CV NEWS FEED // Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray testified during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.
“As I’ve said from the beginning, the attempted assassination of the former president was an attack on our democracy and our democratic process,” Wray said in his opening statement. “We will not and do not tolerate political violence of any kind, especially a despicable account of this magnitude.”
The director said that he wants to assure the American people that the FBI “will continue to work tirelessly to get to the bottom of what happened,” using all the Bureau’s resources.
“Our understanding of what happened and why will continue to evolve,” he said, “but we’re going to leave no stone unturned.” He added that “the FBI’s investigation is very much ongoing.”
Wray said he understands that “there are a lot of open questions” about what happened.
In his own opening statement, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OH, said there “are a lot of unanswered questions about the security failures” during the day of the assassination attempt. “Questions about decisions made before the rally, questions about actions during the rally, and questions about statements made after the event concluded.”
Eight shots
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-NC, asked Wray: “Why doesn’t the FBI disclose to the American people all of the investigative detail and evidence you are gathering as it is gathered.”
Wray responded by claiming that the FBI “has tried to be transparent … frankly unusually so for an ongoing investigation, given the sheer nature of it.”
Bishop followed up by asking Wray if would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots.
The FBI director answered: “We have recovered eight cartridges on the roof.”
The congressman then asked “Why was Crooks allowed to get off eight shots?”
Wray said “Well that I think is something I think we’re still digging into.”
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“Why was President Trump not kept off the stage?” Bishop asked. He was specifically referring to the 20-minute period between when Secret Service first spotted Crooks and the shooting.
“We don’t know the answer to that,” Wray said.
A drone and bombs
Later in the hearing, Jordan asked Wray to fill the committee in about reports that Crooks flew a drone over the rally site some hours before the shooting.
“So, we have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used,” the FBI director confirmed. “[The drone] is being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab.”
Wray noted that per the FBI’s investigation “it appears” Crooks flew his drone “around the area” just over two hours before he opened fire on the former president and the rally’s crowd.
Wray clarified that according to the Bureau’s findings, Crooks did not fly the drone over the stage where Trump stood “but about 200 yards – give or take – away from that, we think but we do not know.”
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“That’s important information,” Jordan replied. “What about the bombs that we have heard about in the shooter’s car?”
Wray answered: “So again, the FBI lab is exploiting those explosive devices. There were – we’ve recovered three devices, two in his vehicle and one back in his residence.”
Jordan asked: “Are these what you would call … sophisticated operations?”
“We’ve seen more sophisticated and less,” Wray said. “I would say these are relatively – again keyword ‘relatively’ – crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely.”
The ‘critical five minutes’
“Tell me exactly the scope,” Jordan pressed Wray:
Does the scope of your investigation include what I call that “critical five minutes” from … 6:09 when the shooter’s identified on the roof [to] 6:14 when President Trump is ultimately escorted off, and all that happens, the shots that take place in between there?
Do you have access to the communications that were going on at the time in that critical five minutes?
“Our investigation includes that time frame,” Wray said. “Of course we are interviewing law enforcement from the scene.”
Jordan followed up asking if the FBI has access “to the communications that exist” during the critical time frame.
Wray replied: “As I sit here at the moment I don’t know the exact answer to that question.”
