President Trump late Friday pushed for several Biden-era Justice Department officials to be prosecuted over an FBI investigation into the fallout of the 2020 election.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump accused four high-ranking officials — former Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, special counsel Jack Smith and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco — of signing off on an FBI probe in which investigators allegedly looked at nine Republican lawmakers’ phone records.
“These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!” the president wrote. He did not specify what crimes he believes they committed.
The message marks the latest instance of Mr. Trump urging the prosecution of his political foes. Last month, he pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. Since then, Comey and James have been criminally indicted.
The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee revealed earlier this month that the FBI obtained phone data for about eight GOP senators and one GOP representative in 2023 as part of Arctic Frost, an investigation into Mr. Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the judiciary panel, released documents that appeared to indicate Wray, Garland and Monaco approved the opening of the Arctic Frost probe in the spring of 2022. Later that year, Garland appointed Smith to independently oversee the criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.
In Friday’s post, Mr. Trump alleged the four former officials “spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls” — though the Judiciary Committee said in a statement earlier this month the records obtained by the FBI didn’t include the content of calls. Instead, the data covered who the lawmakers called and when, and the length of their calls.
The president also claimed — without evidence — they “cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election.”
CBS News has reached out to representatives for Smith, Garland and Monaco for comment.
Grassley excoriated the FBI over its handling of Arctic Frost earlier this month, calling the revelations about lawmakers’ phone records “disturbing and outrageous” and part of a pattern of “weaponization” that was “arguably worse than Watergate.”
Smith’s attorneys called his actions “entirely lawful, proper and consistent with established Department of Justice policy” in a letter to Grassley earlier this week.
The phone records that were scrutinized by the FBI covered several days both before and after Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump pressed lawmakers to vote against certifying former President Joe Biden’s election win. The gambit was unsuccessful as Congress ended up voting to certify, but the process was interrupted by rioting at the Capitol.
Mr. Trump was charged by Smith’s team in August 2023 for conspiring to overturn the results, but the case was abandoned after Mr. Trump’s win the following year because of a Justice Department legal opinion that states sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
Smith’s investigation delved into phone calls between lawmakers and the president on the evening of Jan. 6, which Smith alleged were part of a last-ditch attempt to talk congressional Republicans into blocking Biden’s victory. The 2023 indictment against Mr. Trump lists several attempts by him and his alleged co-conspirators to reach lawmakers by phone. It argued the president “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them, based on knowingly false claims of election fraud, to delay the certification.”
Last year, a final report penned by Smith also pointed to phone calls placed by Mr. Trump and members of his circle. It cited toll records from two unindicted co-conspirators who are unnamed, one of them widely believed to be Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Trump has lashed out at the federal officials who investigated him in the past.
His legal team has asked the Justice Department to pay him about $230 million to settle federal damage claims over two investigations into him, CBS News confirmed this week. Those claims focus on the Trump-Russia probe from his first term and the criminal case against Mr. Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, which was pursued by Smith.
And a federal watchdog office launched an investigation into Smith for alleged illegal political activity earlier this year. Smith’s attorneys called the claims “imaginary and unfounded.”
WASHINGTON — A week before Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, he became “very focused” on Trump and the rally, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Crooks also searched for information on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, he said.
Wray told Congress in the last few days the FBI has been able to analyze a laptop connected to Crooks.
“On July 6, he did a Google search for quote, ‘how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’ So that’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray said.
He added that Crooks had pictures of public figures on his phone, but had “no rhyme or reason” to their methodology.
The FBI director said there is no apparent motive yet for the July 13 assassination attempt.
“We’re hoping to learn more, and we’re still exploiting a number of digital devices,” Wray said.
Crooks went to the site a week before the assassination attempt, he also said.
“He traveled to the grounds, I think, a week before, he spent roughly 20 minutes there,” he said. “Then he went to grounds again on the morning of the event, it appears, for about 17 minutes.” Crooks went to the site a third time “for good.”
Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally venue and had it up in the air for about 11 minutes, he testified.
“We have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used,” Wray said, adding the drone was recovered in the shooter’s vehicle.
“It appears that around 3:50 p.m., 4 o’clock, in that window, on the day of shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area,” he said.
“Let me be clear about the area, not over the stage, and that part of the area itself, but I would say about 200 yards, give or take away,” he said.
Wray said it appears the shooter was a “loner” and didn’t have a lot of contacts in his cell phone.
“A lot of people describe him as a loner … that does kind of fit with what we’re seeing in his devices. You know, his list of contacts, for example, is very short, compared to what you would normally see from most people … there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of interaction between him, you know, face to face or digital, with a lot of people,” Wray said.
The FBI has conducted over 400 interviews with “many more to conduct,” he said.
Border threat
In addition to questions about the assassination attempt against Trump, the FBI director was asked about the threat emanating from the southern U.S. border.
Over the past five or six years, the number of known or suspected terrorists encountered along the southern border “has increased,” and “that should be of concern,” Wray testified.
He also said that it doesn’t take a lot of foreign terrorists to be a “real problem.”
“I am increasingly concerned that foreign terrorists could seek to exploit vulnerabilities at our Southwest border or at other ports of entry or in other aspects of our immigration system to facilitate an attack here in the United States. I think that is something we have to be concerned about,” he said.
Election threats
Wray also said the Russians are continuing attempts to “influence” and “in various ways interfere with our democracy.”
“In fact, just in the last few weeks, we announced a significant disruption of a generative AI, enhanced social media and a bot farm, essentially of the Russians that was designed, designed to be an influence operation, and some of the fake, fictitious profiles of those bots purported to be US persons, so they’re still at it,” Wray said.
