Sen. Lee tells FBI Director Christopher Wray, "We're not going to accept that answer anymore."

thank you mr chairman thanks director ray for being here and for your service to our country like literally every other person in this room like literally every member of the united states senate i'm anxious to see those who committed unlawful violent acts on january 6 brought to justice i also believe that with this circumstance like every other circumstance we have to make sure that the civil liberties of the american people are protected that we watch over them i've heard a number of accounts of individuals who were present in washington dc but never got anywhere near the capitol uh or any violence on january 6th who have inexplicably been contacted by the fbi uh uh by agents who apparently were aware of their presence in washington dc that day with no other explanation perhaps other than the use of geolocation data are you geo-locating people through the fbi based on where they were on january 6th uh i think there may be some instances in which geolocation has been an investigative tool but i can't speak to any specific situation what are you using to do that what what what's your basis for authority are you using national security letters we i don't believe in any instance we're using national security letters for investigating support capital i don't believe fisa is remotely implicated in our are you using warrants predicated on probable cause we certainly have executed a number of warrants in the course of the investigation of january 6. all of our investigative work in response to the capital has been under the legal authorities that we have uh in consultation with the department and the prosecutors at the time no no i i understand that i'm just trying to understand how you're getting it so is the fbi accessing uh cell phone tower metadata from telecommunications companies is that where it's coming from again i without knowing the specifics without being able to drill into the specifics it's hard for me to answer your question in a way that i think you are there instances in which you're you're interviewing people based solely on information derived from a telecommunications provider uh providing geolocation information indicating that they were on or near the national mall on january 6. with respect senator because this is a massive nationwide investigation involving thousands and thousands of interviews it's very hard for me to speak with any absolute confidence as to whether there's any interview predicated on any one specific oh i understand that i understand that um and and i certainly wouldn't expect you to be aware of every circumstance i would though like to know whether you're doing that at all whether that is ever the basis for it i would appreciate uh uh if you if you could answer that if you're not aware of it right now that's great but if you could let me know sometime today or tomorrow that'd be great i'm sure there's someone who can provide a yes or no answer to that question over the years i've raised a number of of questions and it's one of the things that prompted my question here about fisa and related questions uh just about the collection of uh metadata from communications providers and so forth over the years and by over the years i mean literally over the last 10 years the entire 10 years i've served as a member of this committee and as a member of the united states senate i've been told fairly consistent answers under different fbi directors and different presidential administrations run by different parties but the most consistent theme in those answers has been just trust us don't worry we've got good people smart people law abiding people who are running this and we've got procedural safeguards in place to prevent the type of abuse that you're concerned about now inspector general horowitz issued a report uh in in 2019 or regarding crossfire hurricane um and uh and through a subsequent memorandum dealing with woods file issues uh that really helped prove my point um at the time in response to those concerns you issued statements uh suggesting that you would take concrete actions to make sure that uh these things were changed um could you tell me what some of those actions are have you taken the actions you referred to in response to horowitz's uh report and his subsequent memo on the woods file issues uh yes senator i welcome the question so so first off as you may know we accepted all of the findings and recommendations in the inspector general's report i ordered at the time over 40 corrective actions to go above and beyond the recommendations of the inspector general's report and those have been implemented those include uh everything from strengthening our procedures to ensure accuracy and completeness to make sure the court gets all the information it's supposed to changes in our protocols for uh chs's confidential human sources training changes we we i created a new office of internal audit uh that's specifically focused on fisa auditing uh there's a whole number of things i'd be happy to walk through but i recognize that our time is limited so you tell me how much i know i appreciate that um and i appreciate anything that you've done within the agency to do that i hope you can understand uh my concern which is that we've been told over and over again we already have strong procedures in place internally those strong procedures apparently haven't over the last 10 years proven enough so my view is that in addition to anything that you may be doing that that may well be helpful and i appreciate anything that you're doing that's helpful we probably ought to have some statutory restrictions as well so that it's not the fbi and the fbi alone uh acting solely upon the fbi's internal guidance documents from which the fbi could have of course choose to depart at any moment i'd love to see reforms in this area and in particular to protect the civil liberties of the american people i think we need some reforms uh to our domestic surveillance tools including things like fisa uh that that would apply to strengthening the amicus provisions of the fisa court requiring the fbi to disclose all material exculpatory evidence uh that's presented to the fisa court no less important here than in a uh an article three court sitting in its capacity of uh adjudicating criminal cases in fact if anything it's more important here because in the fisa context it's not public increasing the standard for warrants under section 215 uh to require a probable cause uh and requiring a probable cause warrant to obtain internet search history internet browsing history and uh and geo location information are those reforms that you'd be willing to support well senator i'd be happy to uh to work with you to provide sort of operational assessment of the impact of different legislative ideas uh certainly we view our responsibility as not just to protect the american people but also to uphold the constitution uh and we say that every day in the fbi uh certainly i would want to make sure that any legislative changes to fisa didn't have unintended uh very damaging impact on everything from our sharing of information with our foreign partners our intelligence community partners that we didn't elevate the standard in fisa above the level of what we could get for example in an ordinary criminal case things like that but we'd be happy to engage with you on the subject mr chairman mike tubbs expert can i uh add one sentence to the end just to complete the thought thank you for your willingness there i i this um we have been told over the last 10 years since i've been here we will work with you we will work with you has translated into opposition from inside the fbi every single time we've tried to bring about one of those reforms every time as sure as the sun will come up in the east tomorrow we've been told by the fbi you can't do that don't worry we've got it with our own internal controls i hope you'll be sympathetic to me this time around recognizing that i've been told that over and over and over again and we're not going to accept that answer anymore thank you

Channel: Senator Mike Lee

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Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021