clinton’s staff after reviewing them, even though those records were potentially responsive to congressional investigations.42

No such raid occurred on the home of President Biden, even though his records were consciously divided up, some stored at his home in a garage next to his Corvette, others stored at the Penn Biden Center, and that still more classified records were found by his attorneys in the days following his initial admission that he absconded with highly classified documents that dated to over a period of decades.43 This is also despite the fact that it took the White House more than two months to publicly disclose that the classified documents had been found.44 I warned you after the Mar-a-Lago raid that it risked the credibility of the FBI, and it has done just that.45 A double standard in a nation that rightly boasts that “justice is blind” is no standard at all.

4 posted on 12/10/2024 5:15:02 AM PST by RoosterRedux (Emerson (paraphrased): "If you strike at the king, don't fail." The Democrats failed. )

To: hinckley buzzard

DJT learned his lessons
I always believed the intelligence agencies were acting in good faith until the Clintons and Obama came along. Glad they have all been exposed. Time to hold them to account. Trump appears to have the team to do that. The rats will probably go into hiding as the walls close in.

5 posted on 12/10/2024 5:22:14 AM PST by TStro (Come and take it!)

To: RoosterRedux

Another strongly worded letter. He could have held Wray in contempt. Still can. Right now. Nothing stopping him.

6 posted on 12/10/2024 5:23:33 AM PST by Sirius Lee (Gosh, that's swell!)

To: Sirius Lee

7 posted on 12/10/2024 5:26:49 AM PST by RoosterRedux (Emerson (paraphrased): "If you strike at the king, don't fail." The Democrats failed. )

To: RoosterRedux

Grassley is my senator. After the fraudulent 2020 election, I contacted him to have him investigate massive voting irregularities. He accused me of partisan rancor and conspiracy theory, and said this is the “cleanest election he’s seen”. Grassley’s strongly worded memos are to give the appearance of doing his job, while He’s clearly supporting the establishment…

8 posted on 12/10/2024 5:33:34 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)

To: RoosterRedux

Don’t sugar coat it. The man is a crininal. He needs to go to jail. But that won;t happen.he will retire with a pension and benefits most Americans could only dream of. He will go on the talk show circuit and receive tongue-baths from the msmediawhores. Probably write a book and cash in further…..

9 posted on 12/10/2024 5:34:56 AM PST by wny

To: RoosterRedux

10 posted on 12/10/2024 5:37:32 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)

To: RoosterRedux

Biden pardon in 3, 2, 1……

11 posted on 12/10/2024 5:51:54 AM PST by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals)

To: TStro

Do not leave Bush and Cheney off your list.

12 posted on 12/10/2024 5:55:36 AM PST by AndyJackson

To: RoosterRedux

Read the letter, it was well done. It suggests he and Abatte should move on. I think I would have preferred a request for his immediate departure.

Bottom line, Wray and Comey were atrocious leaving a stain that can never be cleaned out. The day can’t come soon enough for wray to depart.

13 posted on 12/10/2024 6:02:47 AM PST by 1Old Pro

To: RoosterRedux

The Honorable Christopher Wray

14 posted on 12/10/2024 6:37:59 AM PST by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)

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