The seal of the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC on March 21, 2024.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images
A global malware network responsible for the theft of $5.9 billion in Covid relief funds and tied to other crimes like child exploitation and bomb threats has been shut down, Department of Justice officials announced Wednesday.
The DOJ arrested 35-year-old YunHe Wang, a Chinese national who was charged with creating the “botnet,” a kind of malware that connects a network of hacked devices, which criminals can then use remotely to launch cyberattacks.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said it is “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.”
From 2014 to 2022, Wang launched and operated the botnet, called “911 S5,” from roughly 150 servers worldwide, including some in the U.S., according to the indictment. 911 S5 hacked into over 19 million IP addresses in nearly 200 countries, about 614,000 of which were in the U.S., according to the DOJ.
The FBI released a how-to guide for users to identify if their devices had been targets of a 911 S5 attack and if so, how to remove the malware.
Wang allegedly sold access to the compromised IP addresses to cybercriminals and amassed at least $99 million, which he used to buy luxury cars, watches and property around the world.
911 S5 was also used for fraud, stalking, harassment, illegal exportation of goods and other crimes, the DOJ said. In particular, the botnet targeted Covid relief programs and filed an estimated 560,000 false unemployment insurance claims, stealing $5.9 billion.
“The conduct alleged here reads like it’s ripped from a screenplay,” said Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
“What they don’t show in the movies though is the painstaking work it takes by domestic and international law enforcement, working closely with industry partners, to take down such a brazen scheme and make an arrest like this happen,” Axelrod added in his statement.
The DOJ partnered with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies internationally to dismantle the botnet and arrest Wang.
The arrest comes a day after Treasury Department sanctioned Wang and two others for their alleged involvement with 911 S5. Treasury also imposed sanctions on three companies that Wang owned or controlled: Spicy Code Company Limited, Tulip Biz Pattaya Group Company Limited, and Lily Suites Company Limited.
Wang is facing a maximum 65-year prison sentence with four criminal counts: conspiracy to commit computer fraud, substantive computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The charges come as U.S. law enforcement agencies try to update protocols to keep up with more sophisticated cybersecurity threats.
In recent years, the U.S. has expressed particular concern for China-backed hackers looking to subvert American infrastructure.
In January, the FBI announced that it had dismantled the Chinese “Volt Typhoon” hacking group, which had been targeting U.S. water plants, electric grids and more.
“Today, and literally every day, they’re actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data,” Wray said at a January hearing.
A White House official says the U.S. is adjusting its posture in the Middle East as it monitors escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd joins with analysis.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Washington — Hackers backed by the Chinese government are targeting U.S. water treatment plants and electrical grids, strategically positioning themselves within critical infrastructure systems to “wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress Wednesday.
“There has been far too little public focus on the fact that PRC hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure,” Wray warned the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, according to excerpts of his remarks obtained by CBS News. “The risk that poses to every American requires our attention — now.”
The head of the FBI and other national security officials — including Jen Easterly, who leads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — are testifying at a congressional hearing focused on the cybersecurity threat posed by China’s government.
Wray told Congress that much of the framework upon which Americans rely for daily tasks, like oil and natural gas pipelines and transportation systems, is vulnerable to a cyberattack by hackers supported by China’s ruling party.
FBI Director, Christopher Wray, testifies during a Congressional full committee hearing on the “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security” in Washington, DC, January 31, 2024.
JULIA NIKHINSON/AFP via Getty Images
The Justice Department and FBI announced Wednesday that they’ve disrupted the hacking operation known as “Volt Typhoon,” a China-backed hacking operation that officials said targeted critical infrastructure in the U.S. and other nations.
Active since mid-2021, researchers at Microsoft previously determined it “could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.”
U.S. investigators obtained a court order to delete the botnet malware on infected routers and later took measures to prevent future reinfection. Remotely disabling hackers behind cyberattacks as they did in this case is a new weapon in the U.S. government’s cyber defense arsenal.
Volt Typhoon utilizes botnets – networks of infected internet-connected devices that can be used to bring down sensitive targets. Typically, initial access is gained through unsecured home routers or modems.
“Through the course of an investigation, the FBI determined the best action was to conduct a technical operation to decisively neutralize the botnet in a timely and coordinated manner,” the senior FBI official said, “curtailing the PRC’s ability to further target U.S. entities.”
“The United States will continue to dismantle malicious cyber operations – including those sponsored by foreign governments – that undermine the security of the American people,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Wednesday.
Activity by the China-based hacking group reportedly alarmed U.S. officials, given its proximity to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. China has ramped up its military activities near the island in recent years in response to what Beijing claims is “collusion” between Taiwan and the U.S.
The naval port in Guam would play a critically important role in launching any U.S. military response in the event of a Taiwanese invasion. Microsoft noted at the time that Chinese intelligence and military hackers routinely prioritize espionage and the gathering of information.
Last week, senior officials from the National Security Agency (NSA) warned that part of the PRC’s strategy behind Volt Typhoon could be to distract the U.S. in the event of conflict over Taiwan.
“This is unique in that it’s prepositioning on critical infrastructure, on military networks, to be able to deliver effects at the time and place of their choosing so that they can disrupt our ability to support military activities or to distract us, to get us to focus on a domestic incident at a time when something’s flaring up in a different part of the world,” said Rob Joyce, cybersecurity director at NSA, adding that the PRC doesn’t “want us facing the foreign aspects of that.”
“[T]he reason it’s a whole-of-government effort is because every sector, potentially, is being targeted and impacted and we really have to be all in unison on how we’re doing mitigation,” added Morgan Adamski, chief of the NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, which works with private sector companies to detect and prevent against cyber threats.
