 We're getting up here we go on oversight of the FBI the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas Mr. Gooden to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance But anyway it was obviously a Democrat turned out recognize himself for opening statement eight days ago suicide by cop eight days ago in July 4th in the Western District of Louisiana the court found that the federal government suppressed Americans first amendment free speech rights in his conclusion on page 154 the court said this the judge said this plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition opposition to COVID-19 vaccines opposition to COVID-19 masking lockdowns opposition to the lab leak theory of COVID-19 opposition to the validity of the 2020 election opposition to president Biden's policies statements that the hunter Biden laptop was true and opposition to policies of the government officials in power all were suppressed is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature the court further writes the United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ministry of truth specific to the FBI the court said this the FBI's failure to alert social media companies that the Biden laptop story was real and not Russian disinformation is particularly troubling the FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social media companies repeatedly to look out for quote hack and dump operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election even after Facebook specifically asked whether the laptop story was Russian disinformation the FBI refused to comment resulting in social media companies suppression of the story and as a result millions millions of our fellow citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3rd 2020 election additionally the FBI was included in industry meetings bilateral meetings received and forwarded alleged misinformation social media companies and actually misled companies in regard to the laptop story when the court says the FBI misled that's a nice way of saying they lied they lied and as a result important information was kept from we the people days before the most important election we have election of president United States election of the commander-in-chief in a survey last fall four out of five Americans said they believe there's a two-tiered system of justice in America today they said that because there is they said that because of what they've witnessed think about what Americans have seen National School Board Association left-wing political group writes the White House and asked them to treat parents as at school board meetings as terrorists and the Garland Justice Department does just that they put together a memo set up a dedicated line of threat communication a snitch line on parents as a result parents get investigated by our FBI get a threat tag associated with their name 25 of them because whistleblowers came and told us were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Americans have seen the FBI's Richmond field office put together a memorandum saying pro-life Catholics are extremists they've seen 20 FBI agents SWAT team members show up at the home of Mark Halk and arrest him in front of his wife and seven children even though he had indicated he'd be happy to turn himself in what was he arrested for him in his 12-year-old son were praying outside an abortion facility some guy starts screaming in his son face and he did what what frankly any dad would do defended his child what's interesting is the National School Board Association apologized for the letter but the Attorney General refuses to rescind his directive the FBI did rescind thank goodness the Richmond Catholic memorandum but they refuse to tell Congress who wrote it and who approved it and Mr. Halk Mr. Halk when he got his day in court he was acquitted by a jury of his peers American speeches censored parents are called terrorists Catholics are called radicals and I haven't even talked about the spying that took place of a presidential campaign or the rating of a former president's home but maybe what's more frightening is what happens if you come forward and tell Congress if you're a whistleblower come tell the legislature come tell the Congress what's going on look out you will be retaliated against ask Garrett O'Boyle who told Congress about these issues took his clearance they took his pay they took his kids clothes ask Gary Shapley 14-year veteran at the IRS handled some of the biggest international tax fraud cases at the agency he comes forward and the Justice Department kicks him off the case but here's what's truly unbelievable here's what's amazing with all that history with all that the Justice Department the FBI want the taxpayers they censored the parents they labeled the pro-life Catholics they called radical they want them to pay for a new FBI headquarters and they want FISA reauthorization of the 702 program in its current form since in the director's opening statement I mean you can't make this stuff up there are 204,000 reasons why Republicans will oppose FISA reauthorization in its current form 204,000 times the FBI improperly searched the 702 database and unlike the FBI censorship in the court's opinion that was focused on conservatives the FBI's illegal scrutiny wasn't just limited to conservatives BLM supporters were illegally scrutinized by the FBI as well and I hope our Democrat friends will join us in opposing reauthorization of section 702 the way it's currently done and I think they will and I hope and I hope they will work with us in the appropriations process to stop the weaponization of the government against the American people and in this double standard that exists now in our justice system that I yield to the gentleman from New York for an opening statement Mr. Chairman not that long ago an oversight hearing of the FBI in this committee would have been a relatively bipartisan exercise my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would have asked legitimate questions about the functioning and mission of the Bureau some of the questions may have been tough debate may have gotten a little heated when we discussed important topics like privacy and discrimination but our questioning would have been grounded in advancing and overseeing the FBI's dual missions of enforcing federal laws and countering national security threats on American soil in short despite our disagreements we would have done our duty as members of the Judiciary Committee today unfortunately House Republicans will fall well short of that mark for them this hearing is little more than performance art it is an elaborate show designed with only two purposes in mind to protect Donald Trump from the consequences of his actions and to return him to the White House in the next election don't take my word for it Chairman Jordan announced his plan last August just days after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago he told an audience at CPAC the conservative political action conference that the investigation into Trump's wrongdoing was designed to quote help frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we make sure we need to make sure that he wins let me repeat that we need to make sure that he wins in pursuit of this goal chairman Jordan and committee Republicans have claimed for months that the FBI is corrupt rotten politicized and their favorite word weaponized against the American people chairman Jordan is launched an array of baseless investigations into the FBI most premised on absurd conspiracy theories so some so absurd that the chairman cannot possibly believe them to be true but this is where the extreme mega leadership of this Congress is brought us today today House Republicans will attack the FBI for having had the audacity to treat Donald Trump like any other citizen the strategy is simple really when in doubt chairman Jordan investigates the investigators the FBI dared to hold Trump accountable so Republicans must discredit the FBI at all costs you will hear claims today that the FBI's decision to investigate Donald Trump was somehow unfair you will hear that the report you will hear the Republicans attack the indictment of former President Trump on 37 counts related to his gross mishandling of national security information including information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries United States nuclear programs potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack the facts are made clear in the indictment quote the unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States foreign relations the safety of the United States military and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods close quote indeed the indictment goes on to describe how the former president made such unauthorized disclosures with him boasting about and showing his classified documents to numerous individuals without proper security clearance you will hear claims today that this indictment against Trump was unfair maybe even that it was unlawful you'll hear that the FBI should have just asked Trump a little more nicely one more time to hand over the documents you'll hear that the case was a political investigation from the start orient orchestrated by a liberal liberal loving FBI that ensured Trump would be wrongfully vilified at every turn these claims of course are completely untethered from the evidence even if you believe as chairman Jordan claims that President Trump has committed no crime surely we can agree that it is dangerous and profoundly responsible to have taken these documents from the White House and left them unsecured in Mar-a-Lago again don't take just my word for it Trump's secretary defense Mark Esper said that the former president's handling of this information put U.S. service members lives and the national security at risk and Trump's handpicked attorney general Bill Barr with whom I agree on very little hit the nail on the head when he described the former president's legal troubles as quote entirely of his own making he had no right to those documents the government tried for over a year quietly and with respect to get them back and he jerked them around when he faced a subpoena he didn't raise any legal arguments engage in the course of deceitful condo there was a clear trying crime if those allegations are true close quote the former president could have at any time for months simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution but House Republicans do not want to talk about any of that they seem incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald Trump for problems that are Trump's and Trump's alone you might hear today about a man named Stephen Dan Twono the former special agent in charge of the Washington field office during the investigation into the documents last month committee Republicans brought him in for an interview and shortly after that chairman Jordan released a letter purporting to describe Mr. Durentone Twono's testimony in fact chairman Jordan the summary of Mr. Dan Twono's words are a vast mischaracterization of what he actually said here's just one example chairman Jordan has claimed that Mr. Durentone Twono said he had quote no idea unquote why the Mar-a-Lago investigation was run out of the FBI's Washington field office instead of the Miami field office what the chairman hides is that just seconds later Mr. Dan Twono explained that quote the venue was here meaning Washington DC for the classified documents that it was quote not out of the ordinary for Washington to be lead office running the investigation and said that Washington has quote most experience and knowledge in working public corruption cases and are quote the experts in classified document investigations Mr. Jordan did not share the full record with the American public because it does not fit his chosen narrative my staff has worked to have a minimally redacted version of Mr. Dan Twono's full testimony released and I urge you to read the words for yourself in their entirety when you compare his actual words to Mr. Jordan's characterization you'll understand why I feel like this hearing room has become a theater and frankly it goes for many things that we will hear from the Republicans today you can expect to hear that the FBI is retaliating against his conservative employees and has a deep-seated conspiracy to support liberal candidates in ideology these claims are based on the words of several individuals people Republicans are somewhat laughably calling whistleblowers in fact evidence shows that these individuals were suspended for violating serious FBI policies one provided an unauthorized interview to Russian state-owned media another leaked information about an ongoing investigation placing FBI agents and witnesses at risk and another said that he wanted to use a senior FBI official as quote target practice chairman Jordan invited some of these so-called whistleblowers to testify before the weaponization subcommittee in May as it turns out two of the witnesses were ultimately paid $250,000 each for that testimony money raised in part by former Trump aid cash Patel and paid via a check whose memo line reads quote for holding the line and yet Republicans today will try that we'll try to claim that it is the FBI and not these witnesses who are somehow corrupt Republicans today will also attack President Biden starting with the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden they will ignore the fact that US Attorney David Weiss had the authority to bring charges in any district he sought fit and was able to operate fully free of interference they do not want to acknowledge that despite years of investigations present Biden is not been found to have engaged in any wrongdoing instead they'll try to convince you that Hunter Biden would have been charged with far more serious crimes had it not been for US Attorney Weiss being blocked by the Biden political machine once again when they do not like the outcome they investigate the investigators and work to discredit the outcome and Republicans will make false claims about the FBI's foreign influence task force claiming that it is somehow censoring conservatives in fact the task force plays a key role in making sure that Russia China Iran and other foreign entities cannot again interfere in our elections according to committee Republicans the task force's efforts to track and prevent foreign influence operations amount to attacks on conservative speech a nonsensical claim considering that the foreign influence task force has nothing to do with censoring American free speech in fact helps to ensure that American voices are heard by stopping Russian troll farms make no mistake in making these claims Republicans have all but rolled out the red carpet and beg Russia to once again interfere in our elections because they believe that doing so will get Trump reelected in 2024 and that is the goal of Republicans today. Republican claims that the FBI has been weaponized their personal attacks on director Ray they repeated calls to quote defund the FBI these are not victimless acts they are a clarion call to anti-government extremists and that call is being heard last year director Ray faced multiple credible death threats FBI employees faced more threats in the months after the Mar-a-Lago search than they had in the entire prior year. The problem has gotten so bad that FBI has had to stand up an entire new unit dedicated to combating threats to FBI agents and staff. It is far past time that Republicans realize the consequences of their actions. Republicans may want to downplay Trump's behavior and blame the FBI for his downfall but no matter what they say Trump risked the safety and security of the United States to remove those documents from the White House then lied to the government instead of returning them. Donald Trump must be held accountable and attempts to shield him from the consequences of his own actions are both transparent and despicable. Ultimately no matter how many times Republicans attack director Ray or the FBI or the investigation at Mar-a-Lago I trust in the rule of law. Mr. Trump will have his day in court I believe the system will hold him accountable and I thank the men and women of the FBI who helped bring the classified information to safety and protect the national security of our nation. Thank you for being here today director Ray. I hope your agents will not be disheartened by what they hear today and will continue this kind of work essential to the safety of our nation. I thank the chairman and I yield back. Gentlemen yields back just for the record the pronunciation of the former assistant director in charge of the Washington field office is Dan Tuano something that ranking member might have known if he'd actually shown up at the deposition like I did with that we without objection all other opening statements will be included in the record we will now introduce today's witnesses the honorable Christopher Ray has been the director of the FBI since 2017 he previously served as the assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the Department of Justice the principal associate deputy attorney general and associate deputy attorney general and as assistant US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia director Ray has also worked in private practice at King Spaulding LLP we welcome our witness and thank him for appearing today we will begin by swearing you in director would you please rise raise your right hand you've done this you've done this before do you swear or do you swear or affirm under penalty or perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and beliefs will help you guy let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety accordingly we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes we'll give you a few extra minutes if you like director and then you know how this works will be five minutes of questioning and my guess is every single member is gonna have questions for you so again thank you for being here director a you're recognized for your opening statement thank you good morning chairman Jordan ranking member Nadler members of the committee in the time that I have before we get to your questions I want to talk about the sheer breadth and impact of the work the FBI's 38,000 employees are doing each and every day because the work the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines take violent crime last year alone working shoulder to shoulder with our partners and state and local law enforcement the FBI arrested more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators that's an average of almost 60 bad guys taken off the streets per day every day or our work going after the cartels exploiting our southwest border to traffic fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into communities nationwide the FBI's running well over 300 investigations targeting the leadership of those cartels and working with our partners we've already seized hundreds of kilograms of fentanyl this year alone stopping deadly drugs from reaching their intended destinations in states all over the country and saving countless American lives or the thousands of active investigations we now have into the Chinese government's efforts to steal our most precious secrets rob our businesses of their ideas and innovation and repress freedom of speech right here in the United States and that is just scratching the surface the men and women of the FBI work tirelessly every day to protect the American people from what is really a staggering array of threats and we don't do that work alone the FBI now leads more than 750 task forces nationwide made up of more than 6000 state and local task force officers or TFOs as we call them from more than 1800 different state and local agencies each of those TFOs represents an officer a deputy or an investigator that a local police chief sheriff or state superintendent was willing to send our way certainly not because they didn't have enough work to do in their own department but because they saw the tremendous value that our FBI led task forces bring and we are honored and humbled by their trust in us and grateful for their partnership but the numbers don't tell the whole story to truly appreciate the impact the FBI and our partners are having you got to look at the cases just last month for instance the FBI charged 31 members of two drug trafficking organizations responsible for distributing dangerous drugs like fentanyl cocaine and methamphetamine throughout the area around Marion Ohio in that one investigation run out of the FBI's two man office in Mansfield we worked with partners from multiple local police departments and sheriff's offices to take kilos of fentanyl off Marion streets enough lethal doses I should add to kill the entire population of Columbus Cleveland and Cincinnati combined it's a great example of how even a small office with a small personnel footprint the FBI is working big cases hand in hand with our state local partners to have an outsized impact in our communities the FBI's got thousands of employees working scores of investigations like that all over the country to protect the American people those men and women who choose to dedicate their careers their lives really to this kind of work and fulfilling the FBI mission are inspiring at a time when so many other law enforcement agencies have had a difficult time with recruiting and retention the bureau continues to attract applicants in your record numbers in fact after the first couple years of my tenure the number of Americans applying to be special agents tripled the pace from when I started reaching the highest levels in about a decade at the same time inside the FBI our special agent attrition has remained in the low single digits and would be the envy of almost any employer and even with these bigger numbers the folks were continuing to add continue to be top notch the percentage of both veterans and special agent hires with prior law enforcement experience has remained as steady as ever between 25 and 30% add to that in a job market where applicants have a whole lot of other opportunities the percentage of those new agent trainees that also have advanced degrees is up and now approaches about 50% of every class at Quantico but the thing that unites them all is a commitment to public service a willingness to put others above themselves and that is true from the bottom of the organization to the top since becoming director I have worked hard to assemble and cultivate a leadership team that embodies those values and characteristics it's a team that I purposefully chose because they walk to the walk out in the field just taking our top eight leaders as an example they all came up through the bureau as line agents they've worked in 21 different field offices and have a combined 130 years of field experience they include a West Point grad veterans of the army air force and Marines as well as a former police officer and state trooper and not a single one is a political appointee not one today's FBI leaders reflect the best of our organization an organization that has made up of 38,000 men and women who are patriots professionals be educated public servants and that is the real FBI Patriots I've now visited every single one of our 56 field offices twice some of them more than twice I speak constantly with local chiefs and sheriffs from all 50 states who work closely with us every day with judges coast-to-coast who see and hear our work up close with business leaders who turn to us for help with cyber attacks and Chinese economic espionage for the victims and their families people that we protect from gangs and predators and the FBI they tell me about consistently almost resoundingly is the same FBI that I see an FBI that is respected appreciated trusted and it is there for them when they need us the most and that is the FBI that inspires me and that I'm proud to be here today to represent let's not talk about all the thank you that we'll now proceed under the five minute rule with questions the chair recognizes gentlemen from Louisiana mr. Johnson trust ray thank you mr. chairman director ray this is no time to mince words the American people have lost faith in the FBI all of our constituents are demanding that we get this situation under control and we have to do that that's our responsibility this is not a political party issue sir this is about whether the very system of justice in our country can be trusted anymore without that no republic can survive see the American people that we represent are losing count of the scandals that are mounting the FBI has been involved they've seen evidence that it's being used as a political tool of the Biden administration they've seen counterterrorism resources being used against school parents the homes of conservative political opponents being rated they've seen conservative states being targeted over their election integrity laws and conservative Catholics and pro-life citizens characterized as violent extremists just last month as you know special former former special counsel John Durham sat right in that seat and testified that the Justice Department and the FBI should never have launched the bogus Trump Russia investigation and his lengthy report reluctantly concluded that the FBI quote failed to uphold its mission of strict fidelity to the law just last week NBC had a poll only 37% of registered voters now view the FBI positively 35% have a negative view in 2018 by comparison 52% of the country had a positive view of the FBI there's a serious decline in the people's faith and it's on your watch sir and then July 4th we had this explosive explosive hundred fifty five page opinion from a federal court in my home state Louisiana it explains in detail that the FBI has been directly involved in what the country the court says is quote arguably the most massive attack against free speech United States history the court ordered the White House DOJ and FBI among others to immediately cease colluding with and coercing social media companies to suppress American speech of course conservative speech in particular director a I find it stunning you made no mention of this court opinion either in your opening statement today they're in this lengthy 14 page report that you prepared on July 12th which is eight days after the court ruling have you read the ruling sir I am familiar with the ruling and I've reviewed it with our office of general counsel are you deeply disturbed by what they've told you about the ruling if you haven't read it yourself obviously we're going to comply with the court's order the court's preliminary injunction we sent out guidance to the field in the headquarters about how to do that needless to say the injunction itself is a subject of ongoing litigation and so I'll decline to comment further on let me tell you what the court concluded because it it should be the first thing you think about every morning and the last thing you think about at night they said that quote the court found apparently the FBI engaged in a massive effort to suppress disfavor conservative speech and blatantly ignore the First Amendment's right to free speech the evidence shows the FBI threatened adverse consequences to social media companies that they did not comply with its censorship request the court found that quote this seemingly unrelenting pressure by the FBI and the other defendants had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens as a result the court states for example millions of citizens did not hear about the hunter-biden laptop story prior to the November 3rd 2020 election page 4 of the court ruling lists some of the important subjects at the Biden administration and the FBI forced the social media platforms to suppress the evidence shows you your agency the people that directly report to you suppressed conservatively in a free speech about topics like laptop the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origin the effectiveness of masking COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines speech about election integrity in the 2020 presidential election security of voting by mail even parody about the president himself negative post about the economy the FBI made the social media platforms pull that information off the internet if it came from conservative sources they did this under the guise that it was disinformation can you can you define what disinformation is that should be good what i can tell you is that our focus is not on disinformation probably speaking well wait a minute yes it is wait a minute your answer the question you can in a minute your star witness said in the litigation Elvis chen who's in charge of this said they do it on the basis of diff disinformation we need a we need a definition of what that is our focus is on malign foreign disinformation that is foreign hostile actors who engage in covert efforts Mr. Ray our social media platforms which is something that is not seriously in dispute i have to stop for time that's not accurate you need to read this court opinion because you're in charge of enforcing it the court has found that in Elvis chan testified under oath in charge of this for you he said 50 he had a 50 success rate and having alleged election disinformation taken down or censored that that wasn't just for an adversary sir that was American citizens how do you answer for that well first off i'm not sure that's the correct characterization comes right out of the opinion you should read what i of his testimony but what i would say is the fbi is not in the business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor that is not what the court has found what i would also say is among the things that you listed off i find ironic the reference to the lab leak theory the idea that the fbi would somehow be involved in suppressing references to the lab leak theory is somewhat absurd when you consider the fact that the fbi was the only the only agency in the entire intelligence community to reach the assessment that it was more likely than not that that was the explanation but your agent your agents pulled it off the internet sir that's what the evidence in the court has found time the gentleman has expired the gentleman from new york is recognized director a house republicans have attacked the execution of the search warrant of mara lago last august as a quote unprecedented