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ranked #1 in customer satisfaction with retail banking in california by j.d. power. ♪ ♪ any moment now president biden on a one-on-one with ukrainian president. they are supposed to meet in mere moments. a new pledge now of weapons and money to help ukraine to back against russia over the long haul. >> the fbi director in the hot seat. starting very soon on capitol hill, chris wray facing some of his harshest critics, republicans. i'm kate bolduan with sara sidner. this is "cnn news central." ♪ ♪

>> all right. let's go live. right now we're looking at president biden and president zelenskyy in ukraine. let's listen in. >> i'm going to support you, and i hope we finally have put to bed the notion about whether or not ukraine is welcome and nato is going to happen. we're all moving in the right direction. i think it's a matter of getting by the next few months here. so thank you, thank you, thank you, and you know, it's hard to believe 500 days. it's easy for me because mostly i've not been in ukraine a lot before the war in some sense of the war, but i will say again what i've said to you many times. not only all of you, but your people. your sons, your daughters, your husbands, your wives, your friends. you're incredible.

the ukrainians -- the whole world has seen. i mean this from the bottom of my heart, the courage and commitment of the average ukrainian when you see a 65-year-old woman on television after her apartment's been bombed out picking up the pieces and going out to help the next-door neighbor. it's just astounding. you set an example for the whole world of what constitutes genuine courage. from the bottom of my heart, i mean that, what courage means. you know, i think it's -- your resilience and the resolve has been a model for the whole world to see, and the frustration, i can only imagine. i know you're many times frustrated about when things get to you quickly enough and what's getting to you and how we're getting there, but i promise you. the united states is doing everything we can to get you what you need as rapidly as we will get it to you, and the secretary of defense has been a

constant, constant -- how can i say it? the department of defense calling other departments of defense around the world to get some help. i just want you to know it's real, and here we held the first, as you all know, the ukrainian council, but you and i talked about this beforehand, about the commitments, and the security commitments that we were going to make while it becomes official, until it becomes official, and i think that's important. when i got here, mr. president, and i started to sell that idea to other heads of state, was there no reluctance. there was no i don't want to -- everybody just said okay.

just sign on, so it's real. you've done an enormous job, and you've had a lot to do, and i just think that, you know, we're going to make sure that you get what you need and i look forward to the day when we're celebrating official membership in nato. so thank you for what you're doing, and the bad news for you is we're not going anywhere. you're stuck with us. we're not going anywhere. >> thank you very much, mr. president, and i will start, you said about 500 days is really -- it was a difficult weight on our people's shoulder, civilians, mothers, fathers and children really to fight for the life, for their life and for their

relatives, and we are reminded all these days you are with us. i mean, you and americans -- americans and congress -- i mean, thank you, mr. president that you say you're shoulder to shoulder wuse days of full-scale war. we appreciate this very much, and really, really, you know, we understand your support because when you give such messages and when you gave sometimes some weapons and i'm sorry, but i want to say to john as i said during our meeting and our council that it is very simple to criticize, for example, clusters munition which you made decision -- a difficult political decision, but you have

to know that russia used such weapon from those days, not only from full-scale war, but not just from the occupation of crimea from the 14th and 15th in all our territories, but they used it and now they continue doing it and that you gave us. this decision will help us to save us and that's why my appreciation, and i didn't hear from all the other parts of the world when russia began to use it. i didn't hear that some of the countries criticized russia, you know, but i think it was very useful to put them. so thank you so much for this help. we really counted on this -- not on this, i mean, that's totally huge support, and i want to thank all americans.

we understand that the 43 billions for today is big support, and i understand it's all your money, but -- you have to know that you spent this money for not just for fighting. you spent this money for our lives, and i think that we saved the lives for europe and for all the world. so thank you very much for this also summit, and at the summit we had this council with great success and security guarantees, as you said, that we began to speak about it in kyiv and now we see that we have, you have great idea that the g7 and now i know that also there are countries which join to g7 decisions, and i think it will

help very much because it's real effective with things so thank you. >> thank you, and thank you for acknowledging the american people. i think it's correct that we are a large country and maybe given more than any other nation combined in terms of assistance and cost, and the american people are supportive. they're supportive because they know it's about you, it's about more than you. it's about innocent people around the world, and the absolute brutality with which putin is acting and the russians are moving on -- it's like something like out of the 14th century the way they're acting, but i can't emphasize enough, and by the way, i know you thanked them, but i think we

