House Judiciary
Republicans are demanding that
FBI Director Christopher Wray answer for the Bureau's "targeting" of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn by making top officials and documents connected to the probe available to lawmakers.House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Representative Mike Johnson (R., La.) asked Wray to hand over all documents and communications related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Razor” investigation of Flynn, as well as to address why the Bureau has not been forthcoming regarding the new information about the case that has been released in court filings.“The
American people continue to learn troubling details about the politicization and misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI during the Obama-Biden Administration,” Jordan and Johnson wrote. “Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations — not from you. It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era.”Records released last week showed that handwritten notes dated January 24, 2017 — the same day of Flynn was interviewed at the
White House interview by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka — showed one agent questioning whether the goal of the interview was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”Further documents released in the case also reveal that Strzok intervened to keep the Flynn case open after Crossfire Razor investigators noted on January 4, 2017 that they had found “no derogatory information” regarding Flynn’s
Russian contacts. That same day, Strzok also told a redacted individual that the FBI’s “7th floor” had intervened — apparently referencing the floor in Bureau headquarters that houses senior FBI leadership.In their letter, Jordan and Johnson ask Wray to allow Pientka and Priestap to be made available for an interview to explain their respective roles in the case, and also ask Wray to publicly address allegations that he had opposed the disclosure of exculpatory information in the Flynn case, as reported by the Daily Caller.President Trump reportedly wants to
fire Wray in response to the latest revelations, but the president is unlikely to remove him before the November
election. Wray has been backed publicly by Attorney General Bill Barr, who said in an October interview that “there’s been a world of change” since Wray took over in 2017. “I think that he is restoring the steady professionalism that’s been a hallmark of the FBI,” Barr told
Fox News.