raid would you consider the execution of the search warrant that mara lago arrayed i would not call it a raid i would call it the execution of a lawful search warrant can you describe how the search was executed well we had the case team you know follow its standard procedure it has sometimes been described as a SWAT operation it was not there was no SWAT involvement but beyond that i think i want to be really careful with getting too far into the details now that this case is not only in the hands of a special council but more importantly in my view in front of the court and i learned a long time ago as a line prosecutor and defense lawyer to respect the the court process is where i think we're particular steps taken to ensure that the execution of the search warrant did not draw undue attention i think there were steps along those lines yes sir you name a couple of them well among among other things we did not have people coming in so-called raid jackets you know which is often something you would see in other words the FBI agents executing the search were plain closed so it was not to attract undue attention the FBI waited until trump had left mara lago to execute the search is that correct yes and chairman jordan has attacked the DOJ and the FBI not attempting to get the documents back from trump consensually before turning to a search warrant i want to walk through all these the opportunities trump had to produce these documents and have a series of yes or no questions the national archives also known as nara first asked trump to return all presidential records to them in may 2021 correct well i don't i don't remember the date but i remember there was a request by the national archives and then throughout 2021 narrow made repeated follow-up requests but still trump applied to comply correct yes i would refer you to the pleadings that have been filed in court that lay out in in better detail than i could hear in fact in fact it was not until january 2022 after narrow warned trump that failing to return documents could violate the presidential records act that trump finally produced 15 boxes of documents to it correct again i i would just refer to our court filings which go into great detail about all this and even these 15 boxes did not contain all the documents trump was required to return correct that's my recollection but again i'll refer so in may 2022 a grand jury had to actually subpoena trump for the missing documents correct the same answer and trump was then present on june third when his attorneys handed over another folder of documents and a certification that all classified material had been returned correct again i just want to stick with what's in the court filings that sounds right to me but i really want to be careful to stay within the four corners but the certification was false right even then trump had not returned all classified material correct i think that is part of the indictment he had additional documents hiding in his bathroom in his storage room in his storage units etc yes again i think that's part of the indictment and so finally doj and fbi were required to obtain a search warrant to obtain the classified documents that had not been retained correct same answer the documents retrieved during that search included 69 marked confidential 98 secret and 30 top secret is that correct same answer so to sum up president trump had many many chances to voluntarily comply with fbi and doj's request instead he made the choice to keep these highly classified defense and national security documents apparently because he wanted a souvenir i find myself in the strange position of agreeing with former attorney general bill bar statement that trump brought this on himself and i would add that it's absurd that house republicans are attacking the fbi and doj for doing their job and ensuring that no person is above the law i yield back gentlemen yields back the gentleman from kentucky's recognized for five minutes i think the chairman director ray in light of information provided to us about the fbi's investigation of the january 6 pipe bombs in an interview with assistant director steven don't want to chairman jordan and i sent you a letter a month ago some of the information that we found in that interview was that phone data that could have helped to identify the pipe bomber was corrupted was unusable uh he also wasn't sure who found her how the second bomb was found at the d and c do you know how the second bomb was found at the d and c and and when do you plan on answering our letter well as to the letter i i will work with the department to make sure we can figure out what information we can provide as you know this is a very active ongoing investigation and there are some restrictions on that but we will we can handle classified information and we fund your department and so you need to provide that it's not respectfully it's not an issue of classification it's an issue of commenting on ongoing criminal investigations which is something that by longstanding department policy we are restricted in doing it in fact the last administration actually strengthened those policies partly that's not our policy though and we fund you so let's move on i could do you know how the second part of the bomb do you can you tell us how the second pipe bomb was found at the d and c again i'm not going to get into that here nine hundred days ago is when this happened and you said you had total confidence we'd apprehend the subject we've found video that looks like somebody a passerby miraculously found this pipe bomb at the d and c and then notified the police miraculously i say because it was it specifically the same the precise time to cause the maximum distraction from the events going on at the capital can you show this video that we have please i'd like to know if the director has seen this this is somebody with a with a mask on wearing a hat they're walking in front of the d and c which is out of the view on the right hand side you'll see him come into view he goes to one police car he goes to another police car he's holding a backpack he's got a mask on he's talking to the police and within a minute they start scrambling you'll see the camera turn to the pipe bomb the location of the pipe bomb by the way that's a i believe the metro police are now getting out of their car and that's uh vice president elect's detail in the black suv i believe parked about 30 feet from the pipe bomb eating lunch okay now we go over to the location of the pipe bomb the cameras are scrambling it it appears to me that that's not a coincidence that the person with the backpack who walked by that bench and then went up to the police uh and the detail didn't didn't do that accidentally they had a purpose in mind and then what transpired after that was the result of information that person gave to them if that person found the pipe bomb would they be a suspect well again i don't want to speculate about specific individuals i will tell you that we have done thousands of interviews reviewed something like 40 000 video files of which this is one says 500 something tips have you interviewed that person we we have conducted all logical investigative steps and interviewed all logical individuals at this point then you need it's 900 days you need to tell us what you found because we're finding stuff you haven't released into the public and in my remaining minute i want to turn to another issue uh george hill former fbi supervisory intelligence analyst in the boston field office told us that the bank of america uh with no legal process was uh gave to the fbi gun purchase records uh with with no geographical boundaries for anybody that was a bank of america customer is that true well what i do know is that the a number of business community partners all the time including finance institutions share information with us about possible criminal activity and my understanding is that that's fully lawful in the specific did you ask for that information in the specific instance that you're asking about my understanding is that that information was shared with field offices for information only but then recalled to avoid even the appearance of any kind of overreach but my understanding is that that's a fully lawful process was there a warrant involved again my understanding is that the institution in question shared information with us as happens all the time did you request the information i can't speak to the specifics okay well we've got an email where it says the fbi did give the search queries to bank of america and bank america responded to the fbi and gave over this information without a search warrant do you believe there's any limitation on your ability to obtain gun purchase data or purchase information for people that for people who aren't suspects from banks without a warrant well now you're now you're asking a legal question which i would prefer to defer to the lawyers since i'm not practicing as one right now including the department but what i will tell you is that my understanding is that the process by which we receive information from business community partners across a wide variety of industries including finance institutions sharing information with us about possible criminal activity is something that is fully lawful under current federal law maybe lawful but it's not constitutional i yield back gentlemen yields back the general lady from california is recognized for five minutes uh thank you mr chairman and thank you director ray for being here i think it's it's actually sad that the majority is engaging in conspiracy theories and efforts to try and discredit one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the united states in the effort to try and without really any evidence make the case that the fbi is somehow opposed to conservative views in my view actually i'm concerned that the fbi has been reluctant to do its job when it comes to the former president i'd like to ask unanimous consent to put in the record an article from the washington post fbi resisted opening probe into trump's role in january sixth for more than a year no objection director ray would you disagree with the premise of this article that the fbi delayed in looking at mr trump himself with the january sixth committee and i was a member did find that the ex-president was the center of a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the election did the fbi start looking right after january sixth at the ex-president i'm sorry i just lost the last part of your question there did the fbi start looking at the ex-president's role in january sixth starting january seventh or closely to that time well let me start with i'm not in the business of of kind of commenting or engaging on the the truth or or falsity of newspaper articles and in this particular instance as i'm sure you can appreciate there is an ongoing very important ongoing special counsel investigation that's now in court and so not only do i not want to talk about the ongoing investigation i respect the internal deliberations related to it are even more sensitive i i respect that you cannot discuss ongoing um investigations let me turn to another item i mean there's been criticism and the ranking member went through the scenario leading up to the warrant for the documents at mara lago but i'd like to ask unanimous consent to put an article from the washington post showdown before the raid fbi agents and prosecutors argued over trump objection it's pretty clear from this article that there was a resistance on the part of the fbi to actually look at the president or pursue that case vigorously and although you can't comment on it the article does suggest that fbi agents want to just close the case because the ex-president made an assertion that a search had been made now we had mr bentuano uh in as a witness and he testified four times that the mara lago search had adequate probable cause do you agree with that statement that the search had probable cause correct yes thank you um and so you don't have any dispute that there was probable cause for this warrant i you know i just want to say before going to my next question that over and over again the fbi delayed and showed unprecedented caution before investigating the ex-president even when there was a potential threat to national security that is that's my view that's very far from the assertion that there was unfair targeting can i just count on that point if i just if i may uh while i can't discuss any specific investigation my expectation for all of our investigations repeatedly communicated to all of our people and this is especially important in sensitive investigations is that our folks take great pains to be rigorous professional objective following all our policies and procedures and do the work in the right way and sometimes that's frustrating to others my time is almost up and i i i want to ask you another question in the senate hearing in response to senate uh senator widens question of whether the fbi is currently purchasing americans location data you indicated that it was limited to data derived from internet advertising uh it's since been reported that the fbi has admitted it bought us location data is the fbi purchasing location data from commercial sources without a warrant uh this is an area that requires a little more precision and context for me to be able to answer that fully so let me have my staff follow back up with you so that i make sure that i don't leave something important i i'll just close with uh the fbi had 3.4 million backdoor searches of the faiza uh database without a warrant in 2021 can you say whether the fbi is continuing to search the faiza database without a warrant for americans americans well if you're asking about our use of 702 queries i am those are uh there is no warrant requirement under the fourth amendment for those queries uh it's fairly well settled the 3.4 million figure that you're talking about i guess i would say a couple things one that's not 3.4 million people that's 3.4 million search terms or query terms second second that's not a those are not uh queries in violation of rules those are just queries under my time has expired but the committee will look into the warrant requirement later in your will be sure will the gentleman from florida is recognized the american people need to understand what just happened my call my democrat colleague just asked the director of the fbi whether or not they are buying information about our fellow americans and the answer is well we'll just have to get back to you on that sounds really complicated but i have other questions i'm sitting here with my father i will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction i am sitting here waiting for the call with my father sounds like a shakedown doesn't it director i'm not going to get into commenting on that you you you seem deeply uncurious about it don't you almost suspiciously uncurious are you protecting the biden's absolutely not the fbi does not has no interest in you won't answer the question about whether or not that's a shakedown and everybody knows why you won't answer it because to to the millions of people who will see