An oversight hearing to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
2025-09-16
Source: Congress.gov
Summary
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Participants
Transcript
I welcome Mr. Patel and all the people that are here to observe. This is our annual FBI oversight hearing. We meet today in the aftermath of the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, a school shooting, and the senseless murder of Ukrainian refugees, and also to remember several weeks ago the killings in Minnesota. Charlie Kirk was a man of God, faith, family, and country. I pray for his wife, Erica, children, the whole family. God bless you, Charlie Kirk. I've asked Director Patel for an update today on this matter. As we proceed with the hearing, Director Patel, I'd like to note that you've agreed to one 10-minute round of questioning. That's more time than your predecessor agreed to. When Director Wray appeared before this committee, he left early to go on a family vacation, and he wanted me to think it was business he had to conduct. Since your confirmation, you've been acquainted with the bureaucracy that you must reform and hold accountable, and that's no simple task. you've begun the important work of returning the FBI to its law enforcement mission.
According to the FBI, since January 20th of this year, the FBI has been involved in the arrest of more than 23,000 violent criminals This year, the FBI assisted the arrest of more than 1,500 child predators and 300 human traffickers. And this year, the FBI helped rescue more than 4,000 children from predators. FBI teams nationwide are working alongside Immigration and Custom Enforcement This teamwork has resulted in the arrest and removal of a historic number of violent criminal aliens, gang members, and child sex offenders. Those are overwhelming better records than at least two of your past predecessors. During the Wray era at the FBI, the Bureau reallocated resources from child crimes to January 6th work. Director Patel, you've also moved agents from headquarters to field offices to better align with their law enforcement mission. Under your leadership, the FBI has apprehended several most wanted fugitives and secured the extradition of senior leaders of the Central American gangs like MS-13. Now, well, it's well understood that your predecessor left you and FBI infected with politics. I'm going to provide examples of that today, including making public new whistleblower records.
At your nomination hearing, I made public records that whistleblowers provide me about Arctic Frost. Arctic Frost was the FBI case opened and approved by anti-Trump FBI agent Tebow. Arctic Frost then became Jack Smith's elector case against then-citizen Trump and now-President Trump. These new records show that Arctic frost was much broader than just an electoral matter. The case was expanded to Republican organizations. Some examples of the group that Wray and FBI sought to place under political investigation included the Republican National Committee, Republican Attorney General's Association, and various Trump political groups. In total, 92 Republican targets, including Republican groups and Republican-linked individuals, were placed under investigative scope of Arctic Frost. On that political list was one of Charlie Kirk's groups, Turning Point USA. In other words, Arctic Frost wasn't just a case to politically investigate Trump. It was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. So today, Senator Johnson and I are making these records public for the entire country to see, and I hope a lot of people are interested in seeing what government can do when various agencies have a political agenda.
My investigative work has also exposed the political way in which Peter Navarro was investigated and prosecuted. When FBI agent Tebow found out that Biden's DOJ would prosecute Navarro, he said, wow, great. That's a quote, unquote. Through whistleblowers, I've obtained a audio recording of Special Agent Giardina and Special Agent Sebastian Gardner's delivery of a subpoena to Navarro. I'm making that audio public today. In a court document filed by the Department of Justice, Navarro's interaction with the FBI was unfairly described as quote, unquote, the word combative. That intervention with Navarro was just as the justification to later aggressively arrest him. Then we get to the Clinton annex and the Durham annex. The Clinton annex showed that the Comey FBI had evidence necessary to complete the Clinton investigation, the one about her mishandling of emails and classified information, but the FBI Never did its job because it never reviewed the evidence at that time. The Durbin annex showed that the Clinton campaign had a plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia.
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