Joyce said efforts were ongoing across the government to convince China’s leadership that civilian targets should be out of bounds.
“We have to get to the point where PRC leadership decides that the embarrassment in the international community of being caught at this, the horror of the international community that somebody would hold civilians at risk with cyber is intolerable,” he said.
Earlier this month, the FBI and CISA also pushed out a new alert, warning that Chinese-manufactured drones, or UAS, pose a “significant risk” to critical infrastructure and U.S. national security.
“The use of Chinese-manufactured UAS in critical infrastructure operations risks exposing sensitive information to PRC authorities, jeopardizing U.S. national security, economic security, and public health and safety,” the bulletin read.
Other top public officials, like Attorney General Merrick Garland, have also warned of the threat China’s government poses to Americans’ well being, economic prosperity and innovation. In the last year, the Justice Department has announced novel cases calling out Chinese chemical companies for aiding the fentanyl epidemic and secret Chinese police stations working to quiet Chinese dissidents living in the U.S.
“Today, and literally every day, they’re actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data,” Wray told Congress Wednesday. “They target our freedoms, reaching inside our borders, across America, to silence, coerce, and threaten our citizens and residents.”
Last year, the Justice Department launched the Disruptive Technology Strike Force to target rival nations like China that seek to use American high-tech advances to undermine national security and upset the rule of law.
U.S. officials are paying more attention to how foreign adversaries try to use investments to gain access to American technology and data. In announcing the department’s new initiative last February, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Biden administration is looking at options to enable federal regulators to monitor the flow of American money into foreign tech sectors, while making sure those funds do not advance the national security interests of other nations, including China.
Robert Legare is a CBS News multiplatform reporter and producer covering the Justice Department, federal courts and investigations. He was previously an associate producer for the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.”
First, Warnings from “Five Eyes” intelligence leaders. Next, American shares story of being held in Iran. Then, Pink: The 60 Minutes Interview. And, Isle of Man’s dangerous TT motorcycle race.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Intelligence leaders from the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are issuing a stark warning on the danger of China’s global espionage campaign.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Mike Burgess, the Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, tell 60 Minutes how China steals intellectual property.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
War in the Middle East has the FBI tracking more potential threats of terrorism in the United States. Tonight, the bureau’s director, Christopher Wray, tells us his main concern is not an organized attack but lone actors inspired by the violence. We met Wray, Wednesday, for an unprecedented interview that included him and the intelligence directors of our english-speaking allies. Together, they know more about the threats in the world than perhaps anyone. They’re known as the Five Eyes and they have never appeared in an interview together. They’re doing it now because they’re alarmed by China which they say is the greatest espionage threat democracy has ever faced. But given the war, we’ll begin with FBI Director Wray on the threat of terror at home.
Christopher Wray: We have seen an increase in reported threats but vigilance is heightened right now just because of the fluid and volatile environment in the Middle East and the ways in which that could spin out in the U.S.
By the time we had gathered for our interview, it had already ‘spun out in the United States.’ In Illinois, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed to death by a man enraged by the attack on Israel.
Scott Pelley: How do you stop that kind of thing?
Christopher Wray: The key that we found in stopping it more and more is trying to have the right eyes and ears out in the community. And so, what we need to have are people in the community. When they see something starting to go awry, calling law enforcement. And the attacks that we’ve been able to prevent over the years have almost always included somebody who’s made that phone call. And the attacks that haven’t been prevented have almost always had somebody who had that information, but for one reason or another, didn’t make that phone call.
Five Eyes intelligence leaders
60 Minutes
About 30 Americans were killed in the Hamas Attack. Two American hostages were released Friday, which left 10 still missing. Sources tell us it’s unclear how many of them may be hostages. Israel leads the hostage effort. The FBI is prepared to help.
Christopher Wray: We’re gonna work closely with our partners, our Israeli partners, our U.S. embassy partners, the whole U.S. government to do whatever we can to ensure that those hostages come out safe. But make no mistake, this is a dangerous time.
We met Chris Wray with his fellow intelligence chiefs of the so-called “Five Eyes” — from the left, Mike Burgess of Australia, David Vigneault of Canada, Ken McCallum of the United Kingdom and, at far right, Andrew Hampton of New Zealand. The “Five Eyes” alliance was formed after World War II to gather intelligence. But this was their first public appearance ever and they did it in Palo Alto, California, Silicon Valley, to make this point— the technology secrets that are about to change the world, in artificial intelligence, biology and computing are falling into the wrong hands — stolen — in a global espionage campaign by China.
Christopher Wray: The People’s Republic of China represents the defining threat of this generation this era. There is no country that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our– our innovation, our economic security, and ultimately our national security. We have seen efforts by the Chinese government, directly or indirectly, trying to steal intellectual property, trade secrets, personal data– all across the country. We’re talking everything from Fortune 100 companies, all to smaller startups. We’re talking about agriculture, biotech, health care, robotics, aviation, academic research. We probably have somewhere in the order of 2,000 active investigations that are just related to the Chinese government’s effort to steal information.
Scott Pelley: But all countries spy.
Mike Burgess of Australia.
Mike Burgess: Yes, absolutely, all countries spy. Our countries spy. All governments have a need to be covertly informed. All countries seek strategic advantage. But the behavior we’re talking about here goes well beyond traditional espionage. This scale of the theft is unprecedented in human history. And that’s why we’re calling it out.
Mike Burgess of Australia
60 Minutes
They were ‘calling it out’ this past week in private meetings with 15 top Silicon Valley executives and Stanford University.