this they know it is and your inability to acknowledge that is deeply revealing about you but let's go from the uncurious to the downright nosy how many illegal fiza queries have occurred under your leadership of the fbi well there are reports that have come out with different numbers about compliance incidents more than a million illegal ones because that's what the inspector general said the inspector general said that in the 3.4 million of these queries more than a million were in error do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment by the inspector general i'm not i'm not sure actually that's a correct characterization of the inspector general's oh well the internet will remind you of that in moments but but let's now go to what the court said the court said it was over 200 thousand that have occurred on your watch would do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment again i don't have the numbers i sit here right now what i can seems like a number you should know how many times the fbi is breaking the law under your watch especially if it's like over a million to not know that number and i'm worried about your veracity on the subject as well play this play the video better is for investigation of the capital i don't believe fiza is remotely implicated in our investigation so so there senator lee is asking you whether or not fiza was in any other way involved in your january 6 investigation and you say no it was that truthful i said that i did not believe it was okay so now let's pull up what the court said which is something a little different than what you said so so here nope that's not the right one yeah here we go right there it says the government has reported additional significant violations of the querying standard including several relating to the january 6 2021 breach of the capital so i guess the question director a is did did you not know when you were answering these questions that the fbi was engaging in these illegal searches or did you purger yourself to senator lee i certainly didn't purger myself at the time that i testified in front of the senate judiciary committee i didn't have that piece of information i will add that was a court order you didn't have that piece of information because the court hadn't yet rendered a judgment did you not know when you gave the untruthful answer before senator lee that this was going on it was it was a truthful answer i did not believe fiza had been involved in the january but it was so you didn't the answer is the fbi has broken so bad that people can go and engage in queries that when you come before the congress to answer questions you're like blissfully ignorant you're blissfully ignorant as to the unlawful queries you're blissfully ignorant as to the biden shakedown regime and it just seems like it gets into a kind of a creepy place as well go to our next image on what the court said like just so the american people realize the the court has smacked you down alleging or ruling fbi personnel apparently conducted queries for improper personal reasons people were looking themselves up they were looking their ex-lovers up who has been held accountable or fired as a consequence of the fbi using the fiza process as their like creepy personal snoop machine there have been instances in which individuals have had disciplinary action uh and who are no longer with it i can't get into it here but we can follow back up with you don't you see don't you see that that's kind of the thing director a that you preside over the fbi that has the lowest level of trust in the fbi's history people trusted the fbi more when jadger hoover was running the place than when you are and the reason is because you don't give straight answers you give answers that that later a court deems aren't 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're whitewashing the conduct of corrupt people respectfully congressman in your home state of florida the number of people applying to come work for us and devote their lives working for us is over up over a hundred percent we're deeply proud of them and they deserve better than you time of the gentleman has expired the the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for five minutes thank you mr chair and director raya thank you for continuing to serve with all of these uh attempts to sully your name suggest you've committed crimes when you've done an excellent job as fbi director i don't agree with everything you've done but mostly i do and i think the fbi is our premier law enforcement agency and i support law enforcement to attack the fbi's to attack law enforcement in general a few days after marilago there was some individual went after the Cincinnati headquarters of the fbi you tell us a little bit about that and how you think that came about uh so the incident that you're asking about uh was obviously deeply disturbing we had an individual wearing a tactical vest armed with an ar style rifle and a nail gun who attempted to forcibly enter and attack our Cincinnati field office um a subsequent review of the subjects devices and online postings identified a pretty striking anti fbi anti federal law enforcement hostility he was calling on others to kill federal law enforcement claiming that he felt he was fighting a in his words a civil war and it's unfortunately part of a broader phenomenon that we have seen not just against the fbi and this is important to add but against law enforcement uh all across the country uh not just against law enforcement professionals themselves which is uh appalling enough but calling for attacks against their families which is uh truly despicable and and that man eventually was was captured and eliminated was he not yes a few days later was the arizona fbi department the subject of armed uh in violence or not violence but armed uh protesters well i know that our uh phoenix um field office has had a number of of very concerning security incidents where people uh attempted to attack or or breach the the facility i can't remember the dates of when that happened but all of this has happened kind of in the same sphere it's been information has been put out on social media and in just general been by members of the congress uh questioning the fbi questioning law enforcement in general and this has had a deleterious effect on the safety of fbi officials and you said others like justice it was a story the other day i believe about uh people involved in the prosecution of former president and threats to them uh the doj personnel as well as fbi is that something is going on presently is there efforts to have a unit at the fbi maybe look into how to protect and defend a law enforcement personnel who are threatened with violence we did uh stand up a whole dedicated unit to focus on threats to fbi individuals fbi employees and fbi facilities because of the uptick that we saw over that time period the uh january 6th me was a beyond a weaponization of government it was a nuclearization of government against the government uh if i believe i heard that you said that you didn't have any prior notice or reason to believe that there would be such an event on january 6th is that correct uh we did not to my knowledge at least uh have prior knowledge of a an attempt of violent overthrow of and breach of the capital building itself certainly we were concerned about and and put out a number of products intelligence products to partners and others warning of the potential for violence more generally on that date so there have been i think tucker carlson and some of the members colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said that ray epps was a secret government agent in helping uh encourage this this crime so as to make the president look bad uh do you have any knowledge of ray epps being a secret government agent uh no uh i will say this notion that somehow the violence at the capital on january 6th was part of some operation orchestrated by fbi sources and agents uh is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave hardworking dedicated men and women director i agree with you i think the fbi has some of the most talented law enforcement people in our nation and into the world and they are concerned about safety they tend to as i understand it lean republican but they do their job down the line and that's what they're supposed to do i'm happy we have the fbi operating in memphis and other places to work with our police departments and joint units to protect our citizens and i thank you for your service the united states and i yield back my gentlemen yields back to them from california is recognized thank you director i'm going to follow up on my colleague from memphis uh how many individuals were either fbi uh employees or people that the fbi had made contact with were in the january 6th uh entry of the capital and surrounding area so i really need to be careful here talking about where we have or have not used confidential human sources was there one or more was there one or more individuals that would fit that description on january 6th that were in or around the capital i believe there is a uh a filing in one of the january six cases that can provide a little more information about this and i'm happy to see if we can follow back up the answer was there one or more i mean you would know if there was at least one individual who worked for the fbi who who entered the capital on that day uh i can't again i just can't speak to that here but i'm happy to get the court filing that it's been two years and you're now you're now come before us the gentleman asked these questions makes all kinds of insinuations and you you nod your head yes and then i ask you simply was there one or more and you won't answer that so i'm going to make the assumption that there was more than one more than five more than ten and that you're ducking uh the the question because you don't want to answer for the fact that you had at least one and somehow missed understanding that some of the individuals were very dangerous and that there were others inciting individuals to enter the capital after others broke windows so i'm just going to move on because i think it is time to move on past january six i just seems that the other side won't um you're a near cabinet cabinet level individual you enjoy a term and senate confirmation do you feel comfortable speaking to other members uh either cabinet level or sub cabinet level when appropriate uh to resolve problems be within the government absolutely okay and so uh when the fbi uh censored the united states government you would uh you wouldn't have to just take it down by calling meta or google would you i'm sorry i'm not sure i'm following the question are you familiar with the official verified russian language account of the united states uh department of state that was taken down at your agency's request that doesn't ring a bell as i sit here right now no okay well now you have something to take back and look at because in fact in this bundle uh that sbu uh constantly was submitting to various agencies was in fact a russian language uh individual statement of of a government literally you took down the free speech of the department of state so yes great i mentioned sbu i'm not sure we're talking about the same thing but i i will endeavor to to provide a little more context at least as to sbu yes um so uh i believe what you may be referring to but i'm not sure we're talking about the same thing is that when russia invaded ukraine uh the security service of ukraine sbu which is a long-standing good partner of the fbi asked us for help on a whole range of things uh and one of those things was to contact us companies on their behalf because the russians the invasion had cut off the ukrainian's communications and so we did pass through information from uh the sbu to social media are you also familiar with the fact that president salinsky has had to clean house at the sbu i know there have been a number of personnel change okay well we'll follow up in with this in more detail the uh the the question i have for you is you're the premier law enforcement operation and you're a former department of justice high-ranking executive at all levels so would you agree that the job of the fbi is criminal investigation is criminal investigation uh and to protect the country from national security threats those two things so the the idea that you take information and you have it taken down use your authority and the leverage you have to have meta google uh facebook or facebook being meta or twitter take down people's information uh on things like where where covid came from where do you find the national security interest in that where do you find the interest in free speech of american citizens being taken down and i repeat free speech of american citizens where where do you have that authority so we don't uh ask social media companies uh to censor information or suppress information uh when it comes to national security threats certainly uh so what we do do is alert them when some other intelligence agency gives us information about a foreign intelligence service being behind some account we will call social media companies attention to that but at the end of the day we're very clear that it's up to the social media companies decide whether to do something about the suggestion of the most powerful law enforcement operation is not a suggestion it is in fact effectively in order mr chairman i yield back gentlemen yields back gentlemen from george is recognized thank you mr chairman we are here today because maga republicans will do anything to protect donald trump their savior no matter how unfounded or dangerous it may be to do so welcome to the legislative arm of the trump reelection campaign a grand jury found probable cause that among other crimes trump illegally kept highly sensitive national security documents which could put our country and others and our sources in danger if they got out and which photographs show trump kept those records in bathrooms showers closets and in the mara lago ballroom maga republicans are afraid that the justice system might hold trump accountable for his actions so to protect them republicans are trying to intimidate fbi officials and in case that does not work republicans are trying their hardest to discredit the fbi in the eyes of the american public when trump lost in 2020 they tried to make americans distrust their election systems and now that the fbi and the justice department have sought to hold trump to the same standard any other american citizen would be held to maga republicans are telling americans not to trust the fbi to protect trump republicans are trying to distract us from the real work that the fbi does every day which is fighting violent criminals child predators and fighting domestic terrorists and extremists so as to protect our democracy and our national security and even worse maga republicans are stirring up threats that pose a danger to the safety of fbi employees it's past time that republicans realize the consequences of their words and put the good of this country over politics now director ray i want to thank you for your service during a time of unprecedented