On the heels of the Durham Report, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has written Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding answers about an ongoing special counsel investigation into former President Donald Trump.
“The Special Counsel’s report details how the FBI abused its law-enforcement authorities to achieve a political end—that is, hamstring the campaign and presidency of President Trump,” Jordan said in the June 1 letter (pdf) from the House Judiciary Committee.
He went on to describe actions documented in the report (pdf) from Special Counsel John Durham, including the evidence that a strongly anti-Trump FBI agent, Peter Strzok, initiated the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of then-candidate Trump despite failing to carry out basic investigatory steps beforehand.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies at the Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Joint Hearing on “Oversight of FBI and DOJ Actions Surrounding the 2016 Election” in Washington on July 12, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)“The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign,” Durham’s report reads.
Jordan’s letter to Garland goes on to argue that the abuses described in the report necessitate that the agency share details on the federal-level Smith probe into Trump—one that could possibly include seditious conspiracy charges of the former president tied to Jan. 6, according to legal analysts interviewed by The Epoch Times.
Smith’s investigation also touches on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents from his presidency, which led to the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
“It is clear that Congress must consider legislative reforms to the FBI, and the [Judiciary] Committee has been engaged in robust oversight to inform those legislative proposals. In the interim, however, due to the FBI’s documented political bias, the Justice Department must ensure any ongoing investigations are not poisoned by this same politicization,” Jordan’s letter reads.
The congressman requested details on the case, including the number of FBI agents participating in the investigation and “whether any FBI employees who have worked on Special Counsel Smith’s investigation previously worked on any other matters concerning President Trump.”
Republican concerns about the politicization of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies during the Trump era inspired the name of the Judiciary subcommittee that Jordan chairs: the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
GOP 2024 presidential hopefuls have also vented their rhetorical fury on the FBI and its current leadership.
In early April, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy vowed to “shut down and replace the FBI.”
Vivek Ramaswamy visits a barbershop in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood on May 19, 2023. It was one stop on the presidential hopeful’s tour of the neighborhood after locals protested the possible arrival of hundreds of migrants to a shuttered high school. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)Just days ago, during his formal announcement speech, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would fire FBI Director Chris Wray “on day one” if elected president.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Judiciary Committee and the FBI for comment.