Ken McCallum: This is not just about government secrets or military secrets. It’s not even just about critical infrastructure. It’s about academic research in our universities. It’s about promising startup companies. People, in short, who probably don’t think national security is about them.
Ken McCallum is director general of MI5, the U.K.’s FBI.
Ken McCallum: So we see the theft happening in a range of ways. One is that we see employees within those companies being manipulated. Often, in the first instance, they are not aware of what is happening. We have seen, for example, the use of professional networking sites to reach out in sort of masked, disguised ways to people in the U.K., either who have security clearance or who are working in interesting areas of technology. We’ve now seen over 20,000 examples of that kind of disguised approach to people in the U.K. who have information that the Chinese State wishes to get its hands on.
Christopher Wray: You have the biggest hacking program in the world by far, bigger than ever other major nation combined. Stolen more of our personal and corporate data than every nation, big or small, combined.
Scott Pelley: Are you saying that it is a threat to the way of life of democracies?
Christopher Wray: It is– a threat to our way of life in a number of ways. The first is that when people talk about stealing innovation or intellectual property, that’s not just a Wall Street problem. That’s a Main Street problem. That means American jobs, American families, American livelihoods, and the same thing for every one of our five countries, directly impacted by that theft. It’s not some abstract concept. It has flesh and blood, kitchen-table consequences.
Here’s one example. When China stole the technology secrets of one American wind turbine company, the company lost its competitive advantage, sales collapsed and it laid off nearly 700 workers.
Scott Pelley: When you encounter a company that isn’t sure that it wants to cooperate with you, what do you tell them?
Ken McCallum is director general of MI5, the U.K.’s FBI.
60 Minutes
Ken McCallum: I would say that if you are operating at the cutting edge of tech in this decade, you may not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is interested in you. And you would be reckless, not just with my secrets but with your own company’s viability, with your shareholders’ capital if you didn’t think about what that means.
Christopher Wray: We all came into these meetings with the mindset of we want to figure out how we can better help protect you, your innovation, your intellectual property. They all came into the conversations with ideas of ways they can help us help them.
The intelligence chiefs told us Chinese companies are overseen by the Communist Party and, for many, espionage is a sideline on behalf of the PRC, the People’s Republic of China.
Scott Pelley: Is the Chinese government building industrial sites in your countries that are actually covers for espionage operations?
David Vigneault of Canada.
David Vigneault: We have seen in the past, acquisition of land, acquisition of different companies where you, when you start to dig a little bit further, you realize that it’s, there is another intent. And we have seen and blocked attempt by the PRC to acquire locations near sensitive, strategic assets of the country where we knew that the ultimate purpose was for spying operations.
David Vigneault of Canada
60 Minutes
Scott Pelley: And Director Wray, have you seen that in the United States?
Christopher Wray: We’ve seen a variety of efforts by Chinese businesses, in some cases state-owned enterprises, in some cases ostensibly private companies– attempting to acquire businesses, land, infrastructure, what have you, in the United States in a way that presents national security concerns.
Including investigations, recently of Chinese companies purchasing land and building plants near U.S. military bases.
Christopher Wray: We welcome business with China, visitors from China, academic exchange. What we don’t welcome is cheating, and theft, and repression.
Political repression is another target of the Five Eyes. They told us they’re fighting China’s meddling in elections and violence aimed at silencing Chinese dissidents living in their countries.
Christopher Wray
60 Minutes
Christopher Wray: We had a case that we– that was indicted not that long ago where there was– an actual congressional candidate who was very critical of the Chinese government. the efforts were initially to try to see if they could come up with dirt on the candidate to derail his candidacy. And then to try to concoct dirt, just fiction– about the candidate. And then, if that didn’t work, there was even discussion about the candidate befalling a horrible accident.
That candidate was Yan Xiong, a Chinese American who served in the U.S. military and protested China’s crackdown on Hong Kong. Last year he lost the Democratic nomination in a New York congressional race. In court filings, prosecutors say a Chinese agent hired an American private investigator to discredit Yan, and left the investigator a voicemail saying, “…violence would be fine…beat him until he cannot run for election.”
Scott Pelley: Is that the threat of violence in the United States that we face from the Chinese government?
Christopher Wray: We have seen over and over again efforts to really stop at almost nothing to intimidate people who would have the audacity here in the United States where we have freedom of speech to express criticism of the regime.
Scott Pelley: While we have the allies around the same table, let me ask this question. The catastrophe in the Middle East, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese espionage on a scale that’s never been seen before, are all of you stretched too thin?
Andrew Hampton: I think one of the strengths of the Five Eyes partnership is that we share some really fundamental values as countries and as agencies.
Andrew Hampton of New Zealand.
Andrew Hampton: Part of how you respond to that is by working together as like-minded countries. Part of how you respond to it is partnering across our own countries, as we’ve talked about, with community groups, with the private sector they’re our biggest strengths.
Andrew Hampton of New Zealand
60 Minutes
For its part, China said this about the Five Eyes point of view: “We firmly oppose the groundless allegations and smears toward China…”
MI5’s Ken McCallum told us never in his nearly 30 years in intelligence has the threat been so complex– Iran, Russia, terrorism, but it was China that was the first to get the Five Eyes around this table—and before the eyes of the public.
Christopher Wray: I mean, essentially what you have with the Chinese government is the autocracy and oppressive regime of– you know, East Germany combined with the cutting edge technology of Silicon Valley. And the combination represents a daunting first of its kind threat for the United States and for our allies.
Scott Pelley: You seem to be saying that the Chinese government is running a criminal enterprise.