travail director ray you were a partner at an international law firm before you took a drastic pay cut to accept the job of fbi director isn't that correct uh yes that's something my wife reminds me of from time to time and uh but let me ask you this sir uh and you took this office after uh trump fired the former fbi director jim comey correct yes sir and um did you uh contact the trump administration to offer yourself for this job or did the administration recruit you for the job they contacted me and asked me if i would be willing to consider taking on the role so trump handpicked you to be the fbi director yes and he expected you to do what he wanted you to do correct well that i can't speak to i can tell you the same thing i told him but i'm gonna do this job by the book he's unhappy with you now isn't he um i'll let him speak for himself well i think a lot of his uh acolytes uh here reflect his uh his intent at this particular time director ray are you aware that maga republicans have repeatedly called for the fbi to be uh defunded i have heard some of that language in fact republicans on this very committee have said that your institution should be dismantled isn't that correct uh well i think certain members have and one member even tweeted quote defund and dismantle the fbi in quote another told fox news that quote republicans should defund the bureaucracy in quote and a third told the press that he thinks the fbi quote needs to be split up and moved out into pieces in quote those are direct quotes and only a small sample of what's out there can you briefly describe for us what the effect would be on our national security and on our domestic tranquility if the fbi were to be defunded or dismantled well certainly it would be disastrous for 38 000 hard-working career law enforcement professionals and their families but more importantly in many ways uh it would hurt our great state local law enforcement partners who depends on us every day to work with them on a whole slew of challenging threats it would hurt the american people neighborhoods and communities all across this country uh the people were protecting from cartels violent criminals gang members predators foreign domestic terrorists cyber attacks i could go on and on the people it would help would be those same violent gangs and cartels foreign terrorists Chinese spies hackers and so forth a member time of the time of the gentleman has expired uh chair now recognize the gentleman from colorado for five minutes i thank the chairman director ray thank you thank you for your work with the fbi and and uh thank you for your history of work and law enforcement you started out as a an a usa and i'm getting this information from wikipedia the great fond of knowledge in the digital age and so i'm assuming that it's true but you started out as an a usa you were nominated by republican president bush for the position of assistant general in the criminal division at the department of justice and you were confirmed by a republican senate if i am correct in that uh yes by a unanimous voice vote and and you were then nominated by republican president donald trump to be the fbi director and again confirmed by republican senate for that position uh yes i think there were only five votes against me and they were all from democrats according to wikipedia you're still a registered republican and i hope you don't change your party affiliation after this hearing is over but i want to thank you i want to thank you for leading an agency as you mentioned in your opening statement that protects americans from foreign terrorists that uh an agency that protects americas from fries from china and russia and cyber crime and public corruption and organized crime and drug cartels and human traffickers and white collar criminals and i want to thank you and the fbi for protecting law-abiding americans from the evil that exists all around us director ray you know this but it's worth mentioning again anyway the fbi doesn't protect america because this is a beautiful country it doesn't protect america just because of the citizens who live in this country you and the fbi protect america because of the values that we hold because of our constitutional republic because this is a special place and the rest of the world knows just how special this place is director ray i'm concerned about fiza i'm not concerned about fiza in a partisan way and frankly i am not in favor of defunding the fbi nor am i in favor of splitting up the fbi nor am i in favor of using the home and rule for the fbi director i'm concerned about fiza because i'm concerned about what makes this place special in the threats to us and i would i would love to work with the fbi on how we can protect americans at the same time protecting the civil liberties of americans and that area of fiza is what really concerns me and i know you have gone to great lengths to try to work with fbi agents on how they access information under 702 and i know that at times it has been successful and at times it has not been successful but the the spirit of fiza in the spirit of our constitutional republic really demands that the fbi culture shift and it shifts to a place where fbi agents understand that protecting american civil liberties that protecting the the privacy that we all enjoy in this country even though we screw up we still enjoy this this privacy and in court we have the highest burden of proof the world has ever known to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt and that has to be uh that information has to be gathered by the government in a legal uh in a legal way and so i fear that we are going to overcorrect on fiza in congress that we are going to take away some tools that are necessary because there is a trust factor here that's missing and uh i'd love to know how we can draw that line in a way that assures the civil liberties i agree with my colleague from california and i don't often agree with folks from california but i agree with my colleague from california that it is essential that we not get geolocation information from the the what i consider criminals at big tech um and that we protect that that uh information for americans you as a law enforcement official should not know where i am necessarily unless you have probable cause to to get that information i'm also concerned about the ability of law enforcement and particularly the fbi to access information when i go on the internet and i search for a gun vault or i search for a holster i don't want the government to know that i own a gun and i think i have that privacy right to make sure the government doesn't know that i own a gun or any other uh information that i search for on the internet unless you've got probable cause to make that search and so i want to ask you a question in the last few seconds and that is how can you work on the culture in the fbi and help us reach that that sweet spot on faiza well i thank you for that certainly we starting with first principles try to drive home every day to our entire workforce that our mission is to both protect the american people and uphold the constitution uh and we have on the issue of faiza clearly had failures in the past i've been very plain about that and we've implemented a whole series of reforms and if you look if you look at the reports that have started to come out now from the faiza court from odini from the justice department from others who have looked at the effect of our reforms over and over again they are showing significant improvement in compliance we're talking about the most recent fisk uh faiza court opinion finding 98 percent compliance and commending us for moving in the right direction uh doj report found 99 percent compliance uh our internal audit found a 14 percent jump up to 96 percent please are all separate reports looking at the impact of our reforms a lot of the uh public commentary about our failures and let's be clear we have had problems and those problems are unacceptable and i'm determined with my leadership team to fix them but those problems almost entirely predate those reforms even though some of them have just come out recently and so we're going to keep working at this that is not a one and done from my perspective i recognize that we need to work with the congress on this issue uh but this is an incredibly important tool as you know from your own public service uh i'm the prosecutor as well this is an incredibly important tool to protect the american people from very serious foreign threats i'm the gentleman's expired gentleman from california's recognize thank you uh mr director um i want to pick up where mr buck began as well by thank you for your service and i'm glad that we have an opportunity for one democrat what in republican and close succession to thank you for your service to the country um you're being attacked and vilified by some of the members of this committee and others outside this committee because the justice department of the fbis had the audacity to investigate serious allegations of criminal conduct by a former president uh and i just want a chance to recap uh how we got to where we are during the last administration and for four years the justice department took the position not unprecedented for the department uh that a former president could not be a current president could not be indicted now i think that's a flawed matter as a constitutional principle but nonetheless that was the view of the office legal council and the justice department during the trump years that the president united states could not be indicted my republican colleagues seem to believe that a former president similarly cannot be indicted that would effectively make a president above the law beyond the reach of the law and in my view there would probably only one thing the founders would find more politically precarious and dangerous to our constitution than the indictment of a president or former president and that is the failure to indict a president or former president when they have engaged in criminal conduct the justice department i believe as a representative lofgren uh my fellow member the january 6 committee asserted took a very long time to begin the investigation of donald trump and his involvement in january 6th i believe it began with urgency when it came to the foot soldiers who broke into the capital and assaulted police officers that day but at least what i can tell from the public record the activities of the president himself some of which were a matter very much a public record such as his tape recorded conversation with the secretary of state in georgia in which he badgered the secretary to quote find 11,780 votes that don't exist uh while that was the subject investigation by the local district attorney in fulton county did not appear to be the subject investigation for more than a year by the justice department to me that is inexplicable this was never a kind the kind of case in which you could roll up the foot soldiers on the higher ups because there were multiple lines of effort in this plot to overturn the election i do think that the appointment of the special counsel has accelerated the investigation of the former president's misconduct and i think that is a positive step for the department and for the country so we can get resolution to this but likewise with mara lago notwithstanding the protests of my colleagues they were repeated repeated requests by the archives to get those documents back from the former president and then when those were unsuccessful there was a grand jury subpoena that was administered and when that was unsuccessful and only when that was unsuccessful and there was evidence that the former president was still withholding highly classified materials did the fbi go to this step of a search warrant that was more than a year and a half after those initial requests this was anything but a rush to judgment in the mara lago case so i believe the department for anything has has exercised enormous caution i would say too much caution in the january six commission committee's work and oversight to proceed against a former president when there are serious incredible allegations of criminal conduct but i want to thank you for your stewardship during this incredibly difficult time i don't think there's been a more difficult time for an fbi director and notwithstanding concerns i have expressed none of them go to your integrity or your commitment to the country and i want to thank you for that let me ask you about a different topic um although related to january six as well let me talk as you broadly about domestic violent extremism afrit amendment this committee voted down by the republicans that we should oversee the increasingly dire threat of domestic violent extremism one of your recent reports underscored the the rise of this prevalent threat and i'd ask you if you would address it today so the rise of domestic violent extremism uh is something that i and we have been identifying for quite some time it goes back well before january six in fact a lot of people don't know this but the joint terrorism task forces that we hear about so often at the fbi were largely created in response to domestic terrorism not foreign terrorism uh but in my first few years as director we were identifying this issue more and more and that's why we elevated in the summer of 2019 uh racially motivated violent extremism to a national threat priority level uh and we saw i think about a 40 percent increase uh in the number of domestic violent extremism investigations uh all before anything to do with january six obviously since then it has continued but domestic violent extremism cuts across the spectrum from the racially motivated violent extremism militia violent extremism anarchist violent extremism environmental violent extremism and of course recently we've had a lot of violent extremism attacks against pro-life facilities and we're investigating those so it really covers a wide spectrum and what they all have in common is three things violence or threats of violence motivated by some ideology and it varies uh in violation of federal criminal law and that's the domestic violent extremism that i'm talking about when i've identified this phenomenon Mr Chairman could i request unanimous consent to and turn to the record two letters both from david weiss the trump appointed u.s attorney in delaware uh rebutting allegations concerning impart concerned partiality concerning partiality and the investigation of the hunter biden case i would i thank you thank you director without objection director what's the difference between a traditional catholic and a radical traditional catholic i'm not an expert on the the catholic uh orders well your fbi wrote a memo talking about radical traditional catholics i'm just wondering if you can define it for us well what i can tell you is you're referring to the richmond product which is a single product by single field office which as soon as i found out about it i was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from fbi systems you were aghast and why won't you let us talk to the people who put it together we are working on finishing an internal review