talked about it before i went to tokyo a couple of years ago. the idea that kishida is increasing the defense budget, and the lower their domestic budget to aid directly and get directly involved with what's remarkable. the sad, sad news is that you're in this situation, but it's bringing the world together in a way that it's a hell of a price to pay, but it's bringing the world together and people are realizing that you just can't stand by with tand let this kin aggression occur. we have to talk about it and someone will have to say the press has to leave. >> president zelenskyy, are you

satisfied with what you got from nato? wer you were so frustrated yesterday. are you satisfied, sir? >> i think at the summit, we have great unit from our leaders and the security guarantees that the success for this summit, i think so, but it's my opinion. thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> president zelenskyy, after the war would you like to be in nato. how soon after the war would you like to be in nato? >> an hour and 20 minutes. you guys ask incessant questions. >> what we saw just now is very important and really unique how long we heard from president biden and president zelenskyy of ukraine going back and forth

about this moment, hearing from president biden noting the frustration that president zelenskyy has publicly been discussing over their paths to nato, and also hearing president biden say -- talking about the resilience of the ukrainian people that they set an example to the world of about what courage means and zelenskyy speaking to the american people saying you have to know that the money that you're spending is not just for fighting. you're spending this money for our lives. an important moment could be an iconic image, an enduring image of the show of support and solidarity with ukraine as they continue to fight with this war. let me bring in arlette saenz traveling with the president in lithuania. that was pretty amazing what we saw and the extent of which the leaders let us hear the conversation. >> yeah, it really was, kate and it shows the type of unit that

president biden wanted to project with this summit. yes, there have been frustrations voiced during the summit and zelenskyy has been eyeing the concrete timetable and he didn't have that and what the president is trying to stress here is that the u.s. and allies will be with ukraine in the long term. that's what we always hear from him over the course of this war, that they're in it to help ukraine win its fight against russia, but these commitments that we are hearing from the united states is another level, with the long-term security commitments even as they're still waiting for an eventual a session to nato as they get through the reform processes, but you have the two leaders there sitting side by side, showing one, the president that he supports ukraine, and the allies fully support ukraine and also words from zelenskyy recognizing how big of an impact the u.s. and allies have been in

helping him move forward in this war, and the underlying message and theme throughout this week has been trying to send a direct message to vladimir putin that the u.s. and its allies will continue to stand behind ukraine, and that you've seen that even when you think of the fact that nato alliance is now expanding as turkey lifted their objections to sweden making nato territory even more vast, but today that is quite the consequential historic moment as those two men sitting together voicing support for one another, but really as the president is trying to stress to ukraine that the u.s. and its allies are here for the long run. >> biden even going as far as he's looking forward to sitting down meeting as an official member of nato. one of the americanimportant mo

and the key question that we heard as we go, arlette is we heard the question from the pool which was important about how soon after the war would end with russia do you want to become a member of nato and zelenskyy did not have the opportunity to respond though it did look like he was open to taking questions. >> yeah, i had a little bit of a hard time hearing because we're outside at this event right now, but those are questions going hat that time line might look like, and i think one thing that was notable earlier today, national security adviser jake sullivan said they have not put a timeline in part because war is dynamic and things are constantly changing and not just the fact that they want to see this war against russia in first, but there are still those reform, democratic and in the security sectors and that the nato alliance wants to see ukraine make and zelenskyy has said that he will work toward that as he is keeping his eye on

that nato membership and that ukraine is in nato at some point down the road. >> thanks for walking through, thanks for being there. sara? >> incredible, those pictures kate to see the closeness within the country. now to contentious issues in this country. the fbi director christopher wray testifying in capitol hill and these are pictures that you're watching behind me and that's taking questions from some of his harshest critics, namely republicans. many republicans on the panel have accused the fbi director of unfairly targeting conservatives and in particular donald trump. you are looking at jerry nadler. ranking member of his committee and let us listen in. >> numerous individuals without proper security clearance. you will hear claims today that this indictment against trump is unfair. maybe even that it was unlawful. you will hear that the fbi should have just asked trump a little more nicely one more time to hand over the documents.