Christopher Wray: Well, I would say the Chinese government, if they want to be a great nation, it’s time for them to start acting like one. And that includes abiding by its own commitments not to steal innovation. That includes not exporting repression to other countries. That includes working with all of our countries and all the other countries that we work with all the time who have common threats, like cybercrime, fentanyl trafficking, money laundering. It means not working with criminals but rather working to uphold the rule of law.
Produced by Aaron Weisz. Associate producer, Ian Flickinger. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by April Wilson.
Threats in the U.S. have been rising, since Hamas invaded Israel a week ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray and FBI officials said Sunday in a rare phone briefing for reporters.
“The threat is very much ongoing and in fact, the threat picture continues to evolve,” Wray said. “Here in the U.S., we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil.”
He said that Jews and Muslims alike, as well as their institutions and houses of worship, have been threatened in the U.S. and told reporters that the bureau is “moving quickly to mitigate” the threats.
Wray, in an address Saturday to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, also noted “an increase in reported threats” and in particular warned that “we’ve got to be on the lookout … for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own.”
He urged police chiefs to “stay vigilant” because as first responders, “you’re often the first to see the signs that someone may be mobilizing to violence.”
Senior FBI officials said most of the threats are not credible, and some have been addressed. As Wray suggested, the bureau’s biggest concern is a lone wolf-style assailant who is not on their radars.
This type of threat is best addressed through tips from the public, the officials said. They told reporters that there have been threats against Muslim facilities as well as Jewish facilities. Threats against Muslim centers are up, although the level of antisemitic threats is also spiking.
The FBI is working through Joint Terrorism Task Forces to mitigate threats and keep these communities safe, Wray said.
The FBI director twice said that he was “horrified…by the brutality committed at the hands of Hamas” and said that countering terrorism is the bureau’s No. 1 priority. “We will not tolerate violence motivated by hate and extremism, he said.
Wray also said that the bureau’s legal attaché office in Tel Aviv is working with Israeli and U.S. Embassy partners “to locate and identify all Americans who’ve been impacted in the region, including those who remain unaccounted for.” He added that victim services specialists are working with victims and their families at home and abroad.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
Jordan and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) spoke with Hannity about hearings earlier in the day with FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is the latest target of right-wing rage due to the criminal case against Donald Trump.
When the conversation turned to Hunter Biden, Jordan seemed to lose all train of thought.
“That’s exactly what happened with, yuh, with the decision, the, the, uh, when it came to the uh, the decision with uh, Mr. uh,” Jordan said, then reset himself.
“I’m drew a blank there, Sean, I apologize,” Jordan offered. “I got a huge echo in my ear, I can’t even hear.”
Hannity typically plays up even the slightest verbal stumbles by President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris as a cause for national embarrassment, and did so on his show on Wednesday.
FBI Director Christopher Wray and House Oversight Chairman James Comer are scheduled to meet in the coming days as the Kentucky Republican continues to escalate his investigation into President Joe Biden’s business dealings, a spokesperson for the FBI told CNN.
The meeting comes after Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress if the agency refuses to comply with a subpoena for an internal document that an unnamed whistleblower alleges shows then-Vice President Biden was involved in a criminal scheme with a foreign national, according to a letter Comer sent Wray on Wednesday.
“I received word that the FBI director is committed to meet with me next week in Washington and we can discuss this,” Comer said on Fox News Wednesday night. “But, nothing’s going to change with respect to holding him in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t turn over the document.”
The White House has previously slammed the unverified claim against Biden, calling it another one of Republicans’ “unfounded politically-motivated attacks.”
The ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, described the allegations as “recycling unsubstantiated claims floated by Senate Republicans.”
“Given Chair Comer’s commitment to ‘dismantle’ the FBI, it’s no surprise that he would rely on these unverified tips to attack President Biden in one more baseless partisan stunt,” Raskin said.
Comer said that Wray has denied multiple requests from him and Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, whom the whistleblower first told of their allegations, to speak on the phone. However, an FBI spokesperson told CNN the meeting between Wray and Comer had already been scheduled by the time FBI received Comer’s Wednesday letter.
In the letter, Comer outlined his frustrations over previous meetings his staff has held with the FBI and offered more specifics about the form he is looking for to help the agency accommodate the subpoena.
Comer specified the form, an FD-1023, dated June 30, 2020, said the foreign national allegedly paid $5 million to receive the desired policy outcome, based on unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures.
The form in question, an FD-1023, is a document the FBI uses to memorialize meetings or information gathered from confidential sources. The document typically would include allegations from the source, including information not verified by the FBI.
A spokesperson for the FBI told CNN that “the FBI’s mission is to protect the American people. Releasing confidential source information could potentially jeopardize investigations and put lives at risk. The FBI remains committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests on this matter and others as we always have.”
The Chinese government could use TikTok to control data on millions of people and harness the short-form video app to shape public opinion should China invade Taiwan, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday.
Wray responded affirmatively to questions from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the panel’s ranking member, on whether TikTok would allow Beijing widespread control over data and a valuable influence tool in the event of war in the Taiwan Strait.
“The most fundamental piece that cuts across every one of those risks and threats that you mentioned that I think Americans need to understand is that something that’s very sacred in our country —the difference between the private sector and public sector — that’s a line that is nonexistent in the way that the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] operates,” Wray told Rubio in the hearing.
Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate panel, argued that TikTok presents “a substantial national security threat for the country of a kind that we didn’t face in the past.”
Wray’s comments come a day after Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of the US National Security Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he worried TikTok could censor videos to shape public opinion in a way that threatens US national security interests.
