An oversight hearing to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

good morning director patel welcome to your second annual oversight hearing i appreciate your attendance today and unlike director ray on one occasion when he left early you committed to not leaving early you're now in your year two of your directorship in that short amount of time you faced many challenges both internal and external forces that you faced it's not an easy task managing both internal and external forces while at the same time repairing the damage done by your predecessors you'll hear uh democrats criticizing you today for dreamed up failures they're going to criticize you for firing many personnel and supposedly weakening the agency but the numbers on crime show that you've gotten the job done According to data provided to this committee in the past eighteen months criminal arrests are up eighty percent violent crime arrests are up ninety percent gang and criminal enterprise arrests are up thirty percent as compared to the preceding eighteen months ensuring the safety of kids is of monumental importance to me and and we've also had on that subject a major bipartisan focus of all the members of this committee on safety for kids. In the past eighteen months the FBI has helped to locate and identify over eleven thousand children who were the That's up twenty one percent from the preceding eighteen months. In the same amount of time the FBI has been involved in the arrest of over five thousand child predators and human traffickers. That's up thirteen percent from the preceding eighteen months. These uh predators are the definition of evil and i applaud your leadership in hunting down these awful people. This all while democrats stood idly by while biden harris administration lost or couldn't locate tens of thousands of these children. The fbi personnel who helped bring these evil predators to justice deserve the thanks of our grateful nation. They're doing the job the right way, unlike the previous Biden administration. And during your tenure, nine of the FBI's top ten fugitives have been captured. These data's points show solid work by the men and women of the fbi under your leadership of course you would expect me to talk about whistleblowers while you are here i encourage you to foster an environment where true and legitimate whistleblowers are rewarded and not punished for blowing the whistle for those who've helped who you have helped the committee thanks you i also encourage you to hear them out personally because they'll give you the on-boardish view leadership needs to hear and not want to hear and of course with the thousands of people that work under you you can't know everything that's going on This congress I've made thousands of pages of records public, thanks in a large part to brave whistleblowers. Also under your leadership, I've begun to see r- records that I've sought for a long period of time. For example, I received a December twenty nineteen email to FBI agent Joe Pianca uh who was heavily involved in the Crossfire hurricane. That email contains information that appears to corroborate existing public evidence that President Trump was the target of a political hit and the government knew it many years that it was going on. The the email ought to be declassified. for the public to draw their own conclusions why wouldn't president trump want all this information about the abuse that he took b d classified if you get a chance to talk to him i wish you'd ask him that speaking of crossfire hurricane today i'll make public additional emails relating to a sub crossfire sub case mmm The case involves at least three discredited FBI officials that Democrats still try to defend. One, special agent Thibault, the anti-trump agent who violated the hatchet for his partisan political conduct. Two, special agent Jardina who reportedly filed a false FISA in the wallard ferez case and was involved in many cases against republicans and three kevin agent kevin guno who uh wanted to criminally investigate elon musk for facilitating sending in an email asking for five things officials accomplish that particular week I'm making that email public today in the records. Jardina asked at least seven times via email in about four weeks to place himself on the Crossfire team and start a new case on Trump. And he did so with the help of Thibault. Based on the records known to date That case. Didn't advance. His records as well as the case he tried to open on Senator Sinema. Undercut public statements. By uh former FBI officials. That agents don't get to pick. Their cases. Notably his efforts to join the cost fire team. Began as early as January twenty seventeen. Right before Trump took office. And on the day of Trump's