to order. welcome, everyone to this first hearing of the select subcommittee. the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. gates, to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation under god, in, with liberty and justice for all. >> the chair recognizes himself her opening statement. >> november 18th, 2021, an fbi whistleblower discloses to republicans on the house judiciary that the fbi created a threat tag for parents voicing their concerns at school board meetings. april 26th, 2022, another fbi whistleblower discloses that the fbi employees are being run out of the bureau for attending conservative political events. may 11th, 2022, another fbi whistleblower disclosed to the dozens of parents with the threat tag designation to their name are investigating by the fbi. this also happens to be the same whistleblower who said the fbi leadership, not the rank and file members, is rotted at its core. his clearance has been revoked. he has been suspended. june 7th, 2022, another fbi whistleblower is retaliated against after giving feedback on an anonymous survey. july 27th, 2020 to -- another fbi whistleblower discloses that asians are pressure to reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism to hit self created performance metrics. september 14th, 2022, an fbi whistleblower discloses that the fbi views the bestie ross flag as a terrorist symbol. september 19th, 2022, another fbi whistleblower discloses that the washington field office is deliberately manipulating january 6th case files to make it appear that domestic violence extremism is on the rise. he has been suspended. november 8th, see some, november 4th, 2022, another fbi whistleblower discloses that the fbi except private user information from a facebook without the user's consent. the information is from only the conservative side of the political spectrum. this is only a sampling. in my time in congress, i have never seen anything like this. dozens and dozens of whistleblowers, fbi agents, coming to us talking about what is going on, the political nature of the justice department. it's not jim jordan saying, this now republicans, not conservatives, good fbi agents who are willing to come forward and give us the truth. this is just the fbi. americans have concerns about the double standard that the department of justice -- american some concerns about the disinformation governance that the department of homeland security tried to form. americans have concerns about the atf and what they are doing to the second amendment. of course, they have concerns about the irs and the thousands of new agents who are coming to that organization. finally, there are concerns about what we have learned in the twitter files. big government and big tech colluded to shape and mold the narrative and suppress information and censor americans. over the course of our work on this committee, we expect to hear from government officials and experts like we have here today. we expect to hear from americans who have been targeted by their government. we expect to hear from people in the media. we expect to hear from the fbi agents who have come forward as whistleblowers. we think many of them will step in for transcribed interviews as wounded on tuesday. we believe several of them will come and testify in open hearings. finally, we expect to bring forward legislation which will help protect the american people. we hope our democratic colleagues will work with us. the day the resolution greeting the saw committee was debated and passed, mr. jeffries, mr. nadler said democrats would, quote, fight us tooth and nail. we hope that attitude changes. we want to work with them. protecting the constitution should not be partisan. protecting the fundamental proposal of equal treatment should not be partisan. with that, i yield the ranking member for her own committing statement. >> thank you, chairman jordan. nobody disputes the important role of congressional oversight. i know firsthand how important it is to ask questions and demand answers of the federal government. in the ordinary course of business, in extraordinary times when misconduct in the executive branch threatens to undermine our democratic institutions, congressional oversight can serve to protect the integrity of our public. for example, i am proud of the role i played as an impeachment management in the second impeachment of president donald trump and the aftermath of the attack on the capital. that bipartisan work was both a measure of accountability and a sign to the american people that congress had no intention of being bullied into giving up on a peaceful transfer of power. there is a difference. my colleague's between legitimate oversight and weaponization of congress and our processes, particularly our committee work as a political tool. i'm deeply concerned about the use of the select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risk undermining americans faith in our democracy. some of today's witnesses would have us believe that the department of justice and the federal bureau of investigation are part of a deep state cabal. warren even wrote a book describing the fbi itself as a threat to democracy. the department of justice and the fbi do not always get a right. history is full of examples of these agencies getting it very, very wrong. we have colleagues in this congress who have been subject to politically motivated hateful, racist investigations by our government. that does not logically follow that every investigation or a criminal inquiry by the department of justice is political or ideologically based. in our current climate, with domestic terrorism on the rise and hate speech normalized by national politicians, the department of justice and the fbi are doing their best to protect us from sliding into chaos. this past monday, the fbi captured two individuals, won a neo-nazi leader and founder of a group who were applauding a racially motivated attack on baltimore's power grid. they said their goal was to, quote, completely destroy this whole city, and quote. last week, the fbi infiltrated and disrupted a major cybercriminal group extorting schools, hospitals, and critical infrastructure around the world. last summer, the fbi engaged in a mass violent crime enforcement effort that took nearly 6000 violent criminals off of our streets. let's not forget the tremendous work of the fbi and the department of justice after the attacks on our homeland on september 11th 2001. similar vulcan colleagues love to talk about the threat of violent crime but