Grassley: Wray’s ‘Orwellian Conduct’ ‘Shattered My Confidence’

FBI Director Christopher Wray and his deputy have lost the confidence of a key member of the U.S. Senate. 

In a scathing letter, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, rebuked the corrupt director and laid out a laundry list of reasons why he has lost confidence in his leadership and that of his deputy director, Paul Abbate.

“For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives,” Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote in the letter, sent to Wray on Monday.

Some of Wray’s sharpest critics have argued that his “next chapter” should be a prison sentence for weaponizing America’s top law enforcement agency against political enemies and destroying whatever remained of Americans’ faith that no one is above the law. 

Trump has nominated ally Kash Patel to replace Wray as FBI director. The president-elect, appearing Sunday morning on “Meet the Press,” said that Wray’s agency invaded his home amid one of many abusive investigations into the left’s hated political enemy. 

“I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mar-a-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done,” Trump said. 

Grassley blasted Wray’s refusal to release reams of records sought by congressional committees, among the director’s many failures over his seven-year tenure at the FBI’s helm. 

“I’ve spent my career fighting for transparency, and I’ve always called out those in government who have fought against it. For the public record, I must do so once again now. I therefore must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI.” 

‘Shattered My Confidence’

In his scathing 11-page letter, the senator noted how he presided over Wray’s nomination hearing as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Wray was confirmed to be just the eighth FBI director upon the nomination of President Trump, and Grassley said he hoped that Wray would “bring needed change to the FBI after the politicization and scandal presided over by” his predecessor, Director James Comey. Grassley reminded Wray of what he told him at the time, that an FBI director’s 10-year term is “a ceiling, not a floor” and that he expected Wray would comply with congressional oversight requests and protect whistleblowers. 

“As we stand at the threshold of a new Congress and a new administration, with seven years of water under the bridge, you’ve failed in these fundamental duties as director,” the senator wrote. 

“These failures are serious enough and their pattern widespread enough to have shattered my confidence in your leadership and the confidence and hope many others in Congress placed in you,” he added. 

Interestingly, Grassley noted that even President Joe Biden, who has long denied that he weaponized his administration against Trump, has acknowledged that (in Grassley’s words) “political bias has indeed infected law enforcement.” Iowa’s senior senator referred to Biden’s recent sweeping pardon of his criminal son, Hunter, for the federal felonies he’s committed or likely has committed over more than a decade. In a statement last week, the president whined that his boy — a middle-aged man who should have known better — was treated differently under the law. 

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” the elder Biden wrote. 

‘Some of the Most Egregious, Orwellian Conduct’

While the FBI pushed a psyop that the Hunter Biden laptop story that broke before the 2020 election was “Russian disinformation,” Grassley noted the FBI’s “failure to investigate bribery allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden, while strictly scrutinizing former President Trump.” 

“You’ve repeatedly claimed you would ensure the FBI does justice, ‘free of fear, favor, or partisan influence,’” Grassley wrote. “The FBI under your watch, however, had possession of incriminating information against President Biden for three years until I exposed the existence of the record outlining those allegations, but did nothing to investigate it.”

He noted the oversight work that he and colleague Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., did in exposing the phony Steele dossier and the FBI’s role in peddling the false narrative that the Kremlin colluded with the Trump campaign. Grassley called it “some of the most egregious, Orwellian conduct” he’s witnessed in his nearly half-century in Congress. 

‘Promises Made, Promises Broken’

Grassley went into detail about the FBI’s disparate system of law enforcement and accountability on Wray’s watch — and lapses that have put Americans and the nation at risk.

The senator addressed concerning whistleblower disclosures of allegations that “hundreds of FBI employees had retired or resigned to avoid accountability” in a sexual misconduct scandal. He noted the FBI’s failure to properly vet Afghanistan refugees prior to being relocated to the United States. More than 50 evacuees were believed to present “potentially significant security concerns.” Wray’s response to Grassley at a Judiciary Committee oversight hearing “left the impression” that the director “hadn’t even looked into the matter” and that his agency clearly couldn’t account for the security risks, the senator wrote.

“You didn’t live up to your word. Promises made, promises broken has become a recurrent theme under your leadership,” Grassley scolded. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.