you'll hear that the case was a political investigation from the start orchestrated by a liberal, loving fbi that ensured trump would be wrongfully vilified at every turn. these claims, of course, are completely untogetherered from the evidence. even as you believe as chairman jordan claims that president biden has committed no crime, surely, we can agree that it is dangerous and irresponsible that he had taken these documents from the white house and left them unsecured at mar-a-lago. again, don't take my word for it, trump's secretary of defense mike esper, u.s. service members lives and put national security at risk. trump's attorney bill barr whom i believe in very little, entirely of his own making. he had no right to those

documents. the government tried for over a year quietly to get them back and he jerked them around. when he faced a subpoena he didn't raise legal arguments and he engaged in deceitful conduct. that was a clear crime if those allegations are true, closed quote. the former president could have at any time for months simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution. the house republicans did not want to talk about any of that. they seem incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to donald trump for problems that are trump's and trump's alone. i am here today about a man named stephen d'antuono, a former agent in charge of the formal documents. last month the committee republicans brought him in for an interview and shortly after that, chairman jordan released a letter purporting to describe mr. d'antuono's testimony. in fact, chairman jordan's

summary of mr. d'antuono's words are a vast mischaracterization of what he actually said. here's just one example. chairman jordan has claimed that mr. d'antuono said he had, quote, no idea, end quote, where the mar-a-lago investigation was run out of the fbi's washington field office instead of the miami field office. what the chairman hides is seconds later mr. dan 'antuono explains, the venue is here, washington, d.c., that it is not out of the ordinary for washington to be the lead in running the investigation and that it has the most experience and knowledge in, w working pub, corruption cases and the experts in investigations mr. jordan did not share the full record to the american public because it does not fit his chosen narrative. my staff has a redacted full testimony release, and i urge

you to read the words for yourself in their entirety. when you compare his actual words to mr. jordan's characterization, you'll understand why i feel like this hearing room has become a theater. frankly, it goes from many things that we will hear from the republicans today. you can expect to hear that the fbi is retaliated against conservative employees and has a deep-seeded conspiracy to support liberal candidates and ideology. these claims are based on the words of several individuals, and people that some are laughably calling whistle blowers. evidence shows these individuals were suspended for violating policies. one provided an interview to russian state-owned media. another leaked information about an ongoing investigation placing fbi agents and witnesses at risk, and another said he wanted to use a senior fbi official as, quote, target practice. chairman jordan invited some of

these so-called whistle blowers to testify before the sub committee in may. as it turns out, two of the witnesses were ultimately paid $250,000 each for their testimony. money raised in part by former trump aide cakash patel and the memo part reads, quote, for holding the line. they will climb it as the fbi and not these witnesses who are somehow corrupt. the republicans today will also attack president biden starting with the irs investigation into hunter biden. they will ignore the fact that u.s. attorney david weiss had the authority to bring charges in any district he saw fit and was able to operate fully free of interference. they do not want to acknowledge that despite years of investigations, president biden has not been found to have engaged in any wrongdoing. instead, they'll try to convince you that hunter biden would have been charged with far more serious crimes had it not been for u.s. attorney weiss being

blocked by the biden political machine. once again, when they do not like the outcome they investigate the investigators and work to discredit the outcome. the republicans will make false claims about the influence task force, claiming that it is somehow censoring conservatives. the task force plays a key role in making sure that china and iran and other foreign entities can once again interfere with our elections. according to committee republicans, the task force's efforts to track foreign influence operations mount to attacks on conservative speech and a nonsensical claim has nothing to do with censoring american free speech and in fact, helps to ensure that american voices are heard by stopping russian troll farms. make no mistake, in making these claims the republicans have all, but rolled out the red carpet

and interfered in our elections because they believe in doing so will help trump get elected in 2024, and that is the goal of republicans today. republicans claim that the fbi has been weaponized. the personal attacks on director wray, and the repeated calls to, quote, defund the fbi, these are not victimless acts. they're a clarion call to anti-government extremists and that call is being heard. last year director wray faced multiple credible death threats. fbi employees faced more threats in the months after the mar-a-lago search than they had in the entire prior year. the problem has gotten so bad that the fbi has decided to stand up an entire new unit dedicated to combat threats to fbi agents and staff. it is far past time that the republicans realize the consequences of their actions. they may want to downplay trump's behavior and blame the fbi for his downfall, no matter what they say, trump risked the

security of the united states and lied to the government a instead of returning them. donald trump must be held accountable, and ultimately, no matter how many times republicans attack director wray or the fbi or the investigation at mar-a-lago, i trust in the rule of law. mr. trump will have his day in court. i believe the system will hold him accountable, and i thank the men and women of the fbi who helped bring the classified information to safety and protect the national security of our nation. thank you for being here today, director wray. i hope your agents will not be disheartened by what they hear today and will continue this kind of work essential to the safety of our nation. i thank the charm an and i yield back. >> for the record the pronunciation of the forter assistant director in charge is

