House Republicans are pushing back against efforts to undermine “so-called” whistleblower claims alleging wrongdoing and politicization at the Justice Department and the FBI.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans released a report just ahead of the 2022 midterm elections on the “politicization” of the DOJ and FBI, including its handling of investigations related to Hunter Biden and the Capitol riot. The GOP report was put out by GOP members led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), now chairman of the committee.
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“It is beyond disappointing, but sadly not surprising, that Democrats would leak cherry-picked excerpts of testimony to attack the brave whistleblowers who risked their careers to speak out on abuses at the Justice Department and FBI,” Jordan spokesman Russell Dye told the Washington Examiner on Friday.
“These same Democrats vowed to fight our oversight ‘tooth and nail,’ and they are willing to undermine the work of the Congress to achieve their partisan goals. It’s clear that Democrats would rather defend bureaucratic abuses than work collaboratively with Republicans to protect fundamental civil liberties.”
The statement came after Democrats pushed back on claims the FBI and DOJ have become "political institutions" in their own Thursday report. Democrats slammed the GOP-led report as a “partisan investigation.” The Democrats also took aim at retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst George Hill, suspended FBI special agent Garret O’Boyle, and former special agent Stephen Friend — three people Republicans have held up as "whistleblowers."
“The three individuals we have met are not, in fact, ‘whistleblowers.’ These individuals, who put forward a wide range of conspiracy theories, did not present actual evidence of any wrongdoing at the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Democrats led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said.
The Democratic report on Thursday said that the whistleblower witnesses “each offered a wide range of personal opinions — but to the extent that they testified about matters to which they claim to have firsthand knowledge at all, none showed any evidence of wrongdoing.”
Democrats also claimed that “the witnesses’ embrace of January 6-related conspiracy theories … strongly undermine their credibility.”
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As one alleged example, the Democrats said that O’Boyle “declined to say that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of the actions of rioters.” The Democrats said another alleged example was that Friend had asked Wray if he would “commit to educating executive management personnel that J6 protesters did not kill any police officers.”
Jordan also sent a letter to Wray on Friday telling him that ”from the documentary and testimonial information that we have obtained to date, we have identified several FBI employees who we believe possess information that is necessary for our oversight.” The Republican asked for testimony from sixteen yet-unidentified FBI officials.