OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
FBI Director Christopher Wray did his best to brush off the tough questions when he faced Fox News host Bret Baier but it did not work.
The host put the screws to him when the two were face to face on “Special Report” on Tuesday and Wray had a ton to answer for.
Among the questions Baier asked was why the classified document situations between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden were not handled the same.
“There are all sorts of opinions out there about the FBI, just like there is about every major institution these days,” the FBI director said.
The host asked if the reputation could be due to how the agency handled the Trump / Russia investigation and Hunter Biden’s laptop, but again Wray had an explanation.
“I hear these claims of politicization,” he said. “But I can tell you that the FBI is, and is going to stay, independent. And that means following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it.”
He said that many people judge fairness by what the agency decides in a case and what those persons desired finding is.
“But that’s not how independence and objectivity work. We are not on either side. The FBI is on the American people’s side, on the Constitution’s side,” the FBI director said.
Fox News reported:
Wray was then asked about the length of time it has taken to probe Hunter Biden’s laptop – which some critics say has evidence suggesting President Biden was privy or party to his son’s foreign business dealings. The director pointed out the crux of the investigation is originating from Delaware, not D.C., under U.S. Attorney David Weiss – a Trump appointee held over by Biden purportedly to reassure fairness in the ongoing investigation.
The FBI is “actively working” with Weiss, Wray said, while dismissing claims by FBI whistleblowers there was an internal effort to shut down the investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden. Baier pressed Wray on revelations in the Twitter Files shared by journalist Matt Taibbi – with the director assuring the FBI does not instruct Big Tech companies to censor.
“What we do is tell social media companies about information that we have about foreign disinformation campaigns by foreign actors,” the director said. “And those companies then make decisions about what, if anything, they want to do about it.”
Chris Wray: "The FBI is not in the business of being the truth police. We don't tell social media companies to censor anything."
Bret Baier: "The Twitter files tell a different story. You're saying it doesn't happen but there's evidence it had." pic.twitter.com/HzYXE9Vdom
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) March 1, 2023
He said that the agency attempted the same means of obtaining classified documents from former President Trump that it did with President Joe Biden but President Biden cooperated.
“What we do is tell social media companies about information that we have about foreign disinformation campaigns by foreign actors,” the director said.
“And those companies then make decisions about what, if anything, they want to do about it,” he said.
The FBI director then addressed the theory that the COVID pandemic began with an accidental lab leak in China.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” he said. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
“I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everybody,” he said.
This week the U.S. Department of Energy has allegedly handed a classified report to the White House and key members of Congress that said it came to the conclusion that the pandemic was the result of a lab leak due to new intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.
The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report.
The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.