d'antuono, something he might have known if he had shown up at the deposition like i did. all other opening statements will be included in the record and the honorable christopher wray has been director of the fbi since 2017, and he formerly served as the department of justice and the associate deputy attorney general and as assistant u.s. attorney for the northern district of georgia. director wray has also worked in private practice at king spalding llp. we welcome our witness and thank him for appearing today. we will begin by swearing you in, director. would you please rise and raise your right hand. you've done this before. do you swear or affirm under penalty and perjury that the testimony is correct and crew to the best of your knowledge so help you god? >> the witness answered in the affirmative. please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record accordingly and we ask that you summarize your testimony if five minutes and we'll give you a few extra

minutes and my guess is every single member will have questions for you. so thank you for being here. you are recognized for your opening statement. >> thank you. good morning, chairman jordan, ranking member nadler and members of the committee, in the time that i have before we get to your questions i want to talk about the sheer breadth and impact of the fbi's 38,000 employees are doing every day because the work the men and women of the fbi do to protect the american people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines. take violent crime. last year alone, working shoulder to shoulder with our partners in state and local law enforcement, the fbi arrested more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators. that's an average of almost 60 bad guys taken off the streets per day every day. our work going after the cartels

e m exploiting our southwest border to fight fentanyl and communities nationwide. the fbi's running well over 300 investigations targeting the leadership of those cartels and working with our partners, we've already seized hundreds of a kilograms of fentanyl alone, stopping it from states and saving countless american lives. we're in the thousands of active inves investigations we have to steal our most precious secrets and rob our businesses of their ideas and innovation and repress freedom of speech right here in the united states and that is just scratching the surface. the men and women of the fbi worked tirelessly every day to protect the american people from what is really a staggering array of threats and we don't do that work alone.

the fbi now leads more than 750 task forces nationwide made up of more than 6,000 state and local task force officers or tfos as we call them from more than 1800 different state and local agencies. each of those tfos represent an officer a deputy or an investigator that a local police chief, sheriff or state superintendent was willing to send our way, certainly not because they didn't have enough work to do in their own department, but because they saw the tremendous value that our fbi-led task force is running. we are honored and humbled by their trust in us and grateful for their partnership, but the number don't tell the whole story to truly appreciate the impact that the fbi and the partners are having and you have to look at the cases. just last march, 38 members of

two drug trafficking organizations trafficking dangerous drugs like fentanyl and cocaine around marion, ohio. in that one investigation run out of the fbi's two-man office in mansfield we worked with partners from multiple, local police departments and sheriff's offices to take kilos of fentanyl off marion streets. enough lethal doses, i should add, to kill the entire population of columbus, cleveland and cincinnati combined. it's a great example of how even a small office with a small personnel footprint working hand in hand with local state partners to have an outsized impact in our communities. the fbi's got thousands of employees working scores of investigations like that all over the country to protect the american people. those men and women who choose

to dedicate their careers, their lives, really to this kind of work and fulfilling the fbi mission are inspiring. at a time when so many other law enforcement agencies have had a difficult time, the bureau continues to attract applicants in near record numbers. in fact, after the first couple of years of my tenure, the number of americans applying to be special agents tripled the pace from where i started reaching the highest levels in about a decade. at the same time, inside the fiber special agent attrition has remained in the low single digits and would be the envy of almost any employer and even with these bigger numbers, the folks were continuing to add, continue to be top notch. the percentage of both veterans and special agent hires with prior law enforcement experience has remained as steady as ever between 25% and 30%.

add to that, in a job market where applicants have a whole other opportunities the percentage of new trainees that have advanced degrees is up and now approaches 50% of every class at quantico, but the thing that unites them all is a commitment to public service, a willingness to put others above themselves and that is true from the bottom of the organization to the top i've worked hard to have a team that embodies those characters and it's a team that i purposely chose because they walked the walk out in the field. taking our top leaders they all came up to the bureau as line agents. they worked in 21 field offices and have a combined 130 years of field experience. they include a west point grad,

