FBI Director Christopher Wray declined Tuesday to answer whether the recent New York hush money guilty verdict and three other indictments against former President Donald Trump amount to “election interference,” just five months out from the November 2024 race.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked Wray whether the federal indictments against Trump and his New York conviction amounts to a level of election interference the bureau is concerned about. The FBI director said he was not able to comment on “pending state criminal prosecutions.”
“It’s not something I would ever do,” said Wray, a Trump appointee. Hagerty clarified, “I’m talking about utilizing governmental authority to interfere with an election.”
Hagerty said that last Thursday “we saw” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “do just that, with a flimsy made-up theory and a criminal conviction.”
“Just this weekend, the leader of the Soros organization came out and advised Democrats to repeat the slogan ‘convicted felon,’ so it can be imprinted on voters’ minds,” Hagerty said, referring to a post on X by Open Society Foundations Chairman Alex Soros. “Alvin Bragg facilitated that imprint and did just that. Is that coordinated election interference, or is that just a coincidence that would happen?”
Republicans have claimed all four criminal cases against Trump are politically motivated and reflect an effort by President Joe Biden to interfere in the 2024 election. They have also hit out at Bragg’s hiring of Matthew Colangelo to lead the hush money case, noting the high-ranking former Justice Department official left his post in the Biden administration to work for Bragg just one year before his office brought the indictment against Trump in April 2023.
After Wray declined to answer Hagerty again, the senator said he would pivot to the “federal level,” referring to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, which in 2023 led to two separate indictments in Washington, D.C., and Florida, respectively.
“Garland appoints Jack Smith to prosecute Trump, President Biden’s opponent. Is this coordinated election interference to go after your opponent in a federal election using the Justice Department to do it?” Hagerty asked, adding that the way the “legal stars have aligned in this circumstance is deeply concerning.”
Wray again declined to answer but said, “I can tell you that we are going to do our part.”
“And we have one part in protecting our elections from the threats that we have jurisdiction to investigate,” Wray added.
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The FBI director’s testimony came just after Garland spent hours testifying to members of the House Judiciary Committee. There, the attorney general denied politicizing the justice system against Trump and argued that such allegations by Republican lawmakers amounted to intimidation.
“I will not be intimidated,” Garland said. “And the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”
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