House Republicans left a hearing this week featuring FBI Director Christopher Wray with few answers to their questions.
In roughly eight weeks, they’ll get another, potentially better, chance to ask.
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Wray’s inability or unwillingness to discuss the sensitive criminal investigations of former President Donald Trump and the Biden family, as well as other episodes of alleged misconduct by the FBI, revealed the limits of how much information the House Judiciary Committee might expect to get from the FBI.
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appearance may prove more productive. And Garland’s testimony will come after the release of new documents and whistleblower testimony that could sharpen GOP lawmakers’ questioning.
Some of the most heated exchanges during Wray’s appearance Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee involved questions about decisions that may have been made above his paygrade.
Those included the controversial decision to prosecute an anti-abortion activist on charges of which he was quickly acquitted, claims from multiple whistleblowers that U.S. Attorney David Weiss had faced roadblocks in his efforts to charge Hunter Biden with financial crimes, and the speed and aggression of the prosecution of Trump in the classified documents case relative to the slow and cautious pace of the Biden investigation.
All of those episodes likely involved decisions made at the Justice Department, not in the FBI field offices that executed the decisions.
Garland has not testified publicly since the emergence of whistleblower testimony that directly contradicted his past statements about Weiss.
Two IRS whistleblowers — both of whom are set to appear publicly before the House Oversight Committee next week in testimony that will almost certainly inform how lawmakers question Garland — have said Weiss was denied permission to charge Hunter Biden in two different jurisdictions overseen by U.S. attorneys that President Joe Biden appointed.
The whistleblowers also said Justice Department officials slowed or blocked investigators from using specific investigative tools, such as search warrants and witness interviews.
Unlike Wray, Garland will have no higher authority to invoke when pressed on decisions Republicans want to scrutinize. While Wray, during his testimony, deferred to decisions made by prosecutors or DOJ officials on several occasions, Garland is ultimately in charge of how the most controversial investigations of the past several years have unfolded.
In at least one case, the Justice Department appears to have overruled what FBI officials wanted.
A former top FBI official in the Washington field office told the House Judiciary Committee last month that FBI agents had argued against the unannounced raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Citing the Trump team’s cooperation with law enforcement up to that point, FBI agents felt the Justice Department should arrange for a consensual search of Mar-a-Lago with the help of Trump’s lawyers. DOJ officials disagreed, pushing for a raid that laid the groundwork for the unprecedented indictment of a former president in June for mishandling classified documents.
Tensions between members of the House Judiciary Committee and Garland are already building weeks before the hearing.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) pushed Garland last month for a memo outlining special counsel Jack Smith’s scope in light of the rapid progress of Smith’s investigation into Trump, for example.
The contradiction between what whistleblowers have said to Congress and what Garland and Weiss have said is likely to be a top focus of Garland’s September appearance before the House.
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Garland has denied that Weiss faced any roadblocks in his investigation.
Weiss, for his part, has issued a broader denial of facing interference, while corroborating whistleblower claims that he discussed obtaining special authorities from the Justice Department that would allow him to bring charges outside his jurisdiction.