House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan subpoenaed the FBI for a trove of new materials related to the Biden administration’s activities, including investigations around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and communications with Big Tech companies.
The letter to new FBI Director Kash Patel is the first subpoena request from Jordan this Congress, as the Ohio Republican’s key ally and former staffer assumes the top post at the law enforcement agency. Jordan argued that former FBI Director Christopher Wray failed to produce some materials requested by the committee last Congress — and he likely has a much more willing partner in Patel.
Jordan gave the FBI a March 17 deadline to provide the materials.
The requests are wide-ranging. Jordan is looking for communications with social media platforms that Jordan argued amounted to federal government collusion to suppress free speech, details on the investigation of pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters in January 2021 and information about the FBI’s use of confidential human sources on the day of the Capitol riot.
The DOJ’s inspector general released a report late last year, which found no evidence that the FBI employed undercover personnel at the Capitol riot that day — an unsubstantiated theory that had gained traction online.
Jordan also requested materials related to the Biden administration’s alleged involvement in local school board meetings, after former Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum calling for the FBI and U.S. attorneys to meet with local leaders to address threats at schools. Plus, Jordan is asking for more information around the so-called Richmond memorandum, an FBI field office memo that linked Catholic ideology with violent extremists, and the Biden administration’s enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits the use of force to stop someone from getting an abortion.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight will hold a hearing on “Ending the Weaponization of the Justice Department.”