inauguration, J- Jardina emailed FBI agent Joe Pianca, quote, "I wanted to mention again my interest in joining that case. For almost a decade now, I've made records public showing how a number of now-discredited law enforcement and intelligence officials Scheme to take out Trump and other Republicans. And here we are in twenty twenty six, still finding records from years ago, showing even more evidence of that targeting. The overall sustained efforts by the deep state in the dark corners of the bureaucracy is worse than anything Trump has been accused of. At least Trump is upfront and open so people can judge. The previous Democrat administrations, under Obama and Biden, conducted secret, insidious, and downright evil operations that almost took down our government. That's arguably worse than Watergate. Which brings me to my next point, Starting in july twenty twenty two i began asking questions about operation road river round river based on whistleblower disclosures to my offices based on allegations round river was a foreign influence task force operation that in some cases first shut down sources And secondly, marginalized information provided by sources on false association of Russian disinformation. Now this happens to be the very same discredited task force that you hear, that you'll hear Democrats at uh attacking you, Mister Patel, for terminating. Uh Just last year, Senator Johnson and I released two FBI ten twenty-three documents. The records summarize source reporting about alleged Biden family criminality. Based on information provided so far, it appears that ten twenty-three's Senator Johnson and I released were included in Round River. For those in the partisan media. i'm not drawing a conclusion on all the records provided so far the question presented is whether the the ray fbi fully investigated all allegations or simply swept them under the rug for political purposes and the records from the government include include too many redactions Frustrating our ability to draw conclusions. Regarding redactions, my office has been informed by government officials from multiple government agencies that one of your employees, FBI employee E. Jody Peterson is largely responsible for obstructions on many productions not just on round river if true her actions undermine your and this administration's historic efforts to bring about transparency and i am referring to a presidential uh uh declassification uh so the attorney general not you necessarily mister patel should check up on how jody peterson is not following trump's declassification uh executive order right now i'm concerned about how your predecessors at the tfbi handle federal records retention in round river as i noted at your last oversight hearing prohibited access files were used in crossfire hurricane That type of file restriction makes documents extremely difficult, if not impossible to locate, for production to Congress or FOIA requesters. I have similar concerns then about Round River. For example, an unclassified sentence in an email from FBI Supervisor Special Agent Michael DeLuro A member of the now disbanded foreign influence task force said quote "We apologize for the classification caveats, but our office of general counsel has directed us to classify our work this way on past experiences with cross crossfire hurricane. It appears FBI intentionally misclassified information, which will result in more obstacles to obtaining access. The Foreign Influence Task Force was the very same outfit that gave me and Senator Johnson that famous fake briefing used to undermine our Biden family investigation in twenty twenty. director patel you're right to shutdown the political task force and lastly through protected whistleblower disclosures i've obtained case records on peter navarro i've long said the manner that the ray fbi treated navarro at his arrest was unnecessary he would have been gladly to show up just as a result of a phone call. These new records show the FBI monitored his appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show and other media. I offer these records for additional public transparency about his case. Director Patel, as they have before. I assume the other side, despite many of their own shortcomings will personally attack you, question your ethics, your truthfulness, and your abilities. Don't let that affect you, and I hope we can uh have a uh really good discussion here. And uh I'd ask you uh if you need more time, if you get talked over and stuff like that, I'll give you time to respond so you can do it. in a thoughtful manner. I hope you'll be the better person and not return the favor with personal attacks, but set the record straight with facts and information that we in the public appreciate. Senator Gerben.

