F.B.I. Director to Testify Before House Panel as It Assails the Bureau
Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, is expected to confront an extraordinary political storm on Wednesday when he testifies before Congress, with Republicans who once defended the bureau now denouncing it as a weapon wielded against former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters.
Mr. Wray, who is appearing for the first time before the House Judiciary Committee since Republicans won the House, is likely girding for the worst. The committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, says it “will examine the politicization” of the F.B.I. under Mr. Wray and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
Stoked by Mr. Trump, congressional Republicans have adopted an increasingly caustic tone in their criticism of the country’s premier law enforcement agency, trying to damage the bureau’s legitimacy and undermine its standing with the public.
That criticism was once trained on the bureau’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election. It is now focused on other flash points: Mr. Trump’s indictment in an inquiry into his handling of classified documents; the F.B.I.’s role in the search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August, as part of that inquiry; unfounded claims of a “two-tiered” system of justice favoring Democrats; and the Justice Department’s plea agreement with the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Source: The New York Times
