Grassley's 11 pg letter to Wray on all the failures of FBI under wray
Director Wray:
Seven years ago, I presided over your confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after President Trump nominated you to become only the eighth FBI Director in the Bureau’s 116-year history. The Senate confirmed you to your current position in hopes you’d bring
needed change to the FBI after the politicization and scandal presided over by your predecessor,
Director James Comey. =•While I sincerely congratulated you on your nomination, I reminded you that an
FBI Director’s ten-year term is a ceiling, not a floor, and laid down my expectations for your service==.
1 These included foremost the prompt and thorough compliance with congressional oversight requests and
the protection of whistleblowers, whom I’ve spent my career defending.
2 As we stand at the threshold
of a new Congress and a new administration, with seven years of water under the bridge, you’ve failed
in these fundamental duties as director. Even President Biden, who denied weaponizing his
administration against President-elect Trump, has finally admitted that political bias has indeed infected
law enforcement.
3These failures are serious enough and their pattern widespread enough to have shattered my confidence in your leadership and the confidence and hope many others in Congress placed in you. Rather than turn over a new leaf at the FBI, you’ve continued to read from the old playbook of weaponization, double standards, and a relentless game of hide-and-seek with the Congress. As your tenure as FBI Director comes to an end, I want to take this opportunity to tell you where you went wrong, for the benefit of the Bureau and that of your successor.
Contrary to the assurances you made to gain confirmation to your position, the FBI has shown outright disdain for congressional oversight during your tenure. By doing so, it has hindered Congress in the exercise of its constitutional duty to oversee the actions of executive branch agencies and officials.
You pledged under oath at your confirmation hearing to assist members of the Judiciary Committee and the entire Senate with oversight requests, and said you would do everything in your power to make sure
the FBI is “appropriately responsive and prompt” in responding to these requests.
4 You didn’t live up to your word.Promises made, promises broken has become a recurrent theme under your leadership.
One of the most egregious examples is the FBI’s failure to provide basic information I requested more than two years ago related to the FBI’s ongoing mishandling of sexual harassment claims made by the FBI’s female employees.This request was not pulled out of a hat. It was based on credible whistleblower disclosures alleging hundreds of FBI employees had retired or resigned to avoid
accountability for sexual misconduct.5 Whistleblowers also alleged the FBI had disciplined senior officials less severely than their subordinates for this misconduct.
6 In November 2022, I released
internal FBI documents corroborating these disclosures.
7 I and my staff ever since have asked repeatedly for information sufficient to determine how FBI handled these serious claims and how
widespread the problem really is. The FBI, for its part, told the media it would provide the information
to me.
8 You personally told me at a December 5, 2023, Judiciary Committee hearing, when I
confronted you with the FBI’s blatant inaction, that you would check with your team and then follow up
with me.
9 Your Deputy Director, Paul Abbate, also publicly stated the FBI is serious about removing officials for sexual misconduct.
10 After a year since you made that pledge, over three years since
Deputy Director Abbate’s public comments, and after many more requests to FBI to provide this
information, neither of you have followed up or followed through. This inexcusable delay and obstruction by you and Deputy Director Abbate has prevented Congress and the Judiciary Committee from addressing the shocking sexual misconduct at the FBI. This is a promise made and broken, on an issue of utmost importance.
Likewise, in May and August of 2022,…