Thanks Chairman Grassley, for holding this hearing at this consequential moment in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let me say at the outset that we have just uh heard again uh an introduction by the Chairman that gave uh reference to Crossfire Hurricane. and a lot of things uh that uh are in the history of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over a year ago, all the Democrats on this committee said stop giving these speeches and bring the people before us to testify under oath as to what actually happened. Jack Smith, the special counsel, who is a conference a constant reference point when it comes to this grand conspiracy, has volunteered for more than a year to appear before this committee under oath and answer the questions. What more could we ask of him? And yet the Republican majority on this committee refuses to bring him. Perhaps in a few weeks, when we've been promised he will show up, he c- they can start by explaining why did you wait a year, if we're talking about a grand conspiracy. Jack Smith, the special counsel, is now under or will be under oath before this committee. Each of us will have a chance to ask pertinent questions to clear it up. For some reason, the decision was made at some level to let this controversy fester. rather than to bring the person in who can actually answer the questions. This hearing couldn't come at a more important time. Twenty five years after nine eleven. The deadliest terrorist attack in history. The FBI at that point had to immediately adapt to a changed world. Do you realize that on nine eleven, when information was gathered about the potential terrorists, it was sent to the FBI bureaus across the United States, not by any email uh device or any computer device, but hand mailed, because the FBI computer capability on nine eleven was below the expertise level of radio shack. It was that bad. From modernizing technology to integrating agents and analysts rather than silo them, the bureau built out capabilities and developed immense expertise across its workforce after that terrible event twenty five years ago. Director Robert Mueller led the FBI at this tumultuous time. He, more than any single individual, was responsible for modernizing the FBI to combat the threats we face in the twenty-first century. I was proud to work with him on a bipartisan basis. I knew little or nothing about computer technology. I called him and said, when I heard about the Radio Shack comparison, it's clear we need to do something to modernize technology. If you'll lead in that area, I'll try to help." And that's what I did. We didn't always agree, but I always respected him. Bob Mueller was a patriot and a person of honesty and integrity. Modernizing the FBI has not been an easy process. Balancing growing focus on national security and terrorism prevention efforts with traditional work investigating white collar crime and corruption has taken a lot of time and effort. And over the years, the FBI, as it gained more authority, at times in history, misused it. There is still work to be done to earn public trust and ensure the most powerful, federal investigative agency in the world only engages in lawful operations. Continue to meet, continuing to meet new threats while tackling these challenges requires steady, committed leadership from someone who understands the stakes and has the humility to lead as a servant of the public, like Bob Mueller. Sadly for the American people, the current director does not meet these standards. Mister Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation's history. He does not have the judgment, experience, or temperament of Director Mueller. Before he was confirmed, Mister Patel falsely claimed in public that the FBI quote "was planning January sixth for a year" close quote. He compiled an enemies list of public servants he called quote " government gangsters" close quote who he promised to target if he was confirmed as head of the FBI. Despite the warnings of Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing, our Republican colleagues chose to ignore these facts, to prioritize President Trump's retribution campaign, over the safety of Americans. And they joined on a partisan basis, confirming Director Patel to lead the FBI. Under, but this, Mr. Patel's failed leadership, decades of efforts to modernize and reform the FBI are being undone. And the bureau has been reshaped as a political weapon against President Trump's political enemies, and a shield to protect the president and his mega loyalist, not the American people. Director Patel has been the central figure pushing the so-called grand conspiracy, diverting FBI resources to inane, debunked conspiracy theories that the quote " deep state" has been targeting President Trump since his first campaign. The deep state, characterized by some as worse than Watergate, secret and insidious, and yet the majority on this committee refuses to call, Jack Smith as special counsel, under oath to answer questions about this so-called grand conspiracy. Director Patel is also wasting FBI resources to re-litigate the twenty twenty presidential election. How many times have nominees who are judges, respected professionals, professors come before this committee and refuse to acknowledge what every eighth grader in America knows. President Trump lost the twenty twenty election to Joe Biden by seven million votes. That's simple, it's obvious, it's a matter of fact. And yet these nominees refuse to acknowledge that reality, because this is part of the great conspiracy theory that Trump never loses anything. To weaponize the FBI