Jim Jordan requests interviews with 16 FBI employees
By Annie Grayer, Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray, CNN
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday sent FBI Director Christopher Wray a letter requesting interviews with 16 bureau employees, whose testimony he said is “vital for carrying out our oversight.”
The Ohio Republican, who is seeking to prove that the federal government has been “weaponized” against conservatives, said he wants the FBI to work with the committee to arrange their interviews by March 8. The names of the 16 FBI employees are redacted in the letter.
“We expect your cooperation in this process,” Jordan told Wray.
CNN has reached out to the FBI for comment.
As CNN has previously reported, Jordan has touted the allegations of what he asserts are “dozens” of federal government whistleblowers who he says have come to his office with stories of discrimination and bias. But Democrats have raised questions about their legitimacy as whistleblowers and the relevance of their testimony.
As of Thursday, three of Jordan’s witnesses had come in for private interviews with House Judiciary Committee staff. None of them appear to have had their claims validated by government entities that grant federal whistleblower protection, sources familiar with their testimony said.
Separately, several other supposed whistleblowers who have not come in for interviews were suspended from the FBI for being at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with the committee’s work. This is a point Jordan has not shied away from, using the accounts of “several whistleblowers” in a May 2022 letter to accuse the FBI of “retaliating against employees” for engaging in “protected First Amendment activity on January 6.” Jordan added in the 2022 letter that he had been told that none of these whistleblowers were inside the US Capitol, charged with any crime or contacted by law enforcement about their actions.
For more than a year, Jordan has made whistleblower allegations a central part of his campaign to uncover what he claims is political bias inside the federal government, including drafting a 1,000-page report last year that leans heavily on claims by government employees alleging political interference by both the Justice Department and the FBI.
That report and the groundswell of support among House Republicans helped lead to the creation of an entire House Judiciary subcommittee that Jordan now leads — the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — which is helming the whistleblower interviews.
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CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
