by Adam Pack
Republican and Democratic Senate lawmakers joined forces to reciprocally condemn Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray after both declined to testify before the Senate on Thursday on global threats facing the U.S. homeland.
Mayorkas and Wray requested that the annual meetings of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) be postponed. hearing According to Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of HSGAC, there would be a secret meeting that would violate the 15-year precedence.
“In a shocking departure from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ long tradition of transparency and oversight of the threats facing our nation, for the first time in over 15 years, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the FBI declined to appear before the Committee on the Committee for public testimony. at our annual homeland threats hearing,” Peters he wrote in a statement published on the X website.
“Secretary Mayorkas and Director Wray’s refusal to speak publicly about their department’s work will only increase the concerns of many Americans about our nation’s security in difficult times, disregard the Committee’s efforts to provide responsible oversight, and deal a serious blow to trust in our government,” Peters added.
“It is unacceptable that the Director of the FBI and the Secretary of DHS refuse to testify publicly at our annual hearing on homeland threats,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, ranking member of HSGAC, he wrote to an X. “The American people deserve to hold these officials accountable for their actions under the Biden administration.”
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who serves on the HSGAC Senate, called on Wray to resign over the director’s refusal to testify before the Senate.
Mayorkas and Director Wray’s refusal to testify publicly on the Senate floor today is an outrage and a brazen attempt to avoid oversight of political abuses at FEMA, the FBI and beyond. “I look forward to Principal Wray resigning,” Hawley wrote X.
“DHS and the FBI offered the Committee a classified briefing to discuss in detail threats to the Homeland, providing the Committee with the information it needs to conduct its work in the coming months. DHS and the FBI have already provided the Commission and other committees, as well as the American public, with extensive, unclassified information on the current threat environment, including the recently released Internal threat assessment” a DHS spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a written statement. “DHS takes seriously its obligation to respond to congressional testimony requests; in fact, Secretary Mayorkas testified 30 times during his tenure.”
Wray and Mayorkas were scheduled to appear before House lawmakers on Wednesday, but the hearing has ended delayed until December.
House of Representatives voted On February 13, impeach Mayorkas 214-213 for failing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. Senate with a Democratic majority voted to dismiss both articles of impeachment on April 17.
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering it firing Wray before his ten-year term expires in 2027. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance issued statement Tuesday that the transition team was interviewing candidates to replace Wray.
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Adam Pack is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