It’s the latest in a full-court press from US officials to sound the alarm about TikTok’s alleged security risks as Congress weighs giving the Biden administration more authority to address the alleged threat posed by the platform, up to and including banning the app in the United States
TikTok CEO Shou Chew said this week that the Chinese government has “never asked us for US user data” and the company would not provide it if the government did ask. Chew also said that “misinformation and propaganda has no place on our platform, and our users do not expect that.”
The company has taken voluntary steps to wall off US user data from the rest of its global organization, including by hosting that data on servers operated by the US tech giant Oracle. The company is also negotiating a possible agreement with the Biden administration that could allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States under certain conditions.
In a statement this week, a TikTok spokesperson said a US government ban would stifle American speech and would be “a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide.”
– CNN’s Brian Fung and Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.
U.S. intelligence officials said China poses “the most consequential threat” to the nation’s national security. CBS News intelligence and national security reporter Olivia Gazis has more on the key takeaways from Wednesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the most significant worldwide threats.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday subpoenaed the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Education for documents as part of its investigation into whether a Justice Department strategy to address threats against teachers and school officials was abused to target conservative parents.
The flurry of subpoenas are the first from the Judiciary’s subcommittee dedicated to investigating the alleged weaponization of the federal government and are an early indication that the newly minted chairman intends to aggressively pursue its probe into the Biden administration’s response to rising tensions and threats of violence surrounding school board meetings.
The subpoenas set a document deadline of March 1. The panel sent the subpoenas after initially sending letters to the agencies for voluntary cooperation on January 17.
The allegations being investigated date to 2021, when protests and some violence erupted at school board meetings across the country. Most of the anger came from conservative parents who wanted to repeal mask mandates, opposed anti-racism courses and had concerns about LGBTQ policies.
With that backdrop, the National School Boards Association wrote to President Joe Biden asking for federal help to address the violence and threats against school administrators. The group said that “these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism” and encouraged the Justice Department to explore which laws, possibly including the Patriot Act, could be applied.
The group soon apologized for “some of the language” in its letter. But it quickly drew backlash, particularly among conservatives.
Attorney General Merrick Garland had issued a memo in response – which didn’t cite the letter, compare parents to “terrorists” nor invoke the Patriot Act. It merely told the FBI and federal prosecutors to step up collaboration with state and local law enforcement on the issue.
According to a report Jordan released last year, emails show that the Biden White House consulted with the NSBA on the letter before the group made its letter public. An independent review by NSBA concluded, however, that there was no “direct or indirect evidence suggesting the Administration requested the Letter” or reviewed the contents before the letter was sent.
Other emails also show that the Justice Department sent an advance copy of Garland’s memo to the NSBA.
The FBI later established a “threat tag” to internally track cases about school board threats under the same categorization. Republicans have seized on the “threat tag” to accuse the FBI of carrying out Biden’s desire to stomp out conservative speech at school boards. But the creation of an internal database does not mean the FBI initiated any sort of crackdown against parents.
Judiciary Republicans are requesting Garland provide a paper trail of the DOJ’s communications with the White House, intelligence agencies and members of the National School Boards Association about alleged violence at school board meetings.
The subpoena also calls for a number of documents relating to Garland’s directive for FBI and US attorneys’ offices to meet with federal, state and local law enforcement partners to discuss strategies for addressing the issue, focusing specifically on what meetings took place and what recommendations were made.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Three days after Jordan’s voluntary request to DOJ, a department official responded to the Ohio Republican that “we share your belief that congressional oversight is vital to our functioning democracy” and encouraged the committee to prioritize its document requests to elicit efficient responses, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
The FBI subpoena specifically demands that Director Chris Wray produce a variety of documents, including communications related to meeting with US attorneys’ offices and “establishment of the Department of Justice’s task force.”
Wray is also told to hand over all documents related to formal and informal recommendations created or relied upon by FBI employees in accordance with Garland’s October 2021 memo.
The FBI said in a statement that the bureau “has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be,” adding that “attempts to further any political narrative will not change those facts.”
“The FBI recognizes the importance of congressional oversight and remains fully committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests consistent with its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. The FBI is actively working to respond to congressional requests for information – including voluntary production of documents,” the FBI statement read.
Jordan’s subpoena to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called on the Education Department to hand over any documents or communications related to a letter the National School Boards Association sent in September 2021.
Jordan’s subpoena also called for any files related to Viola Garcia’s appointment to the National Assessment Government Board. Garcia was the president of the National School Boards Association and was one of two individuals who signed the September 2021 letter to Biden.
An Education Department spokesperson told CNN that “the Department responded to Chairman Jordan’s letter earlier this week. The Department remains committed to responding to the House Judiciary Committee’s requests in a manner consistent with longstanding Executive Branch policy.”
CNN has reached out to Garcia for comment.
On Thursday, a day before the subpoena, the Education Department told Jordan’s team that the department played no role in crafting the letter from the National School Boards Association.
“I would also like to reiterate – as the Department has repeatedly made clear – that the Secretary did not request, direct any action, or play any role in the development of the September 29, 2021, letter from the NSBA to President Biden,” Gwen Graham, assistant secretary for legislation and congressional affairs at the Education Department wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. Graham added that an independent review for counsel retained by the NSBA did not find any connection between the letter and Garcia’s appointment.
Republicans gave Democrats on the committee a heads up that these subpoenas were coming, a source familiar told CNN. Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the highest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, said the subpoenas were underpinned by “conspiracy theories” and said she is confident that what the Republicans have asked for “will once again disprove this tired right-wing theory.”
