In a high-stakes hearing today, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced intense questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee members regarding the potential renewal of key surveillance powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
These powers, allegedly crucial to the bureau’s national security operations but controversial for their overreach, are set to expire this month amidst a swirling debate over privacy rights and government oversight.
Senator Kennedy (R-LA) steered the discussion towards a more contentious topic: the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“Why didn’t the FBI just say, hey, the laptop’s real?” Senator Kennedy asked. “Why didn’t you just tell everybody the laptop’s real. We’re not vouching for what’s on it, but it’s real. This isn’t a fiction.”
Kennedy continued, “You’re the FBI. You’re not part of the White House and part of Homeland Security. You’re not supposed to be political. You see all this controversy going on? Why didn’t the FBI said, ‘Time out, folks. We’re not getting to the middle of this, but the laptop’s real.’”
Wray responded and said that their aim was to avoid election interference, “We have to be very careful about what we can say, especially in the middle of an election season,” Wray explained.
WATCH:
SENATOR KENNEDY: “Why didn’t the FBI just say, hey, the laptop’s real?!”
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY: “We have to be very careful about what we can say, especially in the middle of an election season…” pic.twitter.com/jRAUdrh56g
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 5, 2023
This is an outright lie. A report by the House Ways and Means Committee detailed the FBI’s knowledge and verification of the laptop’s authenticity well before the contentious election period.
The report claimed the bureau had verified the laptop as belonging to Hunter Biden as early as November 2019. The FBI seized the laptop from Mac Isaac in December 2019 under the authority of a subpoena issued by a Wilmington grand jury.
In the report, the committee included this nugget:
In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID.
Wray just admitted under oath that the FBI deliberately allowed the “laptop is fake” hoax to perpetuate during the first Trump impeachment on a Ukrainian phone call that mentioned Hunter Biden and then in the 2020 election cycle by remaining silent!
Chris Wray and the FBI said NOTHING! How is that not interfering in an election?
Yet, it appears that there was no objection from these officials when 50 intelligence experts labeled the situation as Russian propaganda and failed to correct that.
Recall, in October of 2020 – just days before the presidential election – 51 former intelligence officials signed and published a letter that baselessly decried the contents of Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
This scam letter was used by then-candidate Joe Biden during the presidential debates, as he cited the letter to dismiss the laptop’s contents as Russian propaganda.
Chris Wray belongs in prison for election interference.