Jeff Van Drew Discusses Possible Reforms To The FBI

2 days ago

At Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) questioned witnesses about FBI reforms following the Biden Administration.

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Transcript

00:00Ladies and gentlemen, I'll yield five minutes to myself. I'm going to ask you all a question.

00:05What would you do if you were sitting where we sit? What legislation? In other words,

00:12every administration can come and go. The goal here is to someday be sure that at the

00:19Attorney General's office, the FBI, that we do not have to worry about this anymore. The

00:27Department of Justice. Is there any legislation? I'll start with Mr. Wittenberg, all the way

00:32down to Dr. Hunt. Any legislation you would suggest specifically to help, or just to help

00:39in general, if you again were a legislator, if you were a member of Congress?

00:44Thank you for that question. I think to start, I would codify the President's authority to

00:49fire insubordinate or unproductive employees. And so it's the Schedule F. I would extend

00:56that to all executive branch employees. I don't think it would have the kind of effect

01:01that some on the left have claimed. I think it would just give whoever the executive is,

01:05whether that's a Democrat or Republican, the ability to remove people that are again, unproductive

01:10or insubordinate. At the end of the day, federal workers shouldn't have more protection than

01:16private sector workers. But get this, Chairman. A private employee is five times more likely

01:23to get fired or laid off from work than a government employee. That shouldn't be that

01:28big of a disparity. And so that's the problem with the way our government is set up is there's

01:34no market forces on the federal government. And so when they fail to address a problem,

01:39what is their solution? It's the same every time. Just throw money at it, right? We weren't

01:43able to fix this problem, so let's just bring more personnel in. And so the people that

01:48were ineffective, that were unable to accomplish the mission, are then just transferred over

01:52to another department so that this unit can do the mission. And so that's wrong. In the

01:57private world, those people would have to be dismissed and go find another job. And

02:00so the president, and he can push that down for the FBI's case to Director Patel, he can

02:05delegate that power. But to give him the authority to remove those people more easily would be

02:09great. Thank you. Mr. Stout. Chairman, I think post 9-11, Director Mueller changed the organization,

02:18shifted it to more of an intelligence-based collection and got away from facts and law

02:24enforcement. And we still had that, but the emphasis was on best guess. And I think that's

02:30what we need to return to is back to fact-based investigations. I don't think that's going

02:35to take a lot of legislative work. I just think that's going to take internal policy

02:40changes and working with DOJ shouldn't cost the taxpayers anything. It's just a shift

02:45in thinking. Thank you. And I think you're correct. I don't think that's necessarily

02:49a legislative change, but just the change in direction and thought, whoever's in control.

02:53Ms. Parker. Thank you. First of all, just real quick, I wanted to speak to Ranking Member

02:58Crockett. I have an appreciation for what you're saying between right and wrong. I myself

03:01received a message on X this morning, wishing that I was inside of a Tesla that would explode.

03:07And so I understand what it feels like to receive a threat. It's entirely inappropriate

03:10and unacceptable, and I should not be the target of violence. And so I just wanted to

03:14tell you that is wrong. And that should be, someone needs to be held accountable for that.

03:19I will say likewise. Thank you. That is wrong. That is wrong. And, you know, just to chime

03:23in for a second, unfortunately, I'm getting used to it. It's a sad commentary, but I think

03:30we all are, you know, and that is one thing that I believe there could be bipartisan agreement

03:36to just cut that out. And it's our responsibility to try not to promote it, all of us in whatever

03:41position we have, and to make sure that we protect those that are in harm's way. So I

03:46thank you for that remark as well. Legislation. So an answer legislatively, I mean, getting

03:51back to what the FBI's core mission is, and I'm not sure how you're going to legislate

03:55this, but the bottom line is there has to be transparency, there has to be accountability,

03:58and there has to be consequences. And again, it's not about what side of the political

04:02spectrum you stand on, it should be completely irrelevant. Again, when you walk into the

04:05door as an FBI agent, it shouldn't matter if you voted for this person or that person.

04:09You put your political persuasions and opinions to the side, and you do the right thing for

04:13the right reasons. And I am a very big proponent, obviously, of stopping violent crime, stopping

04:17human trafficking, and keeping all Americans safe.

04:20Do you think there should be, for those that misuse their power in the FBI, or in general,

04:26the Department of Justice, should there be enhanced penalties or penalties?

04:32Absolutely. If you're abusing your law enforcement power to push your political and social agendas

04:36and doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, you must be held accountable. And again, I

04:40agree with Whitson. In the private sector, I came from a hedge fund and worked on Wall

04:45Street before this, that would not be tolerated. If you're not doing your job and you're not

04:48contributing to the mission, it is not okay to be a federal employee and just come and

04:52collect a paycheck when you're actually not contributing to the mission. And unfortunately,

04:55I saw that quite frequently at the FBI. I would say a small percentage of the agents

04:59are doing a lot of the work.

05:01Thank you. Dr. Hunt?

05:03I have a very concrete suggestion. I would request that Director Patel, Deputy Director

05:11Bongino, put into policy that no investigation can be opened without predication. That's

05:18currently not what policy is, and I think that should also be, as far as I can tell,

05:24legislated. Moreover, the second point I would request was that all FBI agents serve the

05:30Constitution, not any political agenda. But the concrete one is that assessments, investigations

05:36are based only on predication.

05:38I thank you for that. I want to thank everybody for being here today. Like I said, time is

05:43treasure. It's a big deal. We appreciate all of you.

Jeff Van Drew Discusses Possible Reforms To The FBI

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