veterans of the army, air force and marines as well as a former police officer and state trooper and not a single one is a political appointee. not one. today's fbi leaders reflect the best of our organization, an organization that's made up of 38,000 men and women who are patriots, professionals and dedicated public servants and that is the real fbi. i've now visited every single one of our 56 field offices twice, some of them more than twice. i speak constantly with local chiefs and sheriffs from all 50 states who work closely with us every day, with judges coast to coast, with business leaders who turn to us for help with cyber attacks and chinese economic espionage, with victims and their families, people that we

protect from gangs and predators and the fbi they tell me about consistently, almost resoundingly is the same fbi that i see, an fbi that is respected, appreciated, trusted and that is there for them when they need us the most and that is the fbi that inspires me and that i'm proud to be here today to represent. thank you. >> we thank you. we will now proceed under the five-minute rule with questions and the chair recognizes mr. johnson. >> director wray, this is no time to mince words. the american people have lost faith in the fbi. all of our constituents are demanding that we get the situation under control and we have to do that. there is not a political party issue, sir. this is about the very system of justice can be trusted anymore. without that, no republic can survive. they're losing count of the scandals that are mounted and it is being use as a political tool

by biden administration. the homes of conservative political opponents being raided and conservative states being tag edded over integrity election laws and characterizes violent extremists. just last month, as you know, special former -- former special counsel john durham sat in that seat and testified that the justice department and the fbi should never have launched the bogus trump-russia investigation and his lengthy report concluded that the fbi, quote, failed to uphold its mission of strict fidelity to the law. just last week, nbc had a poll, only 37% of registered voters now view the fbi positively. 35% have a negative view. in 2018 by comparison, 52% of the country had a positive view of the fbi and it's on your watch, sir. and then july 4th, we this this explosive, explosive, 155-page opinion from the federal court of my home state of louisiana

that explains in detail that the fbi has been directly involved in what the court says arguably the most massive attack on free speech in united states history. the white house ordered to immediately cease colluding with and coercing social media companies to suppress american speech. conservative speech in particular. i find it stunning, you made no mention of this court opinioning either in your statement today or in the lengthy 14-page report that you prepared on july 12th eight days after the court ruling. have you read the ruling, sir? >> i am familiar with the ruling and i have reviewed it with our office of general counsel? deeply disturbed about the ruling if you haven't read it yourself. >> obviously, we will comply with the court's lawyer and preliminary injunction and we sent out guidance to the field headquarters about how to do that. needless to say the subject itself is the subject of ongoing

litigation and i'll decline to comment on that. >> it should be the first thing you think about every morning and the last thing you think about at night. apparently the fbi engaged to suppress disfavored speech, and the fbi showed threatened adverse consequences to social media companies that they did not comply with its censorship requests. the court found that the seemingly unrelenting pressure by the fbi and other agents had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings of american citizens. as a report, millions did not hear about the hunter biden ope november 3, 2020 election. page 4 lists of the important subjects that the fbi forced the social media platforms to suppress. the evidence shows you, your agency, the people that directly report to you, suppressed free speech about topics like laptop,

the leak, the covid lockdowns and strkss, speech about election integrity in the 2020 presidential election. security of voting by mail and even parody about the president himself, and the fbi made the social media platforms hold that information off the internet if it came from conservative sources. they did this under the guise that it was disinformation. can you define what disinformation is? >> what i can tell you is that our focus is not on disinformation broadly speaking -- >> wait a minute -- >> can i answer the question? >> in a minute. elvis chan who is in charge of this said they would do it on the basis of disinformation. we need a definition of what that is. >> our focus is on the line of foreign, hostile efforts who engage in covert actions -- >> that's not accurate.

you need to read this court opinion because you're in charge of enforcing it. the court has found that and elvis chan testified under oath for you, he said 50%. he had a 50% success rate in having alleged election disinformation taken down or censored. that wasn't just foreign adversary, sir. that was american citizens. how do you answer for that. >> i'm not sure that's the correct characterization of his testimony. >> it comes right out of the opinion. >> the fbi is not in the business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor -- >> that is not what the court has found. >> what i would also say that among the things that you listed off i find ironic the reference to the lab leak theory that the fbi would be suppressing references is somewhat absurd when you consider the fact that the fbi was the only -- the only agency in the entire intelligence community to reach