appear oblivious to the fact that they are dangerous rhetoric and baseless accusations against the justice department and fbi itself at times pose a direct threat to those organizations ability to do the work they are doing to protect our communities. recent threats militants have highlighted a shocking increase in threats of violence against law enforcement agencies and a significant uptick after the fbi executed a search warrant. the federal law enforcement officers association has vehemently denounced what he described as, quote, politically motivated threats which are unprecedented in recent history and absolutely unacceptable, and quote. unfortunately, examples of these threats are not hard to find. last year, someone threatened to plant a dirty bomb outside the fbi headquarters. another attempted to storm the cincinnati fbi field office while wearing body armor and carrying an ar type rifle. a third was arrested after he made a credible threat stating, quote, every single piece of expletive who works for the fbi in any capacity from the director on down to the janitor who cleans their expletive toilets deserve to die. you have declared war on us and now it is open season on you. these allegations are deeply struggling. i hope the members of the subcommittee will be mindful of the risks going hand in hand with heated rhetoric. a rush to accusations and subpoenas without a factual basis and without any effort to engage with agencies through the accommodation process flies in the face of due process and to means congressional oversight processes. it makes a mockery of our institution. as a former prosecutor, i'm even more troubled by the suggestion that this subcommittee might attempt to investigate ongoing criminal investigations. as the head of the reagan justice department saw office of legal counsel wrote years ago, granting congress accessed information about active criminal investigations will in effect make congress a partner in the investigation, creating a, quote, substantial danger that congressional pressures will influence in the course of the investigation and potentially, quote, hamper prosecutorial decision-making in future cases. this would not only damage law enforcement efforts, it would shape the public's confidence in the criminal justice system. i hope not. i suspect much of the investigation, the majority, potentially mock up involve criminal investigations into former president donald trump. i want to be crystal clear. my democratic colleagues and i will resist any attempt by this subcommittee to derail ongoing legitimate investigations into president trump, any other president, and others within his orbit. during the course of this subcommittee's work, i suspect we will hear both members and witnesses describe the events of january 6th, 2021 and weighs it simply do not mesh with reality. when this app, and i would encourage everyone watching today to review the impeachment record and report of the january 6th committee which lays out the true facts and shocking details. i recently sent a letter to the chairman noting that despite our policy and political differences i am hopeful that there may be matters of investigation within the stated mandate of the subcommittee under which you may collaborate. i meant this. i mean this. i still hope that we can find common ground and explore it in a bipartisan manner that respects the due process rights and interests of all involved. the chair and his colleagues continually use the moniker of protecting free speech. that sounds good. i hope they all recognize that there is speech that is not constitutionally protected. racist, hate, incitement to violence. i also hope, and if the protection of truth and free speech extends to all americans. we will see. i hope we can use this subcommittee to conduct legitimate oversight to help advance policies to address the real challenges that americans face every day rather than undermine every agent, officer, and prosecutor on the job. government abuses of power do not solely rest with the executive branch. it can, and we've seen it come from the legislative branch as well. on our present course, however, this exercise seems a little more than a political stunt designed to inject extremist politics into the legislative oversight function and the justice system. the american people deserve better than that. i yield back. >> thank you, ranking member. without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. we will now introduce our first panel of witnesses. senator chuck grassley has represented iowa and united states senate since 1981. he's currently the ranking member of the committee on budget. he's former chairman and ranking member of the committee on the judiciary and the committee on finance. welcome, senator grassley. senator ron johnson has represented the state of wisconsin in the night in state senate since 2011. he has served as the chairman of the -- we welcome you, senator johnson. representative jamie raskin, congressman raskin has represented maryland's eighth congressional district since 2017. he currently serves as the ranking member on the committee of oversight and accountability. we have with us for remember tulsi gabbard who represented hawaii's second congressional district for eight years. for nearly 20 years, she has served our country in the hawaii army national guard and the u.s. army reserves including deployments in iraq and kuwait. we thank all of you for your service. our long-standing committee practice is to not ask questions of our colleagues and former colleagues that appear before us. in light of that practice, our first panel will have ten minutes to deliver their testimony. we thank you for being here. the senator from iowa is recognized for ten minutes. >> thank you, chairman jordan and ranking member plaskett for this opportunity to appear. i thank you for inviting me to come here. what i'm about to tell you sounds like it is out of some fiction spy thriller. it actually happened. it happened in our own government. congressional oversight is a constitutional demand. we dedicated our careers to it. i have, that least. during the course of my service, i have run countless investigations. in the past few years, i've never seen so much effort from the fbi, the partisan media, that some of my democratic colleagues to interfere with and undermine very legitimate congressional inquiries. it's because of a triad of disinformation and outright falsehoods. look at crossfire hurricane. bit by bit, piece by piece, it has been deconstructed and shown