Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) confronted FBI Director Chris Wray on Thursday about an Aug. 4 Senate hearing, which Wray said he “had to walk away” from on vacation Wray insisted he stick to the prearranged hearing schedule before leaving for the day, but Hawley said he and other Republicans had hoped Wray would stay for a second questioning session and that Wray was “evading ” supervision by refusing to delay his vacation long enough. for the second round of questions.
“On August 4th of this year you were in the Senate Judiciary Committee – remember I guess – we had to cut that hearing short,” Hawley began his speaking time during a Thursday Senate hearing.
“We were supposed to do two rounds of questions,” Hawley continued. “You said you had to be somewhere, so we cut it off. the hearing is because you were flying in a Gulfstream jet for a personal vacation in the Adirondacks. Please tell me that’s not accurate.”
Wray responded by saying, “The hearing was cut off, it wasn’t cut off from my experience. We had agreed in advance on the time and length and my … I was surprised to hear that anyone on the committee was surprised “.
Wray then said that it is not only standard practice, but mandatory practice that he travels on an FBI plane wherever he goes.
“So you were going on vacation?” Hawley redirected the question.
“I was, yes,” Wray replied.
“So you left a legally required supervision hearing to go on a personal vacation,” Hawley said.
“I took a flight to visit my family, as previously agreed with the management of the committee. . .” said Wray.
Hawley then read a quote from the Aug. 4 hearing in which Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a member of the ranking Republican committee, asked Wray if he had other business before Wray decided to leave, a to which Wray said yes.
During the Aug. 4 exchange, Grassley said, “If you have a business trip, you have your own plane, can’t you wait a little while?” Grassley also said that “we only found out half an hour ago that you’re leaving” ahead of a second round of questioning planned during the hearing. Wray responded during that back-and-forth with Grassley that he had to catch the flight.
“And now we find out it was for vacation,” Hawley said Thursday.
Wray then said, “The reference to other business was not from that day, it was a reference to the following week where Senator Grassley and I were going to meet in Iowa when he had other business in Iowa and in fact the I saw. then.”
“Wait, so you had to leave the hearing early because you’re seeing him later in Iowa in a week?” Hawley asked.
“No, I had to leave when I said I would have to leave, as pre-arranged with committee leadership,” Wray said.
“You left a statutory Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing so you could go on vacation with your family,” Hawley replied. “I find it absolutely incredible and frankly indefensible.”
Wray reiterated that he must fly on an FBI plane for all travel, whether for business or personal reasons.
Hawley then reiterated, “You denied members of Congress the ability to ask you questions because you had to go on a personal vacation on a government plane.”
Hawley criticized Wray’s decision to skip the August hearing in light of a series of recent controversial episodes involving the FBI.
“The FBI has sent more than a dozen armed agents to a rural Pennsylvania home of a Catholic pro-life protester to arrest him at gunpoint in front of his children in the early hours of the morning, despite that he posed. without risk of violence or threat and had previously offered to turn himself in,” Hawley said.
Hawley raised the issue of another FBI whistleblower who alleged the agency was shifting its focus away from child sexual abuse cases to prioritize more political work, such as prosecuting people who broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The FBI whistleblower who raised this issue noted that FBI SWAT teams have made arrests of people wanted for misdemeanors related to January 6.
“They also say, these whistleblowers, DC management deliberately suppressed investigations into Hunter Biden, contrary to FBI procedure, and have also retaliated against FBI agents and whistleblowers who have contacted the Congress that, because of the way they are protected by the Statute, to do it, “said Hawley. “This is what’s going on in your FBI while you’re evading oversight hearings.”
Hawley then asked Wray, “Do you think you’re still doing this job?”
Wray responded, “I think I’m still up to the job and I think our workforce feels the same way.”
Hawley replied, “I don’t, and frankly, I think you should have left a long time ago.”
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