the assessment that it was more likely than not that that was the explanation. >> but your agents pulled it off the internet, sir. that's what the evidence the court has found. >> the time of the gentleman has expired and the gentleman from new york is recognized. >> director wray, house republicans have attacked the execution of the raid at mar-a-lago a raid. >> i would not call it a raid. i would call it the execution of a lawful search warrant? >> can you describe how the search was executed? >> well, we had the case team, you, follow its standard procedure. it has sometimes been described as a s.w.a.t. operation. it was not. there was no s.w.a.t. involvement, but beyond that i want to be careful with getting too far into the details now that this case is not only in the hands of the special counsel, but more importantly, in my view, in front of the

court, and i learned a long time ago as a line prosecutor and defense lawyer to respect the court process. >> were particular steps taken to ensure that the execution of the search warrant did not draw undue attention. >> i think there were step, sir. >> can you name a couple of them? >> among other thing, we did not have people coming in in so-called raid jacket which is is often you would see. >> the officers wore plain clothes and until trump left mar-a-lago to execute the search, is that correct? >> yes. >> chairman jordan has attacked the doj and fbi not attempting to get the documents back from trump consensually before obtaining a search warrant. i want to go through the options that trump had to return the documents. naira first asked trump to

return all presidential records to them in may 2021, correct? >> i don't remember the date, but i remember there was a request by the national archives. >> throughout 2021, nara made repeated follow-up requests which trump denied to comply, yes? >> i would refer you to the pleadings that lay out in better detail that i could here. >> in fact, it was not until 2022 after nara warned trump that failing to return the documents could violate the presidential records act that trump produced 15 boxes of documents, correct? >> i would refer to our court filings which go into great detail about all of this. >> even these 15 boxes did not contain all of the documents trump was required to return, correct? >> that's my recollection, but again, i refer -- >> in 2020 the jury had to subpoena trump for the missing documents, correct? >> same answer. >> and trump was then press own the june 3rd when his attorneys handed over another folder of do you means in a certification that all classified material had

been returned, correct? >> again, i want to stick with what's in the court filings. that sounds right to me, but i want to be careful to stay within the four corners. >> the certification was false, right? even then trump had not returned all classified material. >> i think that is part of the indictment. >> he had additional documents hiding in his bathroom and storage unit, et cetera, yes? >> again, i think that's part of the indictment. >> finally, doj and fbi were required to obtain the search warrant to obtain the classified documents that had not been retained, correct? >> same answer. >> the documents retrieved during that church marked 69 marked confidential, 98 secret and 38 top secret, is that correct? >> same answer. >> so to sum up, president trump had many, many chalences chance voluntarily and he essentially

wanted a souvenir i am agreeing with former attorney general's bill barr's statement that trump because this on himself and i would add that it's absurd that house republicans are attacking the fbi and doj for doing their job in ensuring that no person is above the law. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. the gentleman from kentucky is recognized for five minutes. >> i think the chairman -- director wray, in light of information provided to us about the fbi's investigation of the january 6th pipe bombs in an interview with assistant director steven d'antuono, chairman jordan and i sent you a letter a month ago. some of the information we found in that interview was that phone data that could have helped to identify the pipe bomber was corrupted, was unusable. he also wasn't sure who found or how the second bomb was found at the dnc. do you know how second bomb was found at the dnc and when do you

plan on answering our letter? >> as to the letter i will work with the department to make sure we can figure out what information we can provide. as you know, this is a very active, ongoing investigation and there are some restrictions on that. >> yes, we can handle classified information and we fund your department and so you need to provide that. >> respectfully, it's not an issue of classification. it's an issue on commenting ongoing criminal investigations which is something that by longstanding department policy we are restricting in doing and in fact, the last administration actually strengthened those policies. >> that's not our policy and we fund you, so let's move on. >> can you tell us how the second pipe bomb was found at the dnc. >> i'm not going to get into that here. >> 900 days ago is when this happened and you said you had total confidence we'd apprehend the subject. we found video that sounds like somebody, a passerby

miraculously found this pipe bomb at the dnc and notified the police. miraculously because it was specifically the precise time to cause the maximum distraction from events going on at the capitol. can you show the video, please? i'd like to show that the director has seen this. this is someone with a mask on, wearing a hat. they're walking in front of the dnc which is out of the view of the right-hand side. he goes out of the view and goes from one police car, another police car, he's holding a backpack and within minutes they start scrambling and you'll see the camera turn to the pipe bomb, the location of the pipe bomb. that's the metro police now getting out of the car and that's vice president-elect detail in the black suv, i believe, parked about 30 feet from the pipe bomb eating lunch. now we go to the location of the

