House Republicans grill FBI director over claims of bias and probes of Biden family

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• Geoff Bennett:

  The director of the FBI sat on the other side of an interrogation today by members of Congress.

  Christopher Wray faced some sharp criticism during today's House Judiciary Committee hearing.

  Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins was there and joins us now.

  So, Lisa, Republicans on the committee grilled the FBI director about the alleged weaponization of law enforcement agencies against former President Donald Trump. Tell us more about that.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's right.

  They were talking about not just President Trump, but also individual Americans. And this was a very dense hearing. As you will hear, there were Threads of many different issues that overlapped.

  When it came to that Republican accusation of weaponization by the FBI, they made a few specific allegations. They brought up memos by the FBI that were protecting school boards, rather than parents, sort of implying that parents were the threat. The Department of Justice has denied that that was their intent.

  Also, a memo from the Richmond FBI that targeted what they called radical traditional Catholics. Director Wray said that that was a single office and not at all what the FBI intended.

  But one of those heated exchanges came around the case of a man named Mark Houck. He's a Pennsylvania man who was arrested and charged after he protested or was standing outside of an abortion clinic. And when he was arrested, his lawyer said he was willing to voluntarily come in, but instead the FBI sent over a dozen agents and held him at gunpoint in the morning before his family.

  And Director Wray was asked, was that appropriate?

• Christopher Wray, FBI Director:

  I'm not going to second-guess the judgment of the career agents on the ground who made the determination.

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

  But your job is to second-guess and look at what they're doing. Your job is to review what they do. Your job is to protect the American people from a tyrannical FBI storming the home of an American family.

• Christopher Wray:

  I could not disagree more with your description of the FBI as tyrannical. And I think…

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Chip Roy:

  You don't believe it's tyrannical that FBI agents were a part of storming a father's home in suburban Philadelphia?

  (Crosstalk)

• Unidentified Male:

  Mr. Chairman?

• Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

  The time of the gentleman has expired.

  The witness may respond, and then we will move to our next witness.

  (Crosstalk)

• Christopher Wray:

  Sir, respectfully, they did not storm his house. They came to his door. They knocked on his door and identified themselves. They asked him to exit. He did without incident.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Now, that was a classic example of what Wray did. He never lost his cool in this hearing.

  Democrats did do some defense work for him, charging Republicans with being political in their attacks.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What about the more bipartisan concerns about the ways in which the FBI is using data?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  This was a fascinating part of the hearing and, obviously, of increasing importance now.

  Democrats raised their concern that we now know that the FBI and other agencies have been collecting data on Americans. They asked exactly what the FBI has done with that data. Republicans too chimed in. They raised a recent court filing that, in fact, found that the FBI was inappropriate, in fact, broke the rules and how it was using warrantless wiretaps in some cases after January 6.

  In both of these instances, the FBI director said he wasn't either going to get into specifics for legal reasons, ongoing cases, or he said it was just too complicated to get into. But he — the Republicans also raised this case of sort of a wide-ranging voluntary data ask, that Bank of America — Republicans showed this e-mail that the FBI used to try and get a wide range of data from everyone who had a transaction with a Bank of America card between January 5 and 6 of 2021 or anyone who had purchased a weapon, potentially in the entire country, in the six months previously.

  Republicans say that's an example of just a very wide FBI search of what information they think should be private. The director himself just kept reiterating the FBI does not break the law.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And hovering over all of this, Lisa, are some threats by Republicans, some Republicans on the committee, to defund the FBI entirely.

  Did that come up today?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Right, hovering over all of this is the FBI's reputation and its future.

  And, indeed, some members who have said otherwise, that they would like to defund the FBI, did not say that today to the FBI director's face. The closest they came was Chairman Jim Jordan, who, in his opening remarks, raised the idea that the FBI should not get payment for its new headquarters.

  Director Wray said, any defunding of the FBI would be catastrophic on a range of issues and threats facing the country right now.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What else stood out to you about this hearing today, Lisa?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, there were some surprising points.

  One was that, for the first half, I didn't really hear much about two big FBI headline cases, the one with — involving Hunter Biden or the one involving former President Donald Trump. It was more about other specifics, broader American concerns.

  One other surprising moment, Geoff, the FBI director was asked about the greatest threats that he sees, and, in particular, he was asked about China. Here's what he said.

• Christopher Wray:

  There is no country, none, that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our innovation, our economic security than the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. And, in many ways, in many ways it represents, I think, the defining threat of our era.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That was a standout quote and, in fact, changed how we were reporting this segment with you.

  It just shows how much the FBI is working on, the pressures on them right now, even as the director itself is facing very sharp political questions.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins.

  Lisa, thanks, as always.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.