into what happened we have to wait the we the congress and the american people have to wait until you do an internal review it's not a criminal investigation going on here an internal review before we can talk to the people who wrote this we when we finish our internal review which will be very soon we will come back to the committee and provide a briefing on what we found well we appreciate briefing we want to talk to the people who wrote it any idea how many catholics are in america director uh no sir there's a lot over 60 million what percentage of those are radical traditional catholics according to the richmond field office of the fbi again that product is not something that i will defend or excuse it's something that i thought was appalling and removed it let's read from that product page four of that product by the way the copy you gave us when can we get a copy that didn't have all these redactions on it so we can actually see what the american taxpayers were paying for to see their rights their first amendment religious liberty rights attack let me just read from page four provide new opportunities to mitigate extremist threat through outreach to traditional catholic parishes and the development of sources with the placement and access to report on places of worship that's pretty fancy language for they're trying to put informants in the parish in the church that's what this memorandum said director from one of your field offices and you won't let us talk to the people who did it any response to that i didn't know i was waiting for the question oh priest do you think priest priest should be informants inside the church director we do not recruit open or operate confidential human sources to infiltrate target report but that's not what this said it sounds like you were trying to do it in richmond virginia no sir no weren't this this didn't happen you can assure us that this didn't happen that product did not to as best as we can tell result in any investigative action as a result of it none you know what the motivation for this was why why would they even think about doing this you know what the motivation was well again i think that's what our internal review will find and i'd rather wait until i hear what the results of that internal review i can read the document i assume you can do the same because it says right there on the same page richmond assesses extremist interest in radical traditional catholics is likely likely to increase over the next 12 to 24 months in the run-up to the next general election same paragraph events in which extremists and radical traditional catholics might have common cause include legislation judicial decisions in such areas as abortion rights immigration affirmative action and lgbtq protections it's politics that's the motivation in the run-up to the next election and they talk about the border affirmative action and and and abortion rights it's total politics i mean i think it's interesting that affirmative we just got a decision from a bunch of catholics who sit on the united states supreme court relative to affirmative action politics was the total motivation here and that's what's scary that's what's i think so frightening and why we why we how this happens i don't know and five people signed off on it five people including the chief division council at the richmond field office i'd like to talk to this lawyer a lot of people in this room went to law school get a course on the constitution talks about the first amendment i find that really scary again when do you think we're going to have a chance how soon you're going to complete this internal investigation so we can talk to these folks who put this together i expect us to be able to brief the committee on our internal review later this summer well that briefing include the names of the individuals who put this document together attacking americans first amendment liberty i'm not sure yet what it'll include because it's not done yet but when it is we'll provide you with an appropriate briefing what are you doing to fix it so this doesn't happen again well we've already started putting in place a number of fixes and those will be further informed by the results of the review what are those fixes more training more things more leaders that same thing you told us on faiza and while you may have some improvement you still got 204 thousand times the database was illegally searched so what are the training and procedures you're putting in place well i'll put the faiza stuff to the side i'm just an example of where you've told us the same thing you fix something you haven't i do not believe the number that you just invoked on the faiza side is since the reforms the fixes as you called them can we get an unredacted post date the numbers that you're referring director can we get an unredacted copy while you're still doing this internal vest can we at least get an unredacted copy of this memorandum i will find out if there's more of the of the document that can be shared with you we've tried to be very careful in what we redact and there's always a basis for it so let me go back and see if there's more that we can provide but i i know my instructions are to be as sparing as possible in the redactions that we provide gentlemen from california is recognized director i think it's quite rich that the guy that has accused you of lawlessness and weaponization is 400 days into violation of his own congressional subpoena over january 6 quite rich to me that you're hearing all of these allegations from somebody who won't even respond to a lawful subpoena but i want to talk more about your workforce because that's where you started a couple weeks ago at the bureau you had family day can you tell us what family day is a family day is an opportunity for employees from really all over the fbi tends to be primarily from the nearby geographies because of the trip that they have to make to employees to bring their families into fbi headquarters so that they can see a little bit about the place their loved ones work and why mom or dad is spending so much time away from home you see any little kids at family day many many many uh it's an opportunity for us to say thank you to the families even we talk a lot in law enforcement about sacrifice but the reality is that law enforcement officers and professionals are sacrificing to do what they love our families are sacrificing because of who they love and what would you say in your experience is the number one worry of a little kid about a mom or dad who was a special agent out in the field obviously they're worried that their mom or dad won't come home at night because they've been killed and that in fact has happened unfortunately all too often a couple years ago is that right Laura Schwartzenberger and Dan Alphen two of our agents killed in a connection with a child exploitation case down there it was the single darkest day i've had in this job i want to turn your attention to an organization called Marco Polo it's run by a former trump aide named Garrett Ziegler over the past couple weeks he has docs the addresses of a former special agent connected to the hunter biden case he has put up the dates of births and pictures of two current special agents who work for you he has said the name which i will not say of an assistant u.s attorney who worked in the hunter biden case that she will answer for her crimes he will focus everything on her justice will be done it's out of my hands but she will answer did these types of threats and doxing concern you about threats to your workforce and what it could mean well obviously what we're most concerned about are the actual acts of violence which themselves have happened and as we just discussed but this kind of phenomenon doxing is itself hugely problematic because the more information personal information about law enforcement professionals that are out in the internet the more people who may be unstable or inclined to violence there are out there who can choose to act on it and we're seeing that all too often the number of officers across law enforcement killed in the line of duty has been up alarmingly over the last few years and i know that because one of the things i committed to doing early in my tenure was every time an officer anywhere in the country is shot and killed in the line of duty i was going to personally call that sheriff or that chief and on behalf of the FBI express our support and condolences and relay that to the family and i have done that now close to 400 times since i've been in this job thank you for doing that and you don't only do that you send your sacks your special agents in charge to their funerals as well and i've seen that chairman i've counted in this hearing and we're only about an hour and a half in the use of the word laptop about 20 times in fact in the chairman's opening statement he said that he's upset that he believes the FBI prevented more Americans from learning about a private citizens laptop that is bananas to me you all are bringing up faiza every single question you're essentially saying to the american people that your guardians of personal security and privacy but the 2020 election was determined because the fbi note because the fbi didn't let more americans see a private citizens non-consensual nudes is that what we're saying here that you lost the election not because of your ideas but because a private citizens laptop do you want an answer we wasn't out there that's bananas like you should be a party of ideas not a party of non-consensual nudes to help you win an election will you yield for an answer like that is what the objection is here today we should be talking about the mass shootings that occurred over the last 10 days and said this hearing has turned into absolute chaos and i yield back time the gentleman's expired we bring up faiza because it's up for reauthorization if the gentleman didn't know at the end of this year and it was in it was in our witnesses opening statement i didn't bring up the laptop who's time are you speaking who's time are you speaking to judgment the judge last point of order on july time are you speaking of order who's time are you speaking on i'm speaking on i'm not a point of order and i recognize the gentleman from arizona thanks mr chairman director thanks for being here who is matthew graves who is matthew graves i believe matthew graves at least the the person i'm thinking of is i think the u.s attorney in the district of columbia that's the person i'm thinking of too are you aware that he has promised more than 1,000 more individuals will be charged or indicted related to january 6th i had not heard that he had said that well it seems arbitrary and there's reports that it's kind of a quasi quota system that he's put together for january 6th prosecutions do you approve of targets goals quotas and prosecuting alleged criminal conduct uh well certainly not quotas that doesn't make any sense i mean goals is a little bit more of an ambiguous term but certainly not quotas certainly not quotas do you know if any of your personality fbi is involved in the on the investigations promised that will lead to indictments by the january 6th quota established by u.s attorney graves that doesn't sound familiar to me okay in june 2021 you told this committee that a small group of people at the us capital on january 6 had quote all sorts of weapons do you remember being here for that committee hearing and testifying that way in general yes it has been reported that more than 40 fbi personnel agents or contractors were in the crowd on january 6th is that number accurate i don't know if that number is accurate former capital police chief steven sun reported reportedly has asserted that the protest crowd was filled with federal agents um are you aware of his assertion i am not um would you agree with him that it was filled with federal agents on january 6 i would really have to see more closely exactly what he said and get the full context to be able to evaluate how many agents were actually agents or uh human resources were president of capital complex and vicinity on january 6th well again it's going to get confusing because it depends on when we we deployed and responded to the breach uh that occurred obviously there were many federal agents sure yeah you're talking you and you and i both know what we're talking different things here and and that please don't don't distract here because we're focusing on the those who were there in an undercover capacity on january 6 how many were there uh again i i'm not sure that i can give you that number as i sit here i'm not sure there were undercover agents uh on scene you i find that kind of a remarkable statement director at this point you don't know whether there were an undercover federal agents fbi agents in the crowd or in the capital on january 6th i i say that because i want to be very careful there have been a number of court filings related to some of these topics and i want to make sure that i stick with him what's in i i understand that but i i just i thought i heard you say you didn't know whether there were fbi agents or informants or human sources in the capital or in the vicinity on january 6 did i misunderstand you i thought that's what you said well i referred very specifically to undercover agents yeah and so are you acknowledging then there were undercover agents as i sit here right now i do not believe there were undercover agents on any agents did you have any assets present that day in the crowd when it comes to what you're calling assets or what we would call confidential human sources uh that's a place where again i want to be careful as much as i said in response to an earlier question uh there are court filings that i think speak to this that i'm happy to make sure we get to you assuming they're not under seal um and that can better answer the question than i can as i sit here right now in the same january excuse me june 2021 first committee hearing you told us that the faiza court quote approved fbi procedures minimization procedures collection and procedures querying procedures did not find misconduct close quote that's what you said um specifically you said the fisk found no misconduct yet three months later the inspector general found widespread problems in fbi's faiza applications raising serious questions about the fbi review process of applications including hundreds of examples of non-compliance with woods procedures for example and we know that from december 2020 to november 2021 the fbi conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of us data under faiza 3.4 million up nearly triple the amount of the previous year and it got worse as you were telling us there was nothing to worry about but now your reforms have produced about a hundred reduced it down to 119 000 over 200 000 total but 119 000 discreet americans that just doesn't seem like you've accomplished much there if you have 119 000 illegal searches and queries under faiza i'll yield back gentlemen yields back gentlemen from california is recognized thank you mr chairman the house judiciary committee is responsible for helping to ensure the rule of law unfortunately this chairman ignored