pipe bomb and they're scrambling. it appears to me that that's not a coincidence that the person with the pipe bomb who walked by the bench and went up to the police and the detail didn't -- didn't do that accidentally. they had a purpose in mind and what transpired that was a result of information that person gave to them. if that person found the pipe bomb would they be a suspect? >> well, again, i don't want to speculate about specific individuals. i will tell you that we have done thousands of interviews, reviewed something like 40,000 video files of which this is one, assessed 500-something tips -- >> have you interviewed that person? >> we have conducted all logical investigative steps and interviewed all logical individuals at this point. >> then it's 900 days. >> you need to tell us what you find because we're finding stuff you haven't released into the

public. in my remaining minute, we want to turn to another issue. george hill intelligence analysts in the boston field office told us that the bank of america with no legal process was -- gave to the fbi gun purchase records with no geographical boundaries for anybody that was a bank of america customer. is that true? >> well, what i do know is that the number of business community partners all the time including financial institutions share information with us about possible criminal activity and my understanding is that that's fully lawful -- >> did you ask for that -- >> in this specific instance that you're asking about my understanding is that that information was shared with field offices for information only, but then recalled to avoid even the appearance of any brief, but my understanding is that that's a fully lawful

process. >> was there a warrant involved? >> again, my understanding is that the institution in question shared information with us as happens all of the time. >> did you request the information? >> can't speak to the specifics. >> we've got an e-mail that says the fbi did give the search queries to bank of america and bank of america responded to the fbi and gave over this information without a search warrant. do you believe there's any limitation on your ability to obtain gun purchase data or purchase information for people that -- for people who aren't suspects from banks without a warrant? >> now you're asking a legal question which i would prefer to defer to the lawyers since i'm not practicing as one right now including the department, but i will tell you is that my understanding is that the process by which we received information from business community partners across a wide variety of industries including financial institutions, sharing information for us about

possible criminal activity is something that is fully lawful under current federal law. >> maybe lawful, but not constitutional. i neyield back. >> the gentle lady from california is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and director wray for being here. i think it's actually sad that the majority is engaging in conspiracy theories and efforts to try and discredit one of the premiere law enforcement agencies in the united states in the effort to try and without really any evidence, make the case that the fbi is somehow opposed to conservative views. in my view, actually, i'm concerned that the fbi has been reluctant to do its job when it comes to the former president. i'd like to ask unanimous

consent to put in the record an article from "the washington post," the fbi resisted opening a probe into trump's role of january 6th for more than a year. >> without objection. >> would you disagree with the premise of this article that the fbi delayed in looking at mr. trump himself -- the january 6th committee and i was a member, did find that the ex-president was the center of a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the election, did the fbi start looking on january 6th. >> i'm sorry, i lost the last part of your question. did the fbi start looking at january 7th or closer to that time? >> let me start with i'm not in the business of -- of commenting or engaging on the truth or

falsity of newspaper articles, and in this particular instance, as i'm sure you can appreciate, there is an ongoing, very important ongoing special counsel investigation that's now in court, and so not only do i not want to talk about an ongoing investigation the internal deliberations related to it are more sensitive. >> i respect that you cannot discuss ongoing investigations. let me turn to another item. there's been criticism and the ranking member went into the scenario leading up to the warrant for the documents at mar-a-lago. i'd like to ask unanimous consent to put an article from "the washington post" showdown before the raid, fbi agents and prosecutors argued over trump. >> without objection. it's pretty clear from this article that there was a resistance on the part of the fbi to actually look at the president or pursue that case

vigorously and although you can't comment on it, the article does suggest that fbi agents want to just close the case because the ex-president made an assertion that a search had been made. now we had mr. d'antuono in as a witness, and he testified four times that the mar-a-lago search had adequate probable cause. do you agree with that statement? >> that the search had probable cause? >> correct. >> yes. >> so you don't have any dispute that there was probable cause for this warrant. you know, i just want to say before going to my next question that over and over again the fbi delayed and showed unprecedented caution before investigating the ex-president even when there was a potential threat to national security, that's my view.

