FBI Director Wray Slammed in Congressional Hearing: “I Don’t Trust You”

FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before Congress became contentious after Rep. Mike Garcia (CA-27) proclaimed, “I don’t trust you to protect us.” Garcia blasted Wray (as well as the Biden Administration) for failing to resolve “the biggest national security threat” – illegal immigration at the southern border. Wray admitted to dangers at the border, especially the fentanyl originating from China.

Fox News reports on the explosive FBI hearing:

Garcia accused Wray of standing relatively silent and passive about “the biggest national security threat” to the U.S. – referring to the southern border — and refused to give “little credence” in the director’s ability to do his job or lead the “brave agents” below him.

“I don’t trust you to protect us,” Garcia said. “I think because of your inability to lead and also shape the policies and the DOJ and at the White House, we are now in a more precarious position than we were, I would submit, than we were on September 10th of 2001.”

The catastrophe at the border and the Deep State’s corruption have gotten so out of control that we now have Members of Congress openly admitting to a lack of trust in our governmental institutions to protect the American people. It’s a shame that we’ve reached such a breaking point.

While Members of the House are publicly decrying the lack of governmental control over the border, the House also just tried to move forward with a revised FISA authorization bill.

While we were on the air, several amendments to the bill containing key reforms to FISA were considered. Several reforms passed, but one major proposed reform, requiring a warrant before the government could collect information on citizens, failed. Such a reform would have protected the American people from unconstitutional, warrantless spying.

As the law stands, the FBI can go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court (also called the FISC) and get permission to spy on foreign individuals by accessing the raw data of a person’s phone calls, texts, emails, and so forth.

However, the law is supposed to protect the privacy rights of American citizens and respect the provisions of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is against the law to spy on an American using the provisions of this act.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen increasing abuse of FISA. If you remember, the Obama Administration illegally obtained a FISA warrant that prompted spying on the Trump campaign and those associated with President Trump. Such spying was a blatant violation of the constitutional rights of these U.S. citizens.

Also, the FBI was busted for illegally spying on millions of American citizens. The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2021, the FBI “performed potentially millions of searches of American electronic data” without a warrant.

In 2022, the ACLJ filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI to get to the bottom of the spying. The FBI has illegally spied on Americans more than 270,000 times. The lawsuit is still ongoing in court.

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell joined the broadcast to discuss how government officials abuse the FISA system:

I can tell you unequivocally that what Congress writes into law, the intel community manipulates and abuses. I should say some in the intel community manipulate and abuse their power. And that’s what we’re trying to solve. How do you get the tool without allowing there to be abuse? And the abuse is that individuals who are gathering intelligence are allowed to listen in on Americans if their strategy is to listen in on a foreigner. So they have been able to manipulate this process to say, Oh, I’m really going after a foreigner, but they’re listening to a U.S. official.

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included a full analysis of Rep. Garcia’s declaration of a lack of trust in Biden’s FBI. We also took a deep dive into the need for FISA reform and the amendment that failed to pass. ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs Mike Pompeo reacted to the news of an expected Iranian attack on Israel.

Watch the full broadcast below: