House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Monday threatened to hold FBI Director Chris Wray in contempt of Congress over what Jordan called “wholly inadequate” compliance with two subpoenas.
“We write to notify you that if the FBI does not improve its compliance substantially, the Committee will take action—such as the initiation of content of Congress proceedings—to obtain compliance with these subpoenas,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Wray.
In the letter Jordan, who’s also chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, has given the FBI a July 25 at 12pm ET deadline to hand over requested documents or the Judiciary Committee will “take action.”
In February, Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona were issued subpoenas after Garland referred in a memo to a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
Jordan has previously asserted that the memo raises concerns about First Amendment rights. In Monday’s letter to Wray he referred to “the FBI’s targeting of concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings.”
Last Wednesday, Wray appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and testified on a broad number of topics, going on the defensive against Republican lawmakers’ accusations of politicization at the FBI.
“We opened 25 assessments into reports that were tagged, but none of those involved incidents at school board meetings and, to my knowledge, FBI has not opened investigations on any parent for exercising speech at school,” Wray told the committee.
The FBI has so far not replied to requests for comment on Jordan’s letter.
In 2022 Jordan was among four Republican members of Congress referred to the House Ethics Committee (then under Democratic control) for defying a subpoena from the House Select January 6 Committee for testimony and documents.
