FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. As expected, there were some heated exchanges. The Democrats on the committee seemed intent on focusing on former President Donald Trump and their insistence that the primary focus of their Republican colleagues (or, as Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) affectionately refers to them, “Extreme MAGA Republicans”) is to defend and protect the former president rather than addressing the FBI’s mismanagement, overreach, and funding.

Meanwhile, Republican committee members closely cross-examined Wray on a number of topics, including the January 6th pipe bombs, the presence in and around the Capitol on January 6th of federal agents or assets, the targeting of mainline Catholic churches to develop sources, the targeting of parents at school board meetings, and inappropriate FISA queries.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) pulled no punches in his questioning of Wray. Right off the bat, Gaetz brought up the recently disclosed Hunter Biden WhatsApp message shaking down Chinese businessman Henry Zhao implying Joe Biden was next to him.

GAETZ: "Are you protecting the Bidens?!"

FBI DIRECTOR CHRIS WRAY: "Absolutely not!" pic.twitter.com/Jp5TZJrRl4

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 12, 2023

Gaetz: “I’m sitting here with my father…I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.” Sounds like a shakedown, doesn’t it, Director?

Wray: I’m not going to get into commenting on that.

Gaetz: Well, you…seem deeply uncurious about it, don’t you? Almost suspiciously uncurious. Are you protecting the Bidens?

Wray: Absolutely not. The FBI does not — has no interest in protecting anyone politically —

Gaetz: Well, you won’t answer the question — hold on — you won’t answer the question about whether or not that’s a shakedown, and everybody knows why you won’t answer it, because to the millions of people who will see this, they know it is. And your inability to acknowledge that is deeply revealing about you.

Transitioning from “the uncurious to the downright nosy,” Gaetz then pivoted to the FBI’s use of improper or illegal FISA queries to surveil American citizens.

FBI Director Chris Wray has no idea how many times the FBI used illegal FISA queries to surveil American citizens under his leadership — despite inspector general reports and court rulings uncovering hundreds of thousands of instances pic.twitter.com/agHESCTREh

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2023

Gaetz: How many illegal FISA queries have occurred under your leadership of the FBI?

Wray: Well, there are reports that have come out with different numbers about compliance incidents —

Gaetz: More than a million illegal ones? Because that’s what the Inspector General said — the Inspector General said that in the 3.4 million of these queries, more than a million were in error. Do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment by the Inspector General?

Wray: I’m not sure actually that’s a correct characterization of the Inspector General’s findings on that —

Gaetz: Oh, well, the internet will remind you of that in moments, but let’s now go to what the Court said. The Court said it was over 200,000 that have occurred on your watch — do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment?

Wray: Again, I don’t have the numbers as I sit here right now —

Gaetz: Seems like a number you should know — how many times the FBI’s breaking the law under your watch — especially if it’s, like, over a million — to not know that number?! And I’m worried about your veracity on this subject, as well.

Gaetz then played a brief clip of Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) questioning Wray previously regarding the interplay between FISA queries and January 6th.

Gaetz: So, there, Senator Lee’s asking you whether or not FISA was in any way involved in your January 6th investigation, and you say, “No.” Was that truthful?

Wray: I said that I did not believe it was.

Gaetz: Okay, so now let’s pull up what the Court said, which is something a little different than what you’ve said. So, here…yeah, there we go, right here it says, “The government has reported additional, significant violations of the querying standard, including several relating to the January 6, 2021 breach of the…Capitol.” So, I guess the question, Director Wray, is: Did you not know when you were answering these questions that the FBI was engaging in these illegal searches? Or did you perjure yourself to Senator Lee?

Wray: I certainly didn’t perjure myself. At the time that I testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I didn’t have that piece of information. I will add —

Gaetz: Well, that was a Court order — you didn’t have that piece of information because the Court hadn’t yet rendered a judgment. Did you not know, when you gave the untruthful answer before Senator Lee, that this was going on?

Wray: It was — it was a truthful answer. I did not believe FISA had been involved in January 6th —

Gaetz: But it was! So, you didn’t — the answer is the FBI has broken so bad that people can go and engage in queries that when you come before the Congress to answer questions, you’re, like, blissfully ignorant — you’re blissfully ignorant as to the unlawful queries; you’re blissfully ignorant as to the Biden shakedown regime. And, it just seems like it gets into kind of a creepy place as well…

Just so the American people realize, the Court has smacked you down, alleging — or ruling — “FBI personnel apparently conducted queries for improper personal reasons.” People were looking themselves up; they were looking their ex-lovers up. Who has been held accountable or fired as a consequence of the FBI using the FISA process as their, like, creepy personal snoop machine?

Wray pushed back on the accusation, noting that some disciplinary action has been taken (without getting into the specifics) and also touting the fact that applications for FBI employment have increased substantially since he became the director. But Gaetz had a sharp rebuttal to that.

Wray: There have been instances in which individiuals have had disciplinary action, and were no longer with the —

Gaetz: Name them.

Wray: I can’t get into it here, but we can follow back up with you —

Gaetz: But don’t you see? Don’t you see that that’s kind of the thing, Director Wray? That you preside over the FBI that has the lowest level of trust in the FBI’s history. People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are. And the reason is because you don’t give straight answers. You give answers that later a court deems aren’t true, and then, at the end of the day, you won’t criticize an obvious shakedown when it’s directly in front of us, and it appears as though you’re whitewashing the conduct of corrupt people.

Wray: Respectfully, Congressman, in your home state of Florida, the number of people applying to come work for us and devote their lives working for us is…up over 100 percent since I started–

Gaetz: We’re deeply proud of them, and they deserve better than you.

A full video of the proceedings can be viewed below.