White House spokesperson for Congressional Oversight Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “Chairman Jordan is rushing to fire off subpoenas only two days after the Judiciary Committee organized, even though agencies already responded in good faith seeking to accommodate requests he made. These subpoenas make crystal clear that extreme House Republicans have no interest in working together with the Biden Administration on behalf of the American people and every interest in staging political stunts.”
Since the uproar at school boards became a major political issue in late 2021, Republicans have pushed the baseless narrative that Biden, Garland and Wray have weaponized federal law enforcement to attack innocent parents who care about education.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy falsely claimed that “Biden used the FBI to target parents as domestic terrorists.” Jordan has said Garland tried “to use federal law enforcement tools to silence parents.” This claim even came up in the GOP response to last year’s State of the Union. These claims have been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers from CNN and other outlets.
For his part, Garland has aggressively pushed back against Republicans’ accusations. He previously testified to Congress that the Justice Department isn’t using counterterrorism resources against parents and said it was ridiculous to equate “angry” parents to “terrorists.”
When GOP senators grilled Wray about the “threat tag” matter at an August hearing, he defended the FBI.
“The FBI is not going to be in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings,” Wray said. “We’re not about to start now. Threats of violence, that’s a different matter altogether. And there, we will work with our state local partners, as we always have.”
Public colleges and universities across the country are barring TikTok from their internet systems as a slew of states ban the popular video app from state-owned devices. In the last two months, more than two dozen states have issued such bans, prompting many public colleges to tell students they’ll have to log out of the campus Wi-Fi if they want to use the app.
In taking action against TikTok, many governors have cited the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, who in early December told an audience at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor that the app raised national-security concerns. The app’s algorithm could be used to flood the United States with misinformation, Wray said, and its user data could be harvested for espionage. TikTok is owned by ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese technology company.
Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana, a Republican, sent a letter on January 3 to the Montana Board of Regents asking it to block TikTok’s use on Montana University System networks.
“The ability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to spy on Americans using TikTok is well documented,” he wrote. “Using or even downloading TikTok poses a massive security threat.”
TikTok has been banned from state-owned devices in 27 states and is partly banned in four states, according to a CNN analysis.
Texas is one of those states. After Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued a directive last month barring TikTok from state-owned devices and networks, the University of Texas at Austin announced this week that TikTok would no longer be accessible through its campus Wi-Fi. “As outlined in the governor’s directive, TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” wrote Jeff Neyland, the university’s adviser to the president on technology strategy, in an email.
The University of North Texas and the University of Texas at Dallas have also blocked access to TikTok on their Wi-Fi networks. In Alabama, Auburn University blocked TikTok through campus networks in December, after Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, banned the app from all state-government networks and devices.
The colleges are responding to executive action, but limiting access to the app may be in their best interests, said Karen North, a clinical professor of digital social media at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. North said keeping TikTok off campus networks will help colleges protect their servers from data breaches or being hacked.
“The universities are really thinking long and hard right now about the fact that when people log on to the secure network at a university, and then they have apps on their phones that might penetrate that network, there’s a lot of really sensitive information that exists within that network,” North said.
Still, colleges have increasingly turned to TikTok to reach prospective students. A study by the Pew Research Center found that 67 percent of teens use TikTok.
A Tool for Teaching and Recruiting
That trend has created challenges for colleges seeking to follow their governors’ orders. The University of Central Oklahoma joined the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University in blocking access to TikTok through campus networks in December, following an executive order by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican.
In an email to the Central Oklahoma community, the university’s communications team recommended that any existing campus TikTok accounts be deactivated.
Adrienne Nobles, vice president for communications and public affairs, said the university is exploring ways to continue promoting itself on TikTok, while observing the governor’s executive order.
“We’ve got a fantastic team of recruiters on the ground, great technology to support our recruitment strategies, and a strong presence on other social-media platforms,” Nobles said via email.
The Texas A&M University system has also banned TikTok access through its campus networks, even though some of its academic departments have popular accounts. The physics and astronomy department on the College Station campus has over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, where scientists share educational videos of their experiments. The account’s home page now directs viewers to YouTube, where the scientists continue to upload videos.
Kate Biberdorf, an associate professor of instruction in the University of Texas at Austin’s chemistry department, runs a popular TikTok account, with over 194,000 followers, that shares videos of science experiments.
Biberdorf, who uses TikTok in teaching and to get people interested in science, said it’s unusual for UT-Austin to limit educational tools on campus.
“There are a lot of different avenues that TikTok has, and I know it can be silly, and I know it can be goofy, but it can also be used as an educational tool and really help our students see some experiments that I can’t possibly do in the classroom, but I can 100 percent do safely in my home studio,” Biberdorf said.
She plans to continue making TikTok videos, which she can still film while disconnected from the campus network. But she said the new rule, which she understands the university must obey, could hamper recruitment of students and faculty members.
“I do know that right now we’re in a culture in our little Austin bubble where, over all, we kind of feel like our rights are being taken away, and this was just another push in the wrong direction,” she said. “So, I think in terms of recruitment, it definitely will have an impact because all of these little things are going to add up and make a big difference.”
Aynne Kokas, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, said that as TikTok becomes more ingrained in society, it will grow increasingly difficult to regulate the company.
“The more TikTok becomes embedded in the U.S. information ecosystem, the more difficult it is to take any significant action against the company,” she said, “because then it becomes not just a question of regulating the firm, but also impacting U.S. businesses, U.S. users.”
Kokas added that she doesn’t think blocking access to TikTok on campus networks will keep students off the app.
“I would be very surprised,” she said, “if that actually works.”
The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill, which aims to regulate the internet, has been revised to remove a controversial but critical measure.
