Tony Gonzales Asks Wray Point Blank If Southern Border Would Be More Or Less Secure If FISA Expired

Mr Gonzalez uh thank you chairman and uh thank you director for your service to this great nation I want to uh acknowledge uh the FBI's joint terrorism task force that recently was able to apprehend an individual in Idaho that had Isis related ties it's exactly the type of things we need to do to keep Americans safe and so thank you for for your men and women for that my first question is if fisa were to expire would our Southern border be more or less secure I think if if fisa were to expire it it adds one more challenge to our ability to secure us from foreign threats including border related threats I'll tell you in my district a lot of people talk about the Border I live the Border we we are we are on the border every single day so people throw throw rocks from afar we're the ones that have to live it my next question is have there been any cases where the doj prosecut prosecutors chose not to prosecute a case that your agency that your Bureau identified as a significant threat to the Homeland or Community interests I I can't think of a specific case as I'm sitting here right now uh I will certainly tell you that um disagreements between agents and prosecutors at the working level is something that that happens it's a healthy discussion that happens all the time when we think we have enough and prosecutor doesn't think we have enough I've seen that from both sides having been a prosecutor too uh but I don't have any specific case that that I can think of that fits this is what I worry about is we have a case teed up that has identified a a security threat to either Community or the Homeland and it doesn't go prosecuted and something bad happens and we look back and we see this you know something's going to happen it's only a matter of when and I don't want us to be going playing armchair quarterback how do we get ahead of some of these issues and I think there needs to be a closer relationship with the prosecutors and the Agents on the ground thing in that regard that we do uh and I've seen a big change in the FBI since again I was somebody who was in FBI headquarters on 911 so I'm I'm well familiar with a lot of this stuff what I would say to you is today's FBI also works very closely with State local prosecutors too so if there's ever an instance where uh a charge in the in the state system is a better way to quickly disrupt an attack or we were not shy about working with local prosecutors not just Federal prosecutor my next question what is the FBI doing to combat the rise in transnational criminal organizations specifically the Venezuelan gang D AWA TDA so uh uh we're certainly tracking that particular gang TDA as we would refer to it um uh we have Safe Streets violent gang task forces uh in all 56 of our field offices uh which are focused specifically on gangs and other similar violent Crim Al Enterprises uh and that's the vehicle through which we are looking at TDA whether it's leaders members Associates uh we have ongoing engagement with intelligence Community Partners state and local law enforcement um in some cases foreign Partners uh in looking at whether it's their you know drug trafficking extortion kidnapping for ransom um you know different kinds of violent crime different kinds of trafficking and smuggling uh even things like organized retail theft so it's it's a you know real menu of of different criminal I'd ask that you take a hard look at this because no one's talk very few people are talking about TDA right now in three years we're going to be talking about TDA no different than we're talking about MS13 and it's going to be the communities that get ahead of it that create these task forces that utilize these task forces at the local state and federal level to combat these venant swelling gangs once again I live the Border Year we're year four of this year four is much different than year one the people that are coming over are different different people they're different actors to that point I was just out in West Texas I did a swing through West Texas I'm seeing a significant increase in oil theft in West Texas all my sheriffs are asking for help are there any opportunities to expand the FBI uh oil field theft task force so uh absolutely we uh we're very proud of the work that our uh West Texas offices are doing in terms of the peran Basin oil field uh task force it's uh created due to the fact that I think something like 40% of the oil in the US comes from the west Texas region uh and so that task force uh you know has not only state local law enforcement participation but we also have which is a bit Innovative um cleared oilfield oilfield security Personnel uh you know typically they're former law enforcement as well but also on the on the task force uh and it's a way to kind of Track oil field crime uh to uh ensure that investigations move as quickly as and effectively as possible um it is a complex in a form a crit it's a form of critical infrastructure threat and it's something we're we're very focused on director this is a this is a threat that I'm seeing is is correlated directly to the open border I'm seeing more and more uh foreign Nationals in particular Cuban Cubans that are here illegally that are operating in this space and so we need to once again as this border crisis expands we need to get ahead of this and i' I'd ask that you consider taking a hard look at that oil field task force with that chairman I'm out of time and I yield back U I want to not recognize the ranking member of the full committee

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Length: 5min 42sec (342 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024