Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News (emphasis ours),
Republican Senators Joh Hawley and Rand Paul took the heads of the FBI and the Department Of Homeland Security to task Thursday, with Hawley at one point directly telling Christopher Wray that he should have been fired a long time ago.
Hawley also targeted Wray for previously leaving a committee hearing early so he could go on a vacation.
“You were at the Senate Judiciary Committee. You remember that I think so. We had to cut that hearing short. We’re supposed to do two rounds of questions. You said you had to be somewhere, so we cut it short. Republicans were not able to ask second round as we had been informed we would,” Hawley noted.
The Senator continued, “The press reported shortly thereafter that the reason that the hearing had to be cut short is because you were flying on a Gulfstream jet for a personal vacation in the Adirondack. Please tell me that’s not accurate.”
It was accurate.
“You left an oversight hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee required by statute so you could vacation with your family,” Hawley declared, adding “I find that absolutely unbelievable and, frankly, indefensible.”
Senator @HawleyMO roasts FBI Director Christopher Wray for leaving a statutorily-required committee hearing to go on vacation.
Hawley: “So you were going on vacation?”
Wray: “I was, yes” pic.twitter.com/RZLlvdoKwN
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 17, 2022
The Senator then provided examples of how the FBI has been overtly politicised and told Wray that he doesn’t believe he is up to the job of FBI Director anymore.
Hawley asserted “frankly, I think you should have been gone a long time ago. And given your behavior recently, I think it only makes it more clear.”
Hawley then twisted the knife by asking “Are there any travel plans today that we should be aware of, that you have? We’re supposed to have a second round. Will you be here for that?”
Sen. Josh Hawley leaves FBI Director Chris Wray in PANICKED silence after EXPOSING woke FBI for 2 straight minutes pic.twitter.com/8BJaOfzNCE
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2022
Elsewhere during the hearing, Hawley grilled Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas regarding the Biden administration reportedly flagging social media posts it doesn’t like as “disinformation” and “pressuring Big Tech to treat American citizens as if they’re threats to Homeland.”
“A federal judge in a federal lawsuit [has said] you are supervising the nerve center of federally directed censorship… Is that constitutional?” Hawley asked.
Mayorkas repeatedly claimed that the allegation are false.
“You are leveraging private companies to carry out censorship on your behalf. It is dystopian, but worse than that, it is unconstitutional,” Hawley asserted.
“It is also false,” Mayorkas sardonically replied.
Senator @HawleyMO‘s Full Grilling Of DHS Secretary Mayorkas About The “Disinformation Governance Board” And The Biden Administration’s Coordination With Big Tech Companies To Censor Americans
“You have turned your agency into a censorship machine.” pic.twitter.com/VpvFoHlv9c
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) November 17, 2022
Rand Paul also grilled Wray about reported collusion between the FBI and Facebook, noting “You may think it’s just jolly well to get all this stuff without a warrant that people volunteer to you, but many of us are alarmed that you’re getting this information that are private communications between people, because it is against the law.”
“You work for the government, you should admit to us whether or not you have a program going after our speech,” Paul asserted.
As we highlighted recently, Paul has vowed to introduce legislation that would make it illegal for government agencies and private big tech to secretly collude on such enterprises, noting that “it goes against everything that we all believe in as far as the foundation of our constitutional republic.”
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Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/19/2022 – 20:30
