The FBI produced hundreds of pages of subpoenaed material to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday related to Republicans’ past investigations after committee members said they never received them from the Biden administration.
An FBI assistant director wrote in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner to the Republican-led committee that the tranche of documents was related to the FBI’s inquiries into threats to school administrators, the pipe bombs discovered near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and violent extremists’ alleged ties to a faction of Catholicism. They also included material related to the FBI’s engagement with social media companies about foreign interference in the 2020 election.
“As a sign of good faith, we are providing this initial production more than a week ahead of the Committee’s subpoena deadline,” FBI Assistant Director Marshall Yates wrote to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the committee chairman.
The assistant director said the bureau was providing “phase 1” of the subpoenaed documents as a sign that it was “restoring trust” in the FBI and planned to be transparent. The FBI’s letter came in response to Jordan subpoenaing FBI Director Kash Patel days after he was confirmed last month for documents that the chairman said former FBI Director Christopher Wray failed to provide.
“We are thankful for Director Patel’s work and we will have more updates soon,” committee spokesman Russell Dye said in a statement. He confirmed that some of the documents were new.
Jordan and Patel are allies, and the chairman heavily advocated Patel’s confirmation. Patel also gave thousands of dollars in financial assistance to suspended FBI agents who came to Jordan with reports of perceived politicization within the bureau.
Trump, Jordan, and other Republicans had soured on Wray, leading him to resign before the president could terminate his 10-year term early. Under Wray, the FBI was communicative with House Republicans and almost always responded to their questions and subpoenas, but the responses often did not satisfy Jordan. Wray frequently attributed his reticence to the FBI’s policy of withholding certain information about investigations, particularly ones that were open.
The subpoenas from Jordan signal that the chairman plans to continue several of the investigations into the FBI that he began in the last Congress, and he will likely find more receptive leadership at the FBI this time around. Democrats and some centrist Republicans, meanwhile, have expressed deep concerns with the new leadership’s partisan makeup.
In addition to Patel, who gained prominence as a MAGA firebrand, incoming Deputy Director Dan Bongino will also be at the helm of the bureau. Bongino, a right-wing media commentator and former police officer and Secret Service agent, has aggressively attacked the FBI for years, calling for “everyone” in it to be fired and claiming that the bureau’s pipe bomb investigation was an “inside job.” Jordan praised Bongino as a “great pick” for the deputy director job, though the FBI Agents Association wanted a current FBI agent elevated to the role to support Patel, who, like Bongino, never worked at the FBI before.
KASH PATEL NARROWLY CONFIRMED TO LEAD FBI
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said in a statement that Patel has made communicating with congressional committees a top priority.
“Director Patel has put a major emphasis on transparency in order to help rebuild the public’s faith in their FBI,” Williamson said. “Responsiveness to the requests of [Senate Judiciary Committee] Chairman [Chuck] Grassley and Chairman Jordan are a critical part of that mission and we look forward to continuing to work with them.”