(Article republished from HumanEvents.com)
We are talking, of course, about the testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray, whose FBI has been repeatedly (and accurately) accused of targeting Christians, conservatives, parents concerned about inappropriate classroom materials, and pretty much anyone whom the Democrats and their deep state allies regard as insufficiently loyal to their twisted ideals. And while Wray’s appearance was a transparent effort at damage control by the embattled FBI, to anyone with a brain, it will only serve to inflame suspicion about the bureau’s impartiality.
There is almost too much in the hearing to remark on it fully, so we will have to confine ourselves to a few particular incidents, which truly exemplify the smarmy, disingenuous face which Wray (and by extension, the FBI) presented to the public. Firstly, and more nakedly embarrassing, was the fact that Wray was reduced to a straight man for Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) evisceration of the FBI for its targeting of so-called “traditionalist Catholics.”
Josh Hawley to Chris Wray:
“You said we do not go to priests and ask them about their parishioners. You said we do not. You didn’t say we haven’t. You didn’t say we won’t. You said we don’t. It turns out you do.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 5, 2023
When pressed, by Hawley on the bureau’s “systemic bigotry against Catholics,” and whether the agents in the field office responsible for would be punished, Wray began the first of a series of scandalous demurrals, saying only that the agents’ participation in the plan would be noted in their annual review, which might affect their salary. Our guess is that this is only true by technicality; it will affect their salary. Big fat bonuses will do that.
But even this technicality-oriented version of the truth folded when Hawley really started to go for the jugular on the informant question, and Wray could only respond with feeble semantic quibbles. Hawley took this as a cue to lay Wray flat:
“You said categorically, you said, we do not go to priests and ask them about their parishioners!” Hawley protested. “You said we do not. You didn’t say we haven’t. You didn’t say we won’t. You said we don’t. It turns out you do. And you kept it from the public. You deliberately misled Congress about it.”
“I just fundamentally disagree with your characterization—” Wray began, but Hawley cut him off.
“No, there’s no characterization, the facts are the facts!”
Wray also stumbled when confronted by Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who blasted Wray for the agency’s warrantless surveillance of American citizens, which Lee pointed out was not only in complete violation of the Constitution, but of actual laws constraining the FBI.
“This is disgraceful,” Lee fumed. “The Fourth Amendment requires more than that, and you know it.”
Wray, of course, could only flounder in response.
But these incidents, while embarrassing, are nothing compared with what happened when Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) actually let Wray dig his own grave on the question of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop. Why, Kennedy wondered, hadn’t the FBI made clear that the laptop, far from being a “product of Russian disinformation,” as the Biden campaign claimed, was genuine? In fact, this was particularly urgent, because social media companies were using the “Russian disinformation” argument to suppress the laptop, which they would’ve lacked any justification to do, had the FBI only confirmed its authenticity. And here, Wray did have an answer. Short version? It was election season, and the FBI’s “neutrality” required them to stay silent. However, in this rare case, the long version is actually worse:
“Again, we have to be very careful about what we say – especially in the middle of an election season – because that’s precisely some of the problems that led to my predecessor’s negative findings from the inspector general,” Wray answered.
Now, just in case you don’t remember what he’s talking about, Wray is referring to a 2019 Inspector General’s Report which found that his predecessor, James Comey, had improperly written and retained communications between himself and President Trump, and then released them without authorization, which we now know was designed to force the appointment of a Special Counsel: specifically, Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The big news item from that report, again, was that Comey had handled sensitive information improperly. But one of the other complaints in the report was that Comey had inserted himself too much into the 2016 election by first clearing then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY) of all charges related to her improper usage of a private email server for state business, then reopening the investigation late in the cycle, only to close it again, days later. In other words, Wray was taking a report which excoriated Comey for inserting himself into the election by being partial to the Democrats, and using it to justify withholding the truth because it might help Republicans. In short, “Heads, Democrats win; tails, Republicans lose.”
This is a far bigger problem than a few bad exchanges with US Senators. Wray inadvertently revealed exactly how the poisonous organs of the US Deep State function: anything they criticize themselves for, even if it seems to embarrass one bad actor, will be used to empower a future generation of similar actors to take actions even more opposed to the public interest. Before this answer, one could plausibly have called Wray an improvement on the disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, if only in the sense that excrement is an improvement over radioactive waste. But say this for James Comey, at least he wore his self-righteous, tyrant’s heart on his sleeve so proudly that you could see him coming. Wray, on the other hand, might be radioactive for a far worse reason: because unlike Comey, he can hold his tongue, so well that even President Trump couldn’t see through it sufficiently to avoid handing Wray the power to abuse his own base. Yes, that’s right: the man who President Trump himself selected to head the FBI has now been happily occupying the post of Lord High Inquisitor when it comes to members of Trump’s coalition. “Heads, we win. Tails, you lose.”
Well, we think, the Deep State’s loaded coin is about to land on its side, because now that Wray has submitted to this gauntlet of questioning and been exposed for the petty, smirking liar that he is, things surely about to go sideways for the FBI. But only if President Trump can be given a second bite at the apple, and replace his disastrous former choice with a true American patriot. Those are, ultimately, the stakes of next year’s election: whether Americans will have an FBI that is accountable to their duly elected leader, or if they will have an FBI that openly sabotages that elected leader when Americans “choose wrong” according to their smirking, self-appointed betters. For our part, we are proud to be standing on the side of the American people, and against the ersatz aristocracy that has now proven that it can’t even lie convincingly in its own defense.
Read more at: HumanEvents.com
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