against president's opponents, director Patel has overseen a purge of thousands, thousands of law enforcement officials. From analysts and agents to the most senior leadership, the bureau has been deprived of tens of thousands of years of cumulative experience of these agents. Director Ha- Patel has installed MAGA loyalist as political appointees in key career positions. And he imposed, even imposed loyalty test requiring FBI officials to undergo polygraphs to say whether they ever criticize him. And at the same time, thousands of agents have been reassigned from their primary criminal and national security mission to immigration enforcement. With the number of FBI personnel working on immigration matters increasing by over two thousand percent as of last September. And let me ask you, where are the worst of the worst? Overwhelmingly, the people who are being detained and deported have no criminal record whatsoever. In total, over nine thousand FBI personnel, twenty-five percent of the bureau worked on immigration cases between January and September of last year. As part of this shift in resources, Department of Justice shut down twenty-three thousand criminal cases in the first six months of the Trump administration. To replace these career professionals he purged, Director Patel has gutted hiring standards. Today will be his opportunity, under oath, to answer some basic questions about the standards being used for new FBI agents. In an interview in July, he claimed the FBI is " quote, " losing too many qualified candidates". His words, to the rigors of requirements from yesteryear." What are those so-called obsolete requirements? According to a memo issued in June, the FBI has removed from its list of automatic hiring disqualifications, theft from an employer, sex solicitation, and bestiality. To add insult to injury, Director Patel is trying to take credit for the successful efforts of state and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime. The reality is that violent crime spiked during COVID-nineteen pandemic, and has been steadily, consistently declining since twenty twenty two. Every member of this committee knows that our local police, state and local, not the FBI, are primarily responsible for combating violent crime. Don't believe me? Look at the data. Cities where the National Guard or other federal forces were not deployed had a twenty twenty five drop in violent crime, similar to cities where they were deployed. It is misleading and offensive for this administration, which has coddled January six rioters, giving them full unconditional pardons from the president as one of his first acts of office. This administration has ended the career of thousands of professional FBI agents because they didn't meet some political test, and blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to local law enforcement, to claim credit for our brave front-line police officers. That is not backing the blue by any standard. In fact, the cities where federal forces were deployed are experiencing widespread abuses of constitutional rights of their res- residents, including multiple lethal shootings of American citizens. The FBI is charged with investigating the deadly use of force by federal agents, but it has turned its back on its duties under Director Patel. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is now the primary investigator of whether its own poorly vetted and trained employees violated the law during ill-conceived missions. Director Patel has also played a key role in the Trump administration's cover-up of the Epstein files. Director Patel diverted more than a thousand FBI agents from their critical missions to work on twenty-four-hour shifts reviewing every page of the Epstein files. These personnel were instructed to flag any records in which President Trump's name was mentioned. That review ended in an unsigned memorandum from the Department of Justice and FBI, simply claiming quote, there is no incriminating client list in the Epstein files, close quote. Director Patel still has not responded to our letter from more than a year ago, asking about his personal role in this cover-up. But we now know that Director Patel reportedly joined in a meeting at the White House Situation Room about how to protect the President from fallout from this cover-up at the Epstein files. Director Patel failed to insure the Trump administration actually recru recruited uh pardon me released as they required everything about Epstein and his co-conspirators. This has come at the expense of the American people who deserve transparency. And it has also been the expense to survivors of Epstein's abuse, who deserve justice and accountability. So today we find ourselves in a position where the FBI is expending immense resources to protect President Trump politically and deliver retribution to his enemies but is diverting resources away from protecting the safety, security, and rights of ordinary Americans and their families. Mister Chairman, this will likely be my last FBI oversight hearing. as I'm leaving the Senate. I came of age during the sixties, when J. Edgar Hoover, FBI lawlessly targeted political opponents and civil rights and labor leaders. I was proud to be part of bipartisan efforts over the many years to ensure the FBI protected both security and freedom of the American people. I'm disappointed this committee has stood by since January twenty twenty five, as that work has been undone. I look forward to a day, hopefully in the very near future, when this committee will fulfill its duty to hold director patel accountable for his leadership thank you

