House GOP Flexes Power Over FBI With Reminders About New Headquarters Building, Funding

House Republicans flexed their power over the FBI during a high-profile hearing on Wednesday with repeated reminders they play a critical role funding the nation's premier law enforcement agent and will have an important say in approving a new headquarters building.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, mentioned both the FBI's spending levels and its possible relocation plans in an opening statement that also accused FBI Director Chris Way of censoring conservatives and targeting students’ parents, anti-abortion Catholics and whistleblowers.

Jordan, a nine-term lawmaker, continued by reminding Wray that Congress plays a vital role in the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That controversial 1978 federal law sets out the rules for surveillance and collecting of foreign intelligence on U.S. soil.

“With all that history — with all that — the Justice Department, the FBI, want the taxpayers they censored, the parents they labeled, pro-life Catholics they called radical, they want them to pay for a new FBI headquarters,” Jordan said. “And they want FISA reauthorization of the 702 program in its current form. … I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, in his five minutes of questioning, twice reminded Wray that Congress is responsible for appropriating funds for the agency.

“We fund your department,” he said after Wray declined to answer an unrelated question because the topic covered an ongoing federal criminal investigation.

"That’s not our policy, though, and we fund you so let’s move on,” Massie added.

Republicans including Donald Trump have repeatedly raised the idea of defunding the FBI or outright eliminating it amid an evolving federal investigation into the former president's actions surrounding the 2020 election and how he handled classified material after leaving the White House.

FBI's headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., has been described as “crumbling,” and the White House has said the current structure can no longer support the bureau's long-term mission. Jordan has proposed moving the headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama.

Wray's appearance Wednesday marked a potent public opportunity for the GOP lawmakers to raise issues about FBI funding and its headquarters directly to the bureau's director.

Asked later by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., what would happen if the FBI saw its more than $11 billion annual budget chopped, Wray replied with a long list of concerns.

"We would have hundreds more violent criminals out on the street, dozens more violent gangs terrorizing communities, hundreds more child predators on the loose, hundreds more kids left at those predators mercy instead of being rescued, scores of threats from the Chinese Communist Party being left unaddressed, hundreds of ransomware attacks left unmitigated, terrorist attacks, both Jihadist-inspired and domestic violent extremist, not prevented that would succeed against Americans," the FBI director replied.

Wray then mentioned the potential for an even greater fentanyl epidemic in the U.S. "So those are just a few things that would happen," he said.

White House spokesman Ian Sams issued a preemptive statement before Wray's testimony that dinged the GOP.

“Extreme House Republicans have decided that the only law enforcement they like is law enforcement that suits their own partisan political agenda," Sams said. "Instead of backing the blue, they’re attacking the blue – going after the FBI, federal prosecutors, and other law enforcement professionals with political stunts to try to get themselves attention on the far right."