FBI Director Wray denies protecting the Biden family during heated hearing

FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted he is “absolutely not” working to protect the Biden family and said the agency has not been politicized during a standoff with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

GOP representative Matt Gaetz showed a text message reportedly sent by Hunter Biden in which the president’s son wrote a letter to a Chinese Communist Party official, Henry Zhao, on July 30, 2017, demanding money for a business deal.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” Hunter is said to have written at the time. “You’ll regret not following my directions. I’m waiting for the phone call with my father.’

“You seem very ignorant about it—almost suspiciously inquisitive. Will you protect the Bidens?’ Gaetz asked Wray.

“Absolutely not,” said the FBI director.

Sounds like a shakedown, doesn’t it, Director? You don’t answer the question and everyone knows why you don’t answer, because for the millions of people watching this, they know it’s a shakedown.”

“People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was in charge than when you are,” Gaetz continued.

“In your home state of Florida, the number of people applying to work for us … has increased more than 100% since I started,” Wray countered.

“They deserve better than you,” Gaetz said.

Gaetz and other Republicans also attacked Wray for the FBI’s illegal use of Section 702 of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Section 702 provision allows US federal intelligence agencies to conduct targeted searches for foreigners, but sometimes Americans are inappropriately searched during the process

The FBI admitted to using FISA to conduct 204,000 searches on US citizens by 2022, from January 6 protesters to BLM protesters.

“People sought out themselves, sought out their ex-lovers, used the FISA process as their creepy personal sniffing machine,” Gaetz said.

Wray said there have been cases of “disciplinary action” for improper use of the search process without a court order.

At the end of the year, Congress must decide whether to re-pass Section 702, and Republicans have said they won’t do so without major changes.

GOP Representative Ken Buck took a less belligerent tone as he voiced his own concerns about FISA.

“You’re still a registered Republican and I hope you don’t change sides after this hearing,” he told Wray. “I want to thank you for running an agency that protects Americans from foreign terrorists.”

Wray also took offense at some of the GOP allegations — saying it’s “ridiculous” to say someone from the agency was involved in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and “somewhat absurd” to accuse the FBI of working with social media companies to withhold information about the origins of COVID-19.

“Consider the fact that the FBI was the sole body of the entire intelligence community to judge that it was more likely than not that this was the explanation,” he said.

Wray confirmed in March that COVID-19 “most likely” came from a Chinese lab.

“The FBI has long determined that the origin of the pandemic is most likely a possible laboratory incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “You’re talking about a possible leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”

Presiding Judge Jim Jordan also railed against Wray’s FBI over its handling of the Hunter Biden laptop and over a memo written by the FBI about “radical traditional Catholics.”

“Americans have seen the FBI in Richmond Field Office put out a memorandum stating that pro-life Catholics are extremists,” Jordan said.