Matt Cardy | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Days after Congress passed a bipartisan spending bill banning TikTok from government devices, legislators and advocates say they are looking to further regulate social media companies in the New Year.
TikTok has repeatedly said its U.S. user data is not based in China, though those assurances have done little to alleviate concerns.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., compared TikTok to “digital fentanyl” on Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thinks the ban on the app should be expanded nationally.
“It’s highly addictive and destructive,” he said. “We’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said Sunday that since social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and YouTube operate using similar algorithms, regulators should push for more transparency about how they work as a first step.
Haugen said she thinks most people are unaware of how far behind the U.S. is when it comes to social media regulation.
“This is like we’re back in 1965, we don’t have seatbelt laws yet,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said bipartisan support exists for many of these bills, and many have made it onto the Senate floor. But she said the tech lobby is so powerful that bills with “strong, bipartisan support” can fall apart “within 24 hours.”
Klobuchar said on Sunday that things are only going to change with social media companies when Americans decide they have had enough.
“We are lagging behind,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It is time for 2023, let it be our resolution, that we finally pass one of these bills.”
The White House is bringing together three dozen nations, the European Union and a slew of private-sector companies for a two-day summit starting Monday that looks at how best to combat ransomware attacks.
The second International Counter Ransomware Summit will focus on priorities such as ensuring systems are more resilient, so they can better withstand attacks and disrupt bad actors planning such assaults.
A senior Biden administration official cited recent attacks such as one that targeted the Los Angeles school district last month to underscore the urgency of the issue and the summit.
“We’re seeing the pace and the sophistication of the ransomware attacks increasing faster than our resilience and disruption efforts,” the senior administration official explained, in a briefing on the event.
Among the administration officials planning to participate in the event are FBI Director Christopher Wray, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. President Joe Biden is not expected to attend.
Participating countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Fifteen private-sector companies that are working with governments to prevent future ransomware attacks will also be attending. The companies that will take part include Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Cyber Threat Alliance, Microsoft, Cybersecurity Coalition, Palo Alto, Flexxon, SAP, the Institute for Security + Technology, Siemens, Internet 2.0, Tata – TCS and Telefónica.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer is scrapping his plans to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress after the two sides reached an agreement over an FBI document that includes an unverified allegation that Joe Biden, while vice president, was involved in a bribery scheme involving a foreign national.
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, accepted the FBI’s offer to allow all members on the House Oversight panel to view the internal law enforcement document he initially subpoenaed, known as an FD-1023, in exchange for halting contempt proceedings. The FBI will also make two additional documents available to Comer and the top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin, according to Comer’s statement announcing the agreement. As a result of the deal, Comer removed Thursday’s scheduled committee meeting to refer Wray for contempt from the schedule.
“Allowing all Oversight Committee members to review this record is an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people,” Comer said in a statement.
In response to the deal, Raskin said in a statement, “Chairman Comer’s acceptance of these further accommodations comes after he has spent weeks attacking the FBI despite its extraordinary efforts to provide Committee Republicans the information they claim to seek.”
CNN first reported the FBI’s offer earlier Wednesday.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had said earlier in the day that Comer and Wray were planning to speak Wednesday night to negotiate, and signaled that he would accept the FBI’s offer and cease contempt efforts if all committee members could view the document in question.
“He needs to show it to every Republican and every Democrat on the committee. If he is willing to do that, then there’s not a need to have contempt. But if he doesn’t follow through with that, then there would be a need for contempt,” McCarthy said of Wray.
Earlier this week, senior FBI officials briefed Comer and Raskin. Previously, Comer had said he wanted the FBI to actually turn the document over to him.
While the FBI had previously declined to hand over a hard copy of the document, noting it contains unverified information from a confidential human source, the bureau said it was willing to hold a briefing with members of the panel and allow them to view the document as early as Wednesday, sources told CNN, in an effort to stave off contempt of Congress proceedings.
The alleged bribery claims documented in the 1023 form surfaced years ago under the Trump administration and eventually became part of Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ investigation of Hunter Biden, which remains ongoing, people briefed on the matter said. The 1023 includes allegations related to Hunter Biden, as well as Joe Biden, according to people familiar with matter.
The FBI interviewed the informant, who was known to the bureau and had considered him a trusted source based on interactions in a previous investigation. Investigators were unable to corroborate the claims, but Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady, who then-Attorney General William Barr had appointed to review allegations brought to the Justice Department by Rudy Giuliani, decided to send the informant’s allegations to Weiss, who was already leading the Hunter Biden probe.
It’s unclear what additional steps the FBI took to investigate the claims, but Weiss’ investigation of Hunter Biden has since narrowed in scope to focus on alleged tax violations and a possible false statement.
The White House has denied the allegation and dismissed the GOP probe as a political stunt.
The decision to halt contempt proceedings comes as a number of House Republicans have been pushing to hold Wray in contempt.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a member of the Oversight Committee, told CNN she plans to vote in favor of contempt.
“I voted to hold people in contempt up here before. If you don’t follow through with the subpoena, there are consequences to it,” she said. “They’ve stonewalled, they’ve obfuscated, they’ve bullshitted, you know what I mean? It’s like, just follow the law.”
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, also a member of the Oversight panel, told CNN, “It’s an unclassified form. Just showing it to our chairman and to the ranking member, Congressman Raskin, that’s not enough. We subpoenaed the form. And so, the form needs to be handed over. This is his job – Chris Wray’s job.”
“If the director of the FBI is flouting subpoenas from Congress, I’m fully supportive of every effort to enforce the subpoena,” GOP Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee told CNN.
This story and headline have been updated to reflect additional developments.
