Chairman Jordan presses Wray for data on FBI's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring practices

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is pressing Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray for more information surrounding the bureau's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring practices and other initiatives. 

Jordan's office argued that the FBI's "hyper-fixation on hitting Biden Administration-imposed DEI initiatives, rather than qualifications that make the best federal law enforcement candidates and officers, has created a climate within the FBI that puts the American public and American civil liberties."

His office also said that "the public's lack of confidence in the FBI's ability to execute its mission in an impartial and competent manner continues to deteriorate" if the FBI, under President Biden, turns away "quality candidates in the name of DEI."

"We understand that the FBI has struggled with attracting enough qualified applicants from all desired target groups to sustain its mission This is likely due to the FBI re-focusing its recruitment efforts on DEI statistics," Jordan wrote in the letter to Wray. "In October 2023, a group of retired FBI Special Agents and Analysts, many of whom held senior positions of trust and authority within the FBI, authored a report detailing 'alarming trends' in the FBI's recruitment and selection process."

Jordan has requested "month-to-month totals of FBI Special Agent applications received; evaluation and scoring averages for all FBI Special Agent applicants throughout all phases of assessment and testing; annual failure and graduation rates at the FBI Academy based on applicant categories for the requested period; annual number and percentage of new FBI Special Agents who failed to complete their probationary periods from 2014 to 2024; and termination and retention rates for FBI Special Agents at five-year intervals."