By Jake Smith
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz raised concerns to FBI Director Chris Wray about the Bureau’s and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Hunter Biden investigation during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Lawmakers have accused the DOJ and FBI of political bias in carrying out the ongoing Biden family probe. Cruz told Wray that he was failing to properly perform his role in the investigation and accused him of “hiding” behind DOJ Attorney General Merrick Garland while evading questions, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“Director Wray, you and I have gone round and round on this, because I understand, anytime you’re asked about this, the answer is, ‘It’s an ongoing investigation’ – of course, the investigation isn’t ongoing,” Cruz told Wray. “You’re not doing the work, you’ve got whistleblowers pointing out that you’re not doing the work, and you are hiding behind the skirts of the attorney general.”
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Cruz then referred Wray to comments made by Garland in a previous Senate hearing, in which Garland claimed to not have been involved with the ongoing Biden family investigation. Cruz pointed out that whistleblowers have alleged Garland lied under oath, then asked Wray whether he agreed.
“I can’t speak to the attorney general’s testimony,” Wray responded. “I can only tell you what my instructions have been to our people –”
“Has there been political interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden?” Cruz asked.
Wray responded that that wasn’t his experience. Cruz then asked Wray whether DOJ investigators were allowed to probe into whether President Joe Biden was “complicit in the corruption,” to which Wray referred him back to the DOJ, noting that he wasn’t “hiding behind anything.”
“Director Wray, you have a responsibility to the FBI not to allow it to be a partisan tool. … Have you opened an investigation into whether the attorney general lied under oath to Congress and whether the attorney general obstructed justice?” Cruz asked Wray.
Wray responded that he wasn’t “going to go down that road.”
“I know you’re not!” Cruz said. “That’s the point – nobody thinks you’ve opened an investigation because you’re not willing to. … You are simply sitting blithely by while career partisans in your agency allow it to be weaponized. You are damaging the FBI, and you are damaging the [DOJ].”
Wray previously testified in October before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in which Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley presented a letter to him outlining how 40 anonymous sources gave “critical information” about the Biden family to the FBI. Grassley told Wray that the FBI intentionally labeled the intelligence as disinformation in an act of “political bias.”