that's very far from the assertion that there was unfair targeting. >> on that point, if i may, while i can't discuss any specific investigation, my expectation for all of our investigations repeated lead communicated to all of our people, and this is especially important and sensitive in investigations, is that our folks take great pains to be rigorous, professional, objective, following all our policies and procedures and do the work in the right way and sometimes that's frustrating to others. >> my time is almost up. i want to ask you another question. in the senate hearing in response to senator widen's question of whether the fbi is currently purchasing americans' location data, you indicated that it was limited to data derived from internet advertising. it's since been reported that the fbi has admittedly and

bought u.s. location data. is the fbi purchasing location data from commercial sources without a warrant? >> this is an area that requires a little more precision and context for me to be able to answer that fully so i'll have my staff follow back up with you so i make sure that i don't leave something important out. >> i'll just close with the fbi had 3.4 million back door searches of the fisa database without a warrant in 2021. can you say whether the fbi's continuing to search the fisa database without a warrant for americans? >> well, if you're asking about our use of 702 queries -- >> i am. >> those are -- there is no warrant requirement under the fourth amendment for those queries. it's fairly well settled. the 3.4 million figure that you're talking about, i guess i

would say a couple of things. one, that's not 3.4 million people. that's 3.4 million search terms or query terms. success, those are not queries in violation of rules. >> my time has expired, but the committee will look into the committee requirement later. >> we sure will. the gentleman from florida is recognized. >> the american people need to understand what just happened. my democrat colleague just asked the director of the fbi whether or not they are buying information about our fellow americans and the answer is well, we'll just have to get back to you on that. it sounds complicated, but i have other questions. i'm sitting here with my father. i will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. i am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. sounds like a shakedown, doesn't it, director?

>> i'm not going to get into commenting on that. >> you seem deeply uncurious about it, don't you? almost suspiciously uncurious. are you protecting the bidens? >> absolutely not. >> you won't answer the question about whether or not that's a shakedown and everybody knows why you won't answer it because to the millions of people who will see this, they know it is, and your inability to acknowledge that is deeply revealing about you, but let's go from the uncurious to the downright nosy. how many illegal fisa queries have occurred under your leadership of the fbi? >> well, there are reports that have come out with different numbers about compliance incidents. >> more than a million illegal ones? because that's what the inspector general said. the inspector general said that in the 3.4 million of these queries, more than a million were in error. do you agree with the assessment

by the inspector general? i'm not sure that's a correct characterization of the inspector general. >> the internet will remind you of that moment, but let's now go to what the court said. the court said it was over 200,000 that have occurred on your watch. do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment? >> i don't have the numbers as i sit here right now. >> it seems like a number you should know how many times the fbi is breaking the law under your watch especially if it's under a million to not know that member and i'll note the veracity of this, as well. play the video. >> i don't believe fisa is remotely implicated in our investigation. >> so there, senator lee is asking you whether or not fisa was in any other way involved in your january 6th investigations and you say no. was that truthful? >> i said that i did not believe it was. >> so now let's pull up what the court said which is something a

little different than what you said. >> so here -- no. that's not the right one. >> here we go, right there the government has reported additional violations of the query standard including several relating to the january 6, 2021, breach at the capitol. i guess the question, director wray, did you not know when answering the questions that the fbi was relating to the questions. >> i certainly did not perjure myself at the time i was in front of the senate judiciary committee. >> that was a court order. >> you didn't have that order because the court hadn't rendered a judgement. did you not know before you gave to statement before senator lee that this was going on? >> it was a truthful answer. >> i did not believe fisa was involved in january 6th. >> the fbi has broken so bad that people can go and engage in

queries that when you come before the congress to answer questions you're, like, you're blissfully ignorant of the unlawful queries and blissfully ignorant as to the biden shakedown regime, and it just seems like it gets into a creepy place, as well. go to our next image on what the court said, just so that the american people realize, the court has smacked you down, alleging, ruling fbi personnel apparently conducted queries for improper, personal reasons. people were looking themselves up and they were looking their ex-lovers up. who has been held accountable or fired as a consequence of the fbi using the fisa process as their creepy personal snoop machine? >> there have been instances in which individuals have had disciplinary action. >> name them. >> i can't get into it here, but we can follow back up. >> don't you see that that's kind of the thing, director

wray? you preside over the fbi that has the lowest level of trust in the fbi's history. people trusted the fbi more when j. edgar hoover was running the place than when you, and you don't give straight answers and later a court deems not true and you won't criticize an obvious shakedown when it's directly in front of us and you're whitewashing the conduct. >> respectfully, congressman, in your home state of florida the number of people applying to come work for us is over 100%. >> we are deeply proud of them and they deserve better than you. >> the time has expired and the gentleman from d.c. is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chair and director wray, thank you for continuing to serve with all of these attempts to sully your