a bipartisan congressional subpoena served upon him the actions of this chairman have undermined the credibility of all congressional committees and seeking information from witnesses and have undermined the rule of law now director ray thank you for your public service and for the service of the brave fbi agents i'm going to ask you a series of basic questions to get facts out to american people about our system of justice trump advisor roger stone was convicted in a federal court correct that's my recollection trump donor ellie brady was convicted in a federal court correct also my recollection the attorney general at the time for those two convictions was bill bar which president nominated bill bar for attorney general a president trump trumps former lawyer michael cohen was convicted on two separate occasions in a federal court correct i believe that's correct attorney general at the time for cohen's second conviction was matthew wittaker which president appointed matthew wittaker as acting attorney general uh president trump trumps former campaign chairman paul maniforte was convicted in a federal court correct yes trumps former deputy campaign manager mr gates was convicted in a federal court correct that's my recollection trumps campaign form policy advisor george popadopoulos was convicted in a federal court correct uh yes i think he played guilty yes the attorney general at the time of those three cases was jeff sessions which president nominated jeff sessions for attorney general president trump you were their fbi director for all of those cases at the time which president nominated you president trump okay what these facts show is we don't have a two-tiered system of justice we have one department justice that goes after criminals regardless of party ideology all of these folks were convicted under the administrations of three separate republican attorneys general it is not the fault of the fbi that donald trump surrounded himself with criminals donald trump brought that upon himself thank you to the fbi for exposing the cesspool of corruption of these trump associates now i like to talk about efforts by mag republicans to defund the fbi i think be useful for the fbi to explain american people what your missions are and how critical they are so again a series of basic questions the fbi's mission includes counter terrorism correct yes and that means fbi works to stop terrorist attacks on american soil right yes the fbi's mission also includes counterintelligence correct yes and that means fbi works to stop espionage of american companies and organizations is that right yes okay the fbi's mission includes stopping cyber crime right correct fbi's mission includes stopping public corruption right correct the fbi's mission includes stopping weapons of mass destruction from being detonated on american soil right oh yes we work with others on it but yes the fbi fbi's mission includes going after organized crime right yes you go after violent crime correct yes you also go after white collar crime right yes the fbi's mission also includes going after child sex trafficking correct yes okay republican members of their caucus including members on this committee have asked to defund fbi one member of this committee from Arizona wrote that the fbi quote should be defunded and dismantled what would happen if the fbi was defunded and dismantled we would have hundreds more violent criminals out on the street dozens more violent gangs terrorizing communities hundreds more child predators on the loose hundreds more kids left at those predators mercy instead of being rescued scores of threats from the chinese communist party being left unaddressed hundreds of ransomware attacks left unmitigated terrorist attacks both jihadists inspired and domestic violent extremists not prevented that would succeed against americans single seizures of fentanyl it is not uncommon right now for a single fbi office in a single operation to seize enough fentanyl to wipe out an entire state so many many many many more of those lethal doses would be sweeping the country we have close to 400 i think it is somewhere between 300 and 400 investigations into the leadership of the cartels trafficking that fentanyl so you would have a significantly greater threat from the southwest border from the cartels so those are just a few things that would happen ultimately the people most hurt by some um ill-conceived effort to defund our agency the people most hurt are the american people uh that live in every district represented on this committee thank you director ray at the age of protecting americans gentlemen from um california mr kiley's recognition good morning director i'd like to take you back to 2021 in many parts of the country schools remain closed month after month for no good reason uh once schools did nominally open many instituted draconian testing and corrupting regimes such as one student is possibly exposed to covet everyone goes home for the week children as young as toddlers were subjected to harmful mass mandates that defied international norms the way some students were treated truly shocks the conscience just consider a few examples from my own state of california a school district in davis sent an email to parents announcing that their children will be required to eat outside in the rain to reduce exposure to covet a school in sonoma county made young children chew with their masks on explaining this was to minimize the time spent unmasked some schools in los angeles limited students to one bathroom break per day and barred them from drinking water outside of the lunch period a school in the san rome valley made students eat lunch on the ground in october of that year the american academy of pediatrics would declare a national state of emergency in children's mental health setting dramatic increases in emergency department visits for all mental health emergencies included including suspected suicide attempts in the face of this director the biden administration decided to take action it mobilized the sweeping powers of federal law enforcement but it wasn't to spare kids from such cruelty rather it was to target the parents who were speaking out against it the administration coordinated with the national school board association on a letter that began with the alarming claim america's public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat the letter cited a handful of news stories almost all of which involve purely expressive activity by parents at school board meetings and called such activity a form of domestic terrorism the letter called for the full counterterrorism and law enforcement powers of the federal government including authority granted under the patriot act to be mobilized to investigate intercept and prevent such activity the biden administration was ready to take this letter and run with it the moment it was received after all administration officials had participated in its drafting within five days of receiving it attorney general merit garland fired off his infamous memo directing federal action in response to a quote disturbing spike and harassment and intimidation and threats of violence against school administrators board members teachers and staff in response the fbi opened 25 assessments against parents and even created a new threat tag director a did attorney general garland consult with you or the fbi before issuing that memorandum uh i can't get into discussions that did or maybe more importantly did not happen between the fbi and the department in advance of the why do you say more importantly did not well because i will say to you the same thing that i said to all 56 of our field offices as soon as i read the memo which is that the fbi is not in the business of investigating or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else for that matter and we're not going to start now uh now violence threats of violence that's a different matter we're going to work with our right so that's what the memo was predicated on and what i'm asking you was there any evidence that you provided to attorney general garland that supported that predicate that premise that there was an increase in harassment and threats of violence i'm not aware of any such evidence but i know that we've had a number of uh of our folks who have been up here for transcribed interviews so unless some of them shared it i'm not aware of any well actually they've shared with us points to just the the opposite you had for example a letter from christopher dunham acting assistant director in march of this year where the fbi acknowledged that is is not observed an uptick of threats directed at school officials since it began tracking tracking the data does that sound accurate to you yes sir and is it also true that according to the fbi itself and none of the school board related investigations have resulted in federal arrests or charges i think that's correct i think uh of the 25 and for context you know that's 25 um tips i'm sorry i have limited time so that's correct i'd like to move on this committee's investigation concluded that the justice department's own documents demonstrate that there was no compelling nationwide law enforcement justification for the attorney general's directive do you have any reason to dispute that conclusion uh no so we had an investigation of parents we had a sweeping mobilization of federal power against the most protected core first amendment activity the right of citizens to speak and petition their government on the most important of issues the education of their children and you are telling me that the entire basis for that there was no evidence to support it well i want to be clear we the fbi as i said were not and did not investigate people for exercise attorney general garland rescind the memo i'm sorry should attorney general garland rescind that memo oh that's a question for the attorney general do you believe you should again i'm that's a question for the attorney general do you would you do you believe that the attorney general should apologize to parents who are the subject of that memory i'm not going to speak to that will you apologize for the fbi's own role i think the fbi conducted itself uh the way it should here which is that we've considered to continue to follow our long-standing rules and have not changed anything in response to that memo time the gentleman has expired the chair recognizes the general lady from washington thank you mr chairman director ray thank you so much for being with us thank you for your service to the country um i do want to focus on some areas of concern around american civil liberties that i have have had long-standing concerns about in testimony to senate intelligence in march you stated that the fbi had previously purchased commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising but that to your knowledge the fbi does not currently purchase data but just last month the odini declassified a report revealing that the fbi and other agencies do purchase significant amounts of commercially available information about americans from data brokers and the report notes that commercially available information quote has increasingly important risks and implications for us persons privacy and civil liberties as commercially available information can reveal sensitive and intimate information about individuals it is public information that the fbi uses babel street and vent ventile and has a lexus account all of these companies provide data for purchase can you tell me how the fbi uses that data uh respectfully this is a topic that gets very involved to explain uh and so i what i would prefer to do is have our subject matter experts come back up and brief you and they can answer your questions in detail about it because there's a lot of confusion that can be unintentionally caused about this topic but does my testimony my testimony that you referred to before remains the same and the the story about the odini report doesn't change that but again there's there's a lot of precision and technical dimensions to this well i i do appreciate that but i i'm looking at a report that is from the office of the director of national intelligence saying that the fbi purchases data mr chairman i ask unanimous consent to enter this into the record objection um do you know if the contracts with data brokers like the ones i described provide location data my testimony about purchasing commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising remains the same which is that we currently do not do that but the but the information that you have that has already been purchased does it contain location again i'm not i'm not trying to be obtuse or difficult here i just know from experience that the more you drill into this whole issue of commercial data geolocation data etc that it gets very involved in some cases involves pilot projects that are in the past in some cases involves uh national directory i i do understand i just want to make sure that we get you the information you need okay that's great i i will take that but i do want to say that this is just an extremely important issue for the american people to understand how their data is being used that is location data that is uh biometric information it's medical and mental health information it's information related to individuals communications it's information about people's internet activity and while i understand that that's complicated that is the reason that you come before us so that the american people can hear this let me ask you this does the fbi have a written policy outlining how it can purchase and use commercially available information uh there are a number of policies that bear on this topic again that could be part of the same briefing that we're happy to provide i don't dispute at all that this is an important topic i'm simply saying that precisely because it's such an important topic that a minute and 12 seconds counting down is not the best way i understand that but but i'm asking whether there is a policy it sounds like there is a policy when was that policy last updated that i can't as i sit here right now i don't have the answer for you on that but again there are a number of policies that are relevant to this and so that may affect the and you'll commit to providing those to us so that we can we can explore them i i would commit to providing a briefing and provide uh hopefully very helpful information to help you understand better this whole topic what about a written policy governing how commercially available information can be used in criminal investigations i think it's all wrapped up in the same answer i just gave i mean the reason that this is so important is because uh the question is whether the fbi uses that data to generate leads for investigations only or further along in the investigative process there's public reporting on dhs contracts with the same data brokers that i mentioned earlier toadding totaling millions of taxpayer dollars and as you know in the 2018 supreme court decision in carpenter versus the united states the court held that it is a violation of the fourth amendment for the government to access historical location data