Former acting Attorney General sours on Christopher Wray, says FBI needs new leadership

Once a fan of Christopher Wray, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker says the FBI now needs new leadership because the current director hasn't held his institution accountable for its failings and is losing public trust.

"I think ultimately we need new leadership at the FBI," Whitaker said Tuesday on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "I've known Chris Wray for a long time. I had great hopes for him turning that institution around. Obviously, I just don't think he's been able to accomplish it."

In a series of "Twitter Files" released this week by Twitter CEO Elon Musk through independent journalists and writers, it was revealed that the FBI was in contact with the tech company to censor information such as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The Twitter Files reveal that the FBI even paid Twitter to censor certain people for "disinformation."

Whitaker explained that the FBI needs someone who can bring meaningful change to the institution.

"I think he has built loyalty for himself and for the men and women of the FBI by fighting on their behalf and being on their team," Whitaker said. "But you need somebody that can go in there and actually reform the institution. I don't think Chris is the person to do it."

New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney is also calling for Wray to step down. She says that one of the things former President Donald Trump should have done while in office was clean out the FBI of bureaucrats who weren't following the law. 

"I always worry that one of the things that President Trump didn't do enough of was to really clean house in some of these bureaucratic agencies," Tenney said on "Just the News, No Noise." 

Just the News reported Monday that the Department of Justice was involved in eavesdropping on House Intelligence Committee investigators during the Russia probe, obtaining grand jury subpoenas in late 2017 to get their email and phone data.

"This powerful arm of the executive branch, the Department of Justice and the FBI have gone way beyond even their distinct powers," said Tenney. "This is scary times, and I think we need to investigate every inch of this coming into the new Congress."

Former California Rep. Devin Nunes suggested Monday on "Just the News, No Noise" that the DOJ illegally spied on him while he and his staff were in the midst of unraveling some of the misconduct that marred the Russia collusion probe.

"I think they probably were spying on quite a few of my staff," Nunes said. "The only reason they would possibly be doing that is because we caught the DOJ and the FBI coordinating with the Democratic Party in 2016 ... in order to spy on the Trump campaign and the Republican Party."

Former assistant director for intelligence of the FBI Kevin Brock explained that a grand jury subpoena is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of law enforcement and should not be taken lightly. 

"The information that they seek against certain individuals can be very disruptive to those individuals' lives," Brock told Just the News. "That's why it's treated in such a secret way. If it's revealed that two staffers on the House Intelligence Committee had their records subpoenaed five years ago, it's going to be unsettling to anybody."

Such cases are provoking profound doubts about the FBI among the American people, Brock fears. 

"It creates," he said, "all kinds of questions in the minds of people that want to know, 'Is the FBI acting as a nonpartisan, objective investigative body? Or is it being weaponized by the Department of Justice — in this case against Congress?'"