number. and you spent 25 of your years with the fbi, i want to start by sharing what democratic congresswoman eric swalwell said about today s hearing. just bananas. absolute bananas chaos, and the fbi director who oversees 38,000 employees investigates terrorism, child exploitation, covid fraud, national security, walks right into the partner s meeting of insurrection llc, the largest law firm in d. c. now with just one client, donald trump. we have got cyberattacks coming at us, we have got last shootings all across america. and that was the focus today here. what were you thinking when you watch the hearing today? stephanie, what happened today would almost be comical if it weren t so egregious. this is, like i hear some referring to this as political theater. that doesn t do it justice. it actually is far worse than that, because what it is is
six hours of relentless assault. but we never got to the real issues. the fbi does need oversight. it should have oversight. that is what should have happened today. we have serious issues to discuss about whether we renew the fisa act or not. whether we can have national security wiretaps or not. whether the fbi can contact social media platforms or not. but we really have never got to that today. because this was a circus. dave is a former colleague of yours. what are they feeling tonight? yeah, look, i do, and they re upset. they are upset, you know, if you ask any questions and you have, years ago, a few years ago during the trump administration about morale they would ve, said hey, they put their head, and they do their job, they stay to the mission. but this really does erode the mission. they really go out and wash their badge and credentials and ask for help in serious cases.
seen in american public life. everyone who has the opportunity to should be calling this out strongly. carol, what have you heard about what is going on inside the fbi? amid these attacks on the agency on chris wray. there was a lot of shock, i have to say, there is sort of a stunned reaction in a news room as well. much of the reporting that we have been doing for the last several months has been about how cautious and careful, and at some point kid gloves the fbi was and how you pursued the evidence of criminal and possible criminal culpability on the part of the republicans. including donald trump and his allies. you know, the fbi stuff was the entity that hot fbi the idea i
attack on a democratic institution. the fbi is a investigative arm of the department of justice a hallowed institution that is supposed to be above fear, above favor, they investigate a crime and they investigate the fact. they don t target people willy-nilly. but when they talked a little bit about this idea of attacking and basically running that institution, i think really what we are hearing from conservative republicans it s that they want to defame this institution. they want to be sure that it is not coming after them again. you know, there is another off putting joke inside the department of justice about the lessons of crossfire hurricane. and the last buyer lesson of crossfire hurricane have been taken different ways by different people. as you all know, that is the code name for the investigation into russian interference in our 2017 presidential election.
this post in 2017. he is also a registered republican. but that did not matter to the gop members who used today s hearing to go after him personally. when the court says the fbi misled, but it s a nice way of saying they lied. the american people fully understand that there is a two tiered justice system. that has been weaponized to persecute people based on their political beliefs. and that you have personally been worked to weaponize the fbi against conservatives. i would disagree with your characterization of the fbi. and certainly your description of my own approach. the idea that i m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me given my own personal background. your job is to review what they do, your job is to protect the american people from tyrannical fbi, storming the home of an american family. i could not disagree more with your description of the fbi s tyrannical.