Politics
WATCH: Jim Jordan ERUPTS On Wray During FBI Hearing, Slams Director For Agency’s Abuses
The long-awaited moment of confrontation between Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization Subcommittee, occurred today. The Republican chairman opened up with an attack on the “Orwellian” censorship regime by the Biden administration that was exposed in Missouri v Biden case and how the FBI assisted that censorship through their covering up for Hunter Biden’s laptop data dump. Jordan observed that the suppressed constitutional speech by the administration was “conservative in nature.”
He then drilled into the various problems with the FBI from their improper investigation of parents who had concerns about the education system, their overreaction to those who protested at abortion clinics, their spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, their raid on Mar-a-Lago, and their punishment of congressional whistleblowers.
Jim Jordan said that the icing on the cake was that “they [the FBI] want the taxpayers they censored, the parents they labeled [as domestic terrorists], the pro-life Catholics they called radical, they want them to pay for a new FBI headquarters and they want FISA re-authorization of the 702 program in its current form [that they were caught abusing 200,004 times].”
Representative Jordan’s statements can also be summarized by his tweet: “Retaliate against a whistleblower? Lose your salary. Discourage U.S. Marshalls from protecting [SCOTUS] justices? No funds for you. And no new funds for an FBI headquarters!”
Retaliate against a whistleblower? Lose your salary.
Discourage U.S. Marshalls from protecting #SCOTUS justices? No funds for you.
And no new funds for an FBI headquarters!
Our appropriations requests: https://t.co/Fft5au2hEh
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 11, 2023
Chairman Jordan grilled the director over FBI abuses during the question and answer session that followed opening statements. Jordan recalled a memo detailing the FBI’s policy in Richmond on securing informants within the Catholic Church over a supposed linkage between “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” and “violent extremism.”
The memo proclaims that one can tell who is a believer in “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology ” through various factors including their beliefs about abortion.
Jordan commented, “They are trying to put informants in the parish in the Church. That is what your memorandum says…from one of your field offices. And you won’t let us talk to the people who did it.” Director Wray denied any action was based on the memo. “That product did not result as best as we can tell in any investigative action,” said the director.
Jordan inquired what the motivation behind the memo was. Wray commented that there was an internal review by the bureau that would hopefully uncover the motivation and that he would expect to brief Congress about that review’s findings “later in the summer.” Representative Jordan said it was clearly politics and political preferences that was behind the memo and he cited the memo’s concern that “radical-traditionalist” Catholic interest would spread in the months leading up to “the next general election.”
The memo told agents to be on the lookout for legislative activity by this group that touched on abortion rights, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBTQ protection.
Jordan said, “I think it is interesting that we just got a decision from a bunch of Catholics who sit on the United States Supreme Court relative to affirmative action.”