um director patel would you please stand so we square uh you affirm that the testimony you're about to give before this committee be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god

i do

thank you please be seated Uh you may have uh your opening statement now. I'll start with ten minute round of questions.

Good morning. Four days ago our nation marked twenty five years since terrorists attacked our homeland September eleven two thousand one and murdered two thousand nine hundred and seventy seven innocent people as a kid who grew up on long island this resonated personally with me. Twenty five years later we honor the lives taken that day, the first responders, the survivors who carried its consequences and the thousands of FBI employees who answered the call in New York, at the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, and across the country, and the thirty-four FBI employees that have perished as a result of nine eleven. Over eighteen months ago during my confirmation process, I told you that the FBI needed to be faster, more efficient, eliminate bureaucracy, and reduce the weaponization of law enforcement completely. Embrace technological technological advancements, and engage with our partners, and most importantly, let good cops be cops. Under President Trump's leadership, I'm proud to say we have not only accelerated that mission, we have delivered. This has been the most prolific run of crime reduction in the United States' history with the help of our great partners since the beginning of the Trump administration. Here are a few numbers, and behind these stats are lives saved across the country. The FBI has arrested fifty four thousand violent crime criminals. That's up ninety percent from the eighteen month year period prior to that. That's making America safe. Thirty one thousand violent gang members have been arrested by the FBI. That's up thirty percent, making America safe. We've removed, the FBI has removed three thousand two hundred and fifty eight kilograms of fentanyl. That's enough to kill a quarter billion Americans. That seizure is up eight percent by the FBI. That's making America safe. We have located, found and identified Eleven thousand eighty-one child victims. That is up twenty-one percent. That is making America safe. This FBI has found and located more children than any FBI in the history of this country. We have arrested five thousand seventy-two child predators and human traffickers. That's up thirteen percent. This FBI is making America safe. We, this FBI, have arrested four thousand two hundred and sixty foreign terrorist organization That's up thirty eight percent, including the fact that this FBI has stopped eleven hundred criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on US soil. This FBI has executed eighty six foreign transfers of custody, a fifty four percent increase for perps captured overseas. And we've extradited a hundred and fifty seven criminals from overseas a sixty five percent increase in just these last eighteen months. In twenty twenty five, according to the uniform crime report, we delivered the largest reduction in the murder rate in the history of America. We, the FBI, captured more than two and a half times the number of the top ten most wanted fugitives on the FBI's list from the prior administration. In fact, Mister Chairman, I'm proud to announce today, and I hate to correct you, we haven't captured nine of the top ten most individuals on our list, we've captured ten. Just this past weekend we captured a thug down in Venezuela who was on our most wanted list and on the run for years. He has been captured, apprehended and is on his way back to the United States of America. That's ten of ten. Nobody in the FBI history has done that. This year is just another example of how this FBI is capturing literally the worst of the worst all around the world. On top of that, we've captured six of the most wanted fraudsters around the world. Taking the murder rate down twenty points is no easy effort. It requires a team lift, state, local and international partners. This includes results in cities like Baltimore, which reach which reached its lowest mid-year homicide numbers in recorded history this year. In Memphis, we accomplished a fifty percent reduction in homicide for a city that had the highest per capita homicide rate in the country, thanks to the President's task force. And right here in Washington DC, We are on track to have the lowest homicide numbers since nineteen ninety. These events are not by accident. The success means that this FBI has made America safer than it's ever been. And I'm proud to lead this agency. While doing all this great work for the American people in the world. The FBI prepared for the largest influx of tourists. Between the Club World Cup. Two F one races. Protected three hundred thousand Americans in the Olympics. And then across six America two fifty events. and this year's world cup alone we welcomed over twelve million visitors to the united states to attend these events not one single security incident occurred at any single one of these events no major security incidents with our partners this is how we keep america safe this is what happens when we back to blue and this new fbi has been rebuilt to crush violent crime and defend the homeland these are important changes Um, the these are important results that happened due to important changes. The changes are as follows. We established for the first time ever the Law Enforcement Partner Council, putting a thousand agents back into the field, deployed more than two hundred additional intel analysts permanently into the field instead of Washington DC, and bolstered our JTTFs, all fifty-six of them. We added for the first time ever, in one year, two thousand seven hundred and fifty task force officers to the FBI, putting trained men and women of law enforcement right in our offices. We created the NSPM seven joint mission center to turn intelligence into action against political violence and domestic terrorism finally uniting ten agencies for the first time in our history. That JMC, which is housed by this FBI, has already arrested more than two hundred individuals leading to two hundred and fifty indictments. We built for the first time the director's strategic information center, our first ever joint operations center that modernized the FBI into sharing rapid intelligence that used to take hours now takes less than one minute. We established the nihilistic violent extremist fusion cell to bring our counterterrorism and child exploitation experts to target on-line predators who are preying on our children. This FBI has arrested five hundred percent more predators on-line in this last eighteen months than the prior eighteen months before that and through our fifty-nine homeland security task forces we created the first permanent of its presence of its kind