without a warrant does the fbi have a written policy interpreting the supreme court's decision in carpenter uh if i recall correctly there was guidance i can't remember if it's a policy or or what that came out after the carpenter decision uh but again i think that'll be encompassed in the briefing that we're talking about follow-up with you i want to thank you again for your service this is a critically important issue for the american people to understand we have bipartisan support uh around faiza reauthorization and the concerns we have around faiza reauthorization and unless we really understand what measures the fbi is taking to ensure that people's privacy is protected i think it's going to be a very difficult uh reauthorization process i'm sure you know that thank you director ray i yield back gentle lady yields back and i would just say well said uh appreciate your work with colleagues bipartisan area and and bipartisan approach in this area and you have friends over here want to want to help you on that we now go to the gentleman from uh i know director we would if we can go just a couple more then what we'll take a little break if that works for the director a couple more on each side then we can take a break okay i think okay all right we'll go i think it's mr. morris is up thank you mr chairman director ray thank you for being here today in 2022 you testified before the senate judiciary committee and stated quote i condemn in the strongest possible terms any prospect of retaliation against whistleblowers end quote do you still agree with that statement yes do you feel that your actions as the fbi leadership during your tenure live up to that sentiment yes director ray a few months ago we heard from uh are you familiar with a special agent uh garret oh boy i'm familiar with the name after mr. old bowl came to congress and blew the whistle on the misconduct at the bureau his clearance was unsurprisingly suspended is did that surprise you do you find that suspicious uh i i can't discuss a specific security clearance matter partly because the uh the security clearance determinations are made by by odi and i directed by the security clearance manager which is not the fbi director um and i don't want to insert myself into the process while appeals are pending for example well as a leader i think it's important you we need to have the opportunity and you know by law that they have the opportunity to be whistleblowers and talk to congress and inform us on issues and i think to restore trust in the fbi it's imperative on you to allow whistleblowers to come forward and for us to have the oversight we need to have to make sure i mean we're seeing the polar numbers the fbi is tanking and it's it's under your watch sir and and it concerns me from the american people when i'm in the district the number one concern and i come from a fairly rural district is weaponization of the fbi and the doj coming about after conservative american citizens who just simply want to have a voice in the process and so i would encourage you uh mr. old boy will understand he has been suspended since september of 23 almost 10 months now of 2022 he was suspended in 2022 so almost a year now the man's trying to go without a paycheck i don't know could you make it 10 months without a paycheck mr. ray i prefer not yeah well you're talking about your wife not being real happy yeah i'm taking a pay cut well can you imagine 10 months later and and you're still going through a process for just a whistleblower coming to the coming to the congress and trying to inform us on issues he sees within the fbi i think we could help you in the process if you would allow us but in some ways we have to look at this whistleblower and other whistleblowers and encourage them to come forward and be truthful with the american people two real quick questions why would the fbi offer christopher still a million dollars to verify a dossier about trump russian collusion and then the same fbi offer three million dollars to twitter to squash a story on a hundred by the laptop do you have any idea why a law enforcement agency would be planning to elections why you raised a number of different issues there so first uh as to the steel dossier that of course is a subject treated a great length in the durum report which we and again predates my time as director i understand that but it's the same agency paying a million dollars to push one story out or try to collaborate one story and three million dollars to quiet another story for political opponents so i understand and then i would as to the second part related to twitter i would i would disagree with your characterization respectfully when there are payments to social media companies that is by long-standing federal law going back i think about four decades where we have to pay companies for their costs in responding to legal process and it's not just social media companies it's other kinds of businesses as well well when those stories get out and you understand it certainly the dossier story and i know that wasn't under your watch but also the the the hunter biden laptop story that to me looks political to the american people it looks political and i'm just an everyday guy i'm not an attorney mr ray just an everyday guy but to me it looks extremely political and that is why you're having trouble keeping the fbi's reputation afloat and so with that mr chairman i'm gonna yield a balance in my time but i do i want to enter one thing to the record mr chairman what can you do that after we just yield then we'll enter in record after sure sure director ray did the fbi asked financial institutions to turn over their customers you have the time to me did the fbi asked financial institutions to turn over their customers debit and credit card purchase history in the washington dc area for january 5th and 6th 2021 uh i don't know the answer to that as i sit here right now well we do because bank of america gave this email from the fbi to bank of america well i am aware that bank of america provided information to the fbi but what communications occurred between the fbi and bank of america about it let's read it to recap our morning call are you we are prepared to action the following threshold customers transacting debit card credit card washington dc purchases between one five 21 1621 that's scary enough but then the next bullet points even more scary any any historical capital letters all capitals any historical purchase of a firearm you guys asked financial it's the least bank of america we think more did you guys ask him again i don't have the full sequence of the back forth you've got one looks like you got one email that i haven't seen before here um so i don't know that i have the full exchange that this is this email trouble you as much as it does members of the judiciary committee that the fbi is asking for every single i mean we had members of congress here that week first time they're getting sworn in as a new member of congress their family in town and you're sweeping and they may happen to be a customer bank of america and you're sweeping up every debit and credit card purchase of their family who were in town that week because their their husband or their dad or their mom is getting sworn in as a new member of congress and then you're also saying overlaying that information with did you did this person buy a firearm and the question is i'm just nervous about that are you nervous about that as as i think i've testified before my understanding is that our engagement with bank of america uh was fully lawful but that we recalled the leads that were cut to fill it's lawful that's that was my next point if it's lawful why did you say we're not going to use these leads that's what mr jensen testified to when we deposed him the director of the terrorism unit at the fbi that's what he testified to why did you why did you not use the leads if it was lawful to get the information well there are one minute and 18 seconds over time there are sir there are plenty of times where there are things that we lawfully can do but that we decide is better that we not do and i think that's what the idea that mr mass he said earlier that this is lawful that you can ask this is scary this something else we're gonna have to change uh with that i would yield to the general lady from recognize the general lady from excuse me for uh well we got a unanimous consent request from mr more this chairman yes the wall street journal article i'd like to enter into the record says republicans i sweet home for new fbi headquarters in alabama all right uh without objection the chair now recognizes the general aid for texas for five minutes and then we'll take a break break director good afternoon thank you very much director ray for your presence here thank you to the men and women of the fbi in particular for the work that you've done on gun violence uh and as well uh the work that you've done in keeping americans safe let me very quickly uh move on some issues that have been made a chief part of the work of our friends on the other side of the aisle republican members of this committee it's been much time uh of this congress claiming that various aspects of the u.s government have been weaponized against the american people director ray are you or your staff or exhilarated weaponizing the fbi against the american people absolutely not thank you very much uh let me uh thank you as well for your civil rights work and uh emphasize that in addition there have been representations that the fbi exaggerates domestic terrorism reports or data uh certainly uh january six had its many different storytellers but that was an act of domestic terrorism i don't know how you could have exaggerated that as evidenced by the special congressional committee we had but let's just think of domestic terrorism as it relates to the good men and women of our law enforcement take an example in february 2020 in texas where a white supremacist uh was uh engaged in conspiracy involving swatting a harassment tactic and all of the emergency services showed up over and over again does domestic terrorism impact negatively and dangerously on america's law enforcement and first responders absolutely and sometimes law enforcement are themselves the intended victims uh or targets of domestic violent extremism though you have a good uh committed individuals does the uh critique is legitimate that's our job was the constant condemnation uh impact on morale of fbi personnel or those trying to um join the fbi well look our people are human beings and nobody likes to see the organization they've dedicated their careers really their lives to unfairly criticize but i will tell you as i said in my opening statement that the good news is our people are also tough and resilient our attrition is in the low single digits and would be the envy of almost any employer and our recruiting unlike what's happening in law enforcement more generally is actually up very significantly thank you and i look forward to it being diverse let me start with our whistleblower uh journey here are you familiar with fbi special agents kyle um serpent i'm familiar with the name is that yes i'm familiar with the name the committee heard testimony that mr serpent was suspended after he mishandled his service weapon and then said he wanted to use two female xbi executives as shooting or targets uh that was testimony of jennifer more hr uh under human resources under oath from the fbi mr serpent describes himself as a congressional whistleblower but committee republicans will not tell us whether he has been in contact with them are you familiar with former fbi agents garrett oboille and marcus allen again i'm familiar with the names thank you oboille was suspended for accessing information about an ongoing case and then leaking to the press and allen was suspended for interfering in investigation of a january sixth suspect both allen and oboille testified before the weaponization committee in may were you aware of that yes ma'am i think uh they are clearly there for all friends and family to see i assume they wanted to be seen um do you know who cash patel is if you know yes i know who he is he's an aide to president trump isn't he or was an aide or is an aide to president trump well uh he he was uh an individual who served in a number of different roles both up here on the hill and in the executive branch thank you here's another picture it's the checks that serpent sent to both oboille and allen each check was for two hundred and fifty five thousand one hundred and ninety four dollars let me say that again these men were paid two hundred and fifty five thousand one hundred and ninety four dollars after they testified as so-called whistleblowers and it should be noted uh that it says here as it says for holding the line director at the time that serpent and patel gave garrett oboille and marcus allen these checks do you happen to know if they were still employees of the fbi i can't speak to that i don't know the answer if they were five cfr twenty two six three five and i'd appreciate if we could get an answer in writing after you go back whether they were or not prohibits fbi employees from accepting cash gifts doesn't it well there are a whole number of rules that would apply to this again i don't want to weigh in on a specific person but if they were uh that group applies about cash gifts i'm not aware of a situation in which they could appropriately accept just generally just generally if if that applies to fbi agents about not taking cash gifts is that correct there are there are definitely rules that apply to special agents accepting cash gifts let me just finish this can you explain why an fbi agent should not receive cash but let me uh move to uh one that i think is extremely important mr chairman mr chairman just a moment and here is what i think is most interesting piece of this whole puzzle oh boyland allen are represented by an outfit called empower oversight power oversight is run by former republican staffers do you know who else in power oversight might represent in any way mr chairman i have unanimous as consent request uh let me just uh generalize time to expire uh thank you so very much thank you um the so-called iris uh whistleblower who jim jordan had uh relied upon but does anyone need any further proof that these allegations are ginned up corrupt political stunts advanced by those who don't want to see us follow the law finally mr chairman here's another person who wants to join you on the 702 but the fbi has begun major reforms and i think we should recognize that you've been very kind i yield back my time generally he yields back i would just point out my guess is they they they got the money because they wanted the money because they had to try to try to feed their family they actually haven't received the money have unanimous consent request mr chairman of a tweet matthew foldy put out here during this hearing right off the bat jerry nadler lies about whistleblower getting 250 thousand he says here marcus allen has not received 250 thousand dollars he has not received or cashed the check that call serif and posted online enter that in the record