to be politically motivated investigation, which it was. we all know now that it was the democratic national committee along with the clinton campaign who colluded with the russians. they used to former russian spy, fusion gps, and a law firm to create a fake dossier and then tried to cover it up. the most recent example of this trade war our efforts against my and senator johnson's ongoing biden family investigation. that investigation started on august 14th, 2019 when i was chairman of the senate finance committee with a letter that i wrote to the treasury department. my letter was about a questionable financial transaction is subject to the committee on foreign investment that related to a matter involving the biden family. as our investigation continues and advanced, democratic leadership and partisan media began their attack on our investigation. this is where that spy thriller starts to heat up. on july 13th, 2020, then minority leader schumer, senator warner, then speaker pelosi and then chairman schiff sent a letter with classified attachment to the fbi. that letter expressed a purported belief that congress was the subject of foreign disinformation campaign. the letter was targeted at the johnson grassley investigation. however, the classified attachment included on -- that attempted and failed to tie our work to a russian agent named andre. unsurprisingly, those unclassified elements were linked to the press to support a false campaign accusing senator johnson of relying on material from our russian agents and thus advancing russian disinformation. of course, it was pure nonsense. the irresponsible media portrayed this as with the truth. guess what? chairman schiff claimed without any evidence whatsoever that our oversight work was rooted in russian disinformation. you know, he conveniently left out that our oversight work was actually rooted in official u.s. government and obama administration records. guess what? senator blumenthal also wrote an op-ed in the washington post accusing our investigation of, quote, perpetuating russian disinformation in the u.s. senate, and quote. guess what? minority leader schumer and ranking member white and try to offer a resolution in the senate disparaging our biden investigation. they innocence were basically calling us stooges. it's pretty simple. that violated senate rules in their efforts and were appropriately shut down. on july 16th, 2020, days after the july 13th letter, ranking member's widen and peters wrote a letter to me and senator johnson asking for a briefing from the fbi's foreign influence task force. our staff and the ranking member staff had already -- remember, we had already received a briefing march 2020 that put the issue to rest. why another riffing? the point was that there was no real purpose for another briefing, let alone a member level briefing other than to further undermine our investigation. some of our democratic colleagues were not interested in anything but using that briefing to try and destroy our investigation. these democrats insistence, the fbi caved. in august 2020, senator johnson and i had the infamous briefing from the fbi. because we had fears, the contents of the briefing were later leaked to the washington post even though the fbi had promised us confidentiality. that leak outrageously and inaccurately connected that fbi briefing to our investigations in another effort to falsely label our good government oversight work as russian disinformation. the wall street journal editorial board was on top of it because that board did the right thing and wrote about the briefing titled, quote, the fbi 's dubious briefing. did the bureau set up two gop senators at the behest of democrats? simply put, the briefing was unnecessary and completely irrelevant to the substance of our investigation. it was only done because the democrats wanted to do so. they could try and smear us. the fbi wrongly did the bidding. to this very day, director wray refuses to provide senator johnson and me as constitutional officers records relating to that breeding including the alleged intelligence basis for it. director wray has consistently failed to perform duties required of his position. another example of this democratic disinformation campaign involved a george can't, former state deputy assistant general. senator johnson and i ran a transcribed interview with george can't. before the interview, democrats acquired material from the russian agent, the same one i mentioned earlier. that the interview, democrats, now republicans, democrats asked mr. can't about the same material. he said it was disinformation. think about that! after all of the spears that democrats were throwing out the two of us, in the end, it was the democrats who introduced russian disinformation from a russian agent into the investigative record as an exhibit. a foreign agent who our own intelligence committee warned was actually seeking to influence u.s. politics. not me or senator johnson, not our staff, it was the democrats who inserted disinformation from the russians into our official record. the partisan media and democratic leadership ought to be ashamed of themselves for fake information if they spread -- that face right about our investigation. in the end, they all field to stop senator johnson and me. on august 23rd, 2020, senator johnson and i released our first biden investigation reports. i know there has been a lot of talk in this town about treasury records. you ought to pursue them. and that 2020 report, we made public the contents of many treasury records. we did not stop there. we issued another report november 18th, 2020. our report exposed extensive financial relationships between hunter and james biden and chinese nationals connected to the communist regime. more precisely, chinese nationals connected to the chinese government, military, and intelligence services. senator johnson and i transitioned to be ranking members. we had not forgotten about what the triad of partisan media -- fbi, democrats, and leadership did to us. we don't stop. we did what any congressional investigator worth their salt would do. we gathered even more records to prove them all wrong! we acquired authentic bank records that substantiated findings of our previous reports. we linked under biden and james biden to entities and individuals connected with the communist chinese regime. we also acquired business records with hunter and james bidens signatures along side those same chinese nationals. how were they supposed to be paid? according to bank records,