across the nation to bring our state local federal and intel partners into one location. across this country to represent every single state. These are real world changes. We saw great threats to our nation. We and this FBI led the effort to disrupt many plots, to include eight extremists who wanted to kill elected officials, civilians and military members at the White House UFC Freedom two fifty event. We stopped it. We arrested five individuals last year for what we call the Pumpkin Day plot in Michigan. who wanted to blow up people in michigan from three separate states during a single month our holiday month of december of last year this fbi stopped four terrorist attacks in california texas north carolina and pennsylvania separate terrorist attacks were stopped and just this past weekend this fbi stopped another isis inspired attack in pittsburgh arresting an individual before he was able to go out and kill innocent civilians in the name of isis These attacks did not happen because the FBI and our partners worked around the clock, found the threats, and stopped them. Improving technology is something that is deeply important to me. And for the first time ever, we have expanded our overseas biometric collection efforts with foreign partners to intercept targets before they happened. That means we're getting more facial recognition scans, more iris scans, and more information about predators and people and criminals who wish to do us harm and stopping them before they can do that. Artificial intelligence. when used appropriately under the parameters of the law. When I got to this seat, this FBI had two test use cases for artificial intelligence. We just hit our hundred and fortieth. That's a six hundred and five percent increase since I've been in this seat, to process information, to triage intelligence, analyze and get this information out to our local partners. Recently, for the first time, the FBI was mandated by congressional statute to have a zero, zero sample backlog at our DNA laboratory in Quantico. Over the last four years, that number grew to one point eight million. backlog in violation of federal statute. I'm proud to announce as of just a couple of weeks ago, we have zeroed out that backlog because we used technology, AI, and improved equipment to make sure we capture these DNA profiles, put them in our CODIS database, and allow law enforcement partners to get after the threat. We established the first ever counter-UAS training center at our Redstone, Arsenal and Huntsville, Alabama to make sure that the modern threat that the adversary uses to harm our way of life is counter-manded by state and locals. No FBI has ever built a schoolhouse for them. We did. And we have trained hundreds of law enforcement officers, which we deployed across the World Cup, to interdict seven hundred and fifty drones over eleven venues, across the World Cup's thirty eight days. That's seventy eight Super Bowls in thirty eight days, to put it in perspective, and not a single major security incident there. The cyber strategy, the first of its kind by President Trump, was issued. And underneath that, the FBI launched Operation Winter Shield and Operation Riptide to go on defense and offense for cyber criminals. in our recent work we launched thirteen joint sequence operations resulting in two under arrest six extraditions and froze twenty three million dollars in illegally frozen uh assets and took down millions of networks on the dark web more accountability is coming through this fbi we saved this fbi three hundred million dollars in taxpayer funding by scuttling wasteless leases and duplicative contracts as i promised during my confirmation the shift is outside of d. c. into the heartland of america And I've reduced the footprint by one third in Washington DC. And we're gonna continue that effort. In terms of transparency, as you know, I'm committed to transparency. In just the first eighteen months, we shared nearly fifty thousand pages of documents with the Senate and the House. To put that in perspective, that's a three hundred and fifty percent increase from the prior two directors combined in eleven years. Foreign engagements are a critical part of this FBI's mission. Thanks to President Trump's leadership, this FBI is able to engage with foreign counterparts directly, more than it's ever done before. I've single-handedly led more foreign engagements in the last eighteen months than any eighteen month tenure of an FBI director. Since I took over, I've made over one hundred calls to my foreign counterparts. To put that in perspective, in the last three and a half years of my predecessor's administration, he made twenty. Because of this engagement, it directly led to the execution and transfer of eighty-six foreign transfer of custody's which the FBI executed overseas. That means eighty-six violent offenders. criminals, terrorists, narco-traffickers, gang-bangers and predators of children were brought back here for prosecution. On top of that, we saw a fifty four percent increase in extraditions of individuals housed overseas, captured by this FBI. The same list, gang-bangers, traffickers, terrorists, and those who wanna do harm to our children and cyber criminals. These subjects are literally the worst of the worst, and this is what happens when you pick up the phone and call your partners. Indian country is something that's deeply important to me, and something that I didn't wanna have forgot. So Operation Steadfast Promise is the largest ever surge to Indian country across our country. We have almost five hundred FBI employees dedicated to this mission alone, that has never happened in the history of the FBI. We also launched Voices Not Forgotten for Indian country. If you're a if you're a missing person, if you're a victim, if you have information regarding the most high profile cases on Indian country, this FBI quadrupled the reward to at least twenty five thousand dollars, and it's going to be an enduring continuing program. we have investigated more and opened more indian country investigations during these last eighteen months than any fbi before we've also opened up the billings montana field office to add resources to the field it's the first time we've opened up a new field office full field office in the fbi along with our new field field office our law enforcement attache office in new zealand so for the first time this fbi has full law enforcement attache offices across all five eyes partnerships the most important intelligence sharing agreement there is the the men and women of this fbi are delivering we're stopping terrorist attacks securing our major sporting events defending our critical infrastructure and rebuilding this institution around one standard putting the mission first with this committee's support we'll continue to move forward and we will never stop working for the american people thank you

