At hearing with FBI Director Wray, @RepJerryNadler in opening statement says he will press Wray over whether the FBI is properly prioritizing the domestic terrorism threat posed by white supremacist groups.
@RepJerryNadler FBI Director Wray in opening statement cites the bureau's recent arrests of eight members of the neo-Nazi group 'The Base' as evidence of increased focus on domestic terrorism threat from racially motivated extremists. More on that investigation here: abcnews.go.com/US/inside-neo-…
@RepJerryNadler Speaking of the "failures" outlined in IG Horowitz's report on the surveillance of Carter Page, Wray says he and his leadership team are "fiercely focused" on preventing it from happening again.
@RepJerryNadler .@JerryNadler asks Wray whether Trump, AG Barr or any other admin official has asked the FBI to open a probe of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden or others close to impeachment inquiry.
Wray says no one has asked him to open investigations based on anything "other than the facts," etc.
@RepJerryNadler@JerryNadler FBI Director Wray tells @JacksonLeeTX18 he has elevated "racially motivated violent extremism" as a national threat priority for fiscal year 2020 which he says "puts it on the same footing" as how the bureau investigates ISIS and homegrown violent extremist threats.
@RepJerryNadler@JerryNadler@JacksonLeeTX18 Wray responds to criticism from @Jim_Jordan that he has not taken the findings of IG Horowitz seriously enough: "I think I have demonstrated unambiguously that I take this very seriously."
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Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael, two men previously convicted of killing #AhmaudArbery, are appearing in federal court right now to plead guilty to hate crimes charges brought by DOJ. Arbery's family has come out publicly against the plea deal, calling it a betrayal.
Travis McMichael is pleading to count 1 from indictment, interference with rights -- prosecutor says parties have agreed court should impose a 30 year prison sentence + 5 year term of supervised release, to be served concurrent w/ life sentence out of state murder case.
As part of the plea deal, U.S. will request McMichael is transferred to Bureau of Prisons custody to serve his federal sentence before being transferred back to state custody. (This is what Arbery's family has objected to -- they call it a "huge accommodation" to the McMichaels.)
On the same day two current DOJ officials testified alleging politicization of the department, AG Barr sat for an interview on @SenTedCruz's podcast where he was dubbed a 'honey badger' and said he returned to DOJ because he felt Trump "needed an attorney general."
In the interview, Barr echoed Trump in his criticism of the media -- saying "their purpose seems to be to cripple this administration and drive it from office at any cost."
Citing Twitter's recent flagging of tweets by President Trump, which he and the interviewer described as 'censorship,' Barr pointed to DOJ's antitrust investigations of major tech companies saying he expects to "be making decisions in the next few weeks about actions on that."