John Ratcliffe, who served as Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, lashed out at FBI Director Christopher Wray after the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Prior to serving at National Intelligence, Ratcliffe served as a Texas GOP Congressman, during which time he questioned Wray when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page. Wray took over as head of the FBI in August 2017 after former Director James Comey was fired.
On Tuesday, after the revelation of the FBI raid, Ratcliffe tweeted, “Wray already admitted that the FBI fraudulently obtained multiple warrants to illegally spy on Trump as a candidate and during presidency. If yet another FBI warrant to raid Trump’s home doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, Wray may be the last FBI Director.”
Wray already admitted that the FBI fraudulently obtained multiple warrants to illegally spy on Trump as as a candidate and during presidency. If yet another FBI warrant to raid Trump’s home doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, Wray may be the last FBI Director https://t.co/Xv4hRDmiFs
— John Ratcliffe (@JohnRatcliffe) August 9, 2022
In 2020, Wray, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that the Justice Department and the FBI illegally surveilled Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Ratcliffe asked him about the FBI’s response to the report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who had slammed the DOJ and FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” regarding secret surveillance court filings targeting Page.
The filings depended on the dossier created by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, “who’d been hired by Fusion GPS, which in turn was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm,” The Washington Examiner noted.
Wray stated to Ratcliffe, “Political bias has no place in today’s FBI.”
Judge James Boasberg, the FISA court’s presiding judge, had noted that the DOJ acknowledged there “was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
Ratcliffe pointed out that the IG report acknowledged, as did the Department of Justice and the FISA report, that there was illegal surveillance with respect to at least several of the FISA applications targeting Page, because there was not probable cause or proper predication.
Ratcliffe turned to Wray, “Correct?”
“Right,” Wray admitted. “We have accepted every finding in the Inspector General’s report.”
Ratcliffe contended that the Obama administration had “weaponized the FBI for political motivation and purposes. I just wonder whether or not you’re going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”