thank you director patel now we have ten minutes uh time for each member uh in april twenty twenty six i wrote eight major internet companies to insure knickknack uh received enough data to hold online child predators accountable knickknack uh informed me last month that several companies have quote significantly improved unquote their child safety reporting the fbi has assigned personnel to knickknack uh to uh review online's reports what improvements can these companies make so that the fbi can more effectively turn the tables and hunt down predators

thank you for your work as you said protecting our children is one of the greatest priorities we have the national center for missing and exploited children NCMEC is a reliable partner the leading partner of this fbi and thanks to your outreach to the private sector partners these companies a lot of these large social media companies Um, behind your calls, I called them as well, Mr. Chairman. And what they've done is allowed us to gain access to their intelligence and their databases for the first time ever in a secure fashion specifically for their whole role of man-hunting child predators and finding missing and exploited children. And as I stated in my opening, we have found and located over eleven thousand children that's up twenty some percent. That's never happened before. So thank you for that jolt in the arm that was needed in the private sector, and we're gonna continue to expand those engagements and work Congress to draft legislation so that this can, this continuous flow of data can come in legally and lawfully and that law enforcement can use it.

Uh, since that's a priority of mine, I'd like to have your team update me if there are companies that continue to refuse to provide the data necessary to safeguard children online.

I will.

Uh, Department of Homeland Security has produced to my office letters of recommendation for uh two afghan evacuees placed in the united states during the biden administration department of homeland security has confirmed in writing that the government official who signed the letters was morgan killington according to state department emails killington is not a real person the afghan evacuees charged with shooting two west virginia national guardsmen and the afghan evacuee charged with uh funding isis-k received those letters of recommendation clearly this is a sign of failed vetting uh is the fbi performing ongoing reviews to insure that known or suspected terrorists didn't slip into our country or otherwise shouldn't uh should have been barred from entry What has the FTAI found up to date?

We are working with our our partners at DHS who lead this mission on on vetting. We are providing all of our um intelligence that has been collected uh on these individuals every time we encounter them at the border. Uh the numbers of known or suspected terrorists um encountered at the northern and southern border have dropped, um thanks to the securitization of the southern border and thanks to the presence

At last year's oversight hearing,

Mm. Mm.

I raised concerns about FBI files being hidden in what's called prohibited access. and restrict restricted excess cases you noted last year that you'd produce records found in these types of cases which you have done uh good job of um please update the committee on the steps you've taken to ensure these types of records are discoverable and that records can't be hidden from congress from the courts or from the american people under uh under freedom of information act

prohibitive cases mr. chairman were created just for that purpose to evade transparency to evade promulgation of fbi records that should be made available under and constitutional oversight so we simply did the following i eliminated prohibited cases there are no more prohibited cases at the fbi because we worked together not only with our inter-agency partners but the legislative branch to inform the american public when the law allows it to produce records so that you can conduct constitutional oversight so prohibited cases no longer exist those that were classified prohibited that writ label has been removed that compartmentation has been completely disbanded and now we will work with your committee to continue producing records for what used to be called prohibitive cases for the sole purpose of keeping things a secret

as i brought up in my opening statement i have concerns about how round river records were stored managed and classified round river was the operation that shutdown certain government sources regarding the biden family with apparently no justification for example some records included banner markings with round river as a classification code that is highly unusual if not outright improper that you could have a round river classification What steps have you taken to investigate any improper classification of Round River records, and hold people accountable?

Thanks to your referral, Mister Chairman, and shedding light on this, we looked at the classification processes surrounding this quote unquote creation of a compartment called Round River. We discovered that um there was no FBI policy to substantiate such a classification, and that in fact it was basically made up. So now, working with you and your staff, we are committed to continue to produce on top of the nearly two thousand pages of documents on Round River that we've already produced, we will continue to produce documents around that. And also we are conducting an internal investigation through inspection division on the individuals who launched and codified this false and fake compartment.

OK. According to an August twenty twenty six Justice Department Inspector General report, fbi officials during ray's tenure retaliated against an fbi employee named jacob mercer these fbi officials are still employed at your nomination hearing you committed to ensuring whistleblowers are protected from retaliation what steps has the fbi taken to hold the retaliators accountable for their violation of law And if nothing's been done, will you commit to updating the committee on accountability measures?

