Wray lands at center of GOP-FBI grudge match

FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican who scaled the ranks of the Justice Department with nominations from two GOP presidents, is locked in a contentious battle with his own party, which has set its sights on an FBI they accuse of improperly targeting conservatives.

Wray now finds himself at the center of a years-long grudge match, with House Republicans gearing up to hold Wray in contempt of Congress amid a dispute over a subpoena for an unverified tip on President Biden.

The House GOP has launched a number of probes into the FBI since taking power this year, attacking the government’s foremost law enforcement agency. But it’s an effort to secure a document detailing a report from a confidential informant about Biden that has spurred the GOP’s contempt effort against Wray, slated to begin this week.

“The FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody of the House Oversight Committee,” House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is leading the contempt effort, said Monday after a 90-minute briefing to review the document.

“We will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday. Given the severity and complexity of the allegations contained within this record, Congress must investigate further. Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially,” Comer said.

Democrats see the contempt vote as a foregone decision for Republicans — one that allows them to appeal to former President Trump while aiding their narrative that the FBI is concealing misdeeds by both the FBI and Biden.

“Donald Trump, of course, appointed Christopher Wray. And so at one point, Donald Trump liked him,” Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) told The Hill.

“Now that Christopher Wray is investigating Donald Trump, he doesn’t like him as much. And it’s quite transparent what’s going on here. And it’s just disappointing to see the House Republicans falling for this obvious trap,” he said.

In recent appearances before Congress, Wray has faced allegations of FBI bias — a claim that stems from numerous grievances, including the fallout of Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutions to rage over a memo offering assistance to school districts where officials were being threatened following the implementation of COVID policies.

Whatever the claim, Wray’s response has largely been the same, that the FBI is committed to doing the right thing the right way.

“I realize that this is not a job for the faint of heart. And I can assure the American people that I am not faint of heart,” Wray, who was nominated by Trump to be FBI director and by former President George W. Bush to serve as an assistant attorney general, said in an April interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

“I was inspired to come back and take on this job because I believe deeply in the work, the mission of protecting American people and upholding the Constitution, and the people of the FBI.”

Wray is just a little more than halfway through his 10-year tenure at the helm of the FBI, leading the agency through one of its most heavily scrutinized periods.

“It is an incredibly challenging job and all FBI directors — and I worked for two — face waves of difficult decisions and vexing problems,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former senior FBI official, told The Hill.

“They are in rough waters right now, but that is not a new phenomenon. Chris is a good man and a thoughtful guy — and the institution has remarkably able and dedicated people — and they will work through this.”

Wray is facing a litany of investigations.

House Republicans have established a subcommittee to explore the “weaponization” of the government. That panel is housed within the broader Judiciary Committee, which has become the clearinghouse for most of the FBI probes.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has long accused the FBI of seeking to label parents as domestic terrorists following the 2021 school board memo that asked the FBI to coordinate with local law authorities about threats against officials.

He’s also faced fallout over Jan. 6 prosecutions and a memo from the Richmond, Va., FBI field office detailing growing overlap between white nationalist groups and “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics,” which it identifies as a small minority within the church. Jordan and others have used it as a basis for arguing the FBI has an anti-Catholic bias in the wake of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Those who have worked closely with Wray describe him as a serious public servant who is unflappable in the face of pointed criticism and cares deeply about the agency and its role in American life.

He keeps a mug on his desk that reads “Keep calm and tackle hard” but is also known to visit the two dogs the FBI keeps as emotional support animals in their victims services unit.

“What people miss is he’s an understated guy. He’s not flashy. He doesn’t get upset. … He’s not one to get ruffled,” said Jill Tyson, who until 2022 led the agency’s Office of Congressional Affairs and now serves as president of Tyson Global Advisors.

“I think as a result, because he’s not flashy, he doesn’t get all spun up, certainly doesn’t get spun up in public, I think people sort of underestimate that or read that wrong … In multiple hearings he’s said, ‘Don’t take my calm demeanor to mean that I don’t care about this or that I’m not upset about this.’ And so, I think people sort of misunderstand the steadiness,” she said.

“That steady hand of his, that even, cool, calm, collected guy is exactly what’s needed during this tumultuous time. He’s there to do the right thing.”

The inquiries underlie the GOP’s central theme: that the FBI is too focused on the ideological right.

Michael German, a former FBI agent who worked on domestic terrorism and has criticized the FBI’s response to rising extremism, rejected the notion it is unfairly targeting conservatives.

“I think part of the problem is the politicization of the criticism in a way that distracts from the real problems. The FBI is still predominantly white male despite consecutive FBI directors acknowledging that the lack of diversity within the FBI undermines its ability to perform its mission effectively,” German said. “So, the idea that the organization is institutionally biased against white people, or conservatives, I think conflicts with substantial evidence to the controversy.”

Even with all that tension, it’s a specific battle with Comer that is tipping into a possible contempt charge.

Comer issued a subpoena earlier this month compelling Wray to produce any FD-1023 forms — records of interactions with confidential sources — from June 2020 that contain the word “Biden.”

Comer has claimed the form contains information related to “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”

Tyson said inquiries like that are among the most difficult for the FBI to respond to, even as it strives to give Congress information to which it is legally entitled.

“That’s exactly the time when the FBI really clams up and gets worried about its information being used for political purposes,” she said.

“To the extent that there is some sort of narrative that Congress wants to push forward that may be political in nature, and they’re trying to get, for example, law enforcement information to further their narrative, that’s a very, very dangerous place for the FBI to be.”

The FBI on Monday allowed Comer and Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the weaponization panel, to view the document, itself a drawn-out negotiation that was eventually held in a secure House facility rather than FBI headquarters. The arrangement would not permit them to take a copy.

While Comer said the document provided insight into an ongoing investigation, Raskin said FBI officials who followed up on the tip — unable to corroborate the information the source heard from another party — determined the investigation should not be elevated to a second phase.

But Raskin told The Hill the targeting of Wray shows the grip Trump still has on the GOP.

“The Republicans should stop working the refs and stop denouncing law enforcement just for doing their jobs,” he said. “It’s gotten extreme in that they devour their own members if they refuse to follow Donald Trump’s supporters.”