CNN
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Home Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday despatched FBI Director Christopher Wray a letter requesting interviews with 16 bureau workers, whose testimony he stated is “very important for finishing up our oversight.”
The Ohio Republican, who’s searching for to show that the federal authorities has been “weaponized” in opposition to conservatives, stated he needs the FBI to work with the committee to rearrange their interviews by March 8. The names of the 16 FBI workers are redacted within the letter.
“We anticipate your cooperation on this course of,” Jordan instructed Wray.
CNN has reached out to the FBI for remark.
As CNN has beforehand reported, Jordan has touted the allegations of what he asserts are “dozens” of federal authorities whistleblowers who he says have come to his workplace with tales of discrimination and bias. However Democrats have raised questions on their legitimacy as whistleblowers and the relevance of their testimony.
As of Thursday, three of Jordan’s witnesses had are available for personal interviews with Home Judiciary Committee employees. None of them seem to have had their claims validated by authorities entities that grant federal whistleblower safety, sources conversant in their testimony stated.
Individually, a number of different supposed whistleblowers who haven’t are available for interviews had been suspended from the FBI for being on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in response to a number of sources conversant in the committee’s work. It is a level Jordan has not shied away from, utilizing the accounts of “a number of whistleblowers” in a Might 2022 letter to accuse the FBI of “retaliating in opposition to workers” for participating in “protected First Modification exercise on January 6.” Jordan added within the 2022 letter that he had been instructed that none of those whistleblowers had been contained in the US Capitol, charged with any crime or contacted by legislation enforcement about their actions.
For greater than a yr, Jordan has made whistleblower allegations a central a part of his marketing campaign to uncover what he claims is political bias contained in the federal authorities, together with drafting a 1,000-page report final yr that leans closely on claims by authorities workers alleging political interference by each the Justice Division and the FBI.
That report and the groundswell of assist amongst Home Republicans helped result in the creation of a complete Home Judiciary subcommittee that Jordan now leads – the Choose Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities – which is helming the whistleblower interviews.