That is in the middle of an internal investigation, and as soon as I'm able to update the committee. Um, after working with our Department of Justice partners, I will do so.

Uh, so you can't comment further. Is that what you

Not at this time, sir.

OK. Uh. The Safer Skies Act. granted long overdue authority to state and local law enforcement agencies to protect their communities from malicious drones as of july first the fbi had certified forty six eligible agencies to conduct drone mitigation uh training a maximum of sixteen officers per month we can't get our law enforcement agencies certified to use these um authority is fast enough what is the fbi doing to expand and expedite this counter drone training capacity for eligible state and local law enforcement agencies

as you highlighted mr. chairman our state and local partners are critical to combat the counter drone mission set but the federal government provided no training or access at any level so the fbi under my leadership stood up the first ever counter uas school it's called in cutsy down at redstone arsenal in huntsville alabama where trained hundreds of law enforcement officers. That is a two-week class that goes continuously. We only pause it for the World Cup so that we could have all our counter UAX experts in the field. And what we've asked for Congress is increased funding so that we can triple the size of that school, allowing more state and local officers to come in and work with us, and deploy them like we did during the World Cup on our ground intercept teams to cover down on eleven separate venues, and take down seven hundred and fifty drones. We need more equipment, more tech, And we also need more bodies trained, so we need more money for that.

Uh, for almost a decade, i've exposed political weaponization during crossfire hurricane. And, you have as well. President Trump issued an executive order in each of his administration. Uh, adm- uh, mandating declassification of crossfire hurricane records. Please describe the steps. you taken to ensure full declassification and whether other agencies like the ca cia have uh created robot roadblocks for this declassification this is my last question

so the crossfire hurricane um declassification at the fbi at least what's under my control mr. chairman has been fully declassified there is some information in there that i do not control because we do not own it And we have vigorously worked with our intelligence community partners to declassify that. We've produced the largest amount of of crossfire hurricane documentation to the Congress ever. And we're gonna continue. Sorry. And we're gonna continue to do that, Mr. Chairman.

OK. Thanks, Senator Gerbeck.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Mr. Patel, one year ago my home state of Illinois was experiencing the beginning of a ruthless, reckless, deadly campaign, orchestrated by this administration known as Midway Blitz. masked federal agents armed with military grade weapons and unmarked vehicles, descended on Chicago and other communities, bashing in car windows, indiscriminately rounding up people, excuse me, deploying chemical agents and shooting innocent people. A border patrol agent shot US citizen and Chicago native Marimore Martinez five times after side-swiping her vehicle. She survived. After Miss Martinez was shot, DHS branded her as a domestic terrorist. A Border Patrol agent bragged about shooting her. And an FBI agent falsely claimed she chased a Border Patrol agent before she was shot. Director Patel, after the shooting you took to social media, posted a video of a different collision that you said supported DHS. You said, quote, " Attack our law enforcement." And this FBI will find you and bring you to justice." DHS and FBI have since refused to correct the record. No charges filed against Miss Martinez, who was shot five times by these agents. In another event, an ICE agent shot and killed Silveira Villegas Gonzalez, shortly after he dropped his children off at school and daycare. Publicly released video footage and the ICE agent's own statement, contradict DHS claims that the ICE agent who shot him was quote "dragged a significant distance" and quote " feared for his life." In the past, the FBI would have swiftly responded to these shootings, gathering evidence and working with the Justice Department Civil Rights Division to conduct a civil rights investigation. But not now. This morning on your web site of the FBI is the following. The FBI is the primary federal agent C, responsible for investigating possible violations of federal civil rights statutes. Dir- Director Patel, why has the FBI refused to investigate either of these shootings?

We have not refused to investigate either of these shootings. These investigations are currently ongoing, and so I'm unable to comment on the nature of them. We are not the only agency involved, since it involves multiple federal agencies, so we have to work with our federal and state and local partners to collect the information and allow the department of justice to make whatever decision they deem appropriate

you still stand behind the false statements you made in social media after miriam martinez was shot

um i'm those false statements according to you are not false statements they're clipped together to make it sound like i lied and i didn't

well i can tell you that she's never been charged with a crime after being shot five times and turning over the video for your approval and review as well as other agencies

you want her to be charged for being shot

of course do you

that's what you just said i'm not gonna charge someone for being shot