Police Off The Cuff/Real Crime Stories

FBI Director to Testify for Congress on Trump attempted Assassination

WASHINGTON -- FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on Wednesday that a laptop tied to the Trump rally gunman included a Google search of “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”

That is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The Google search, apparently by rally gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, was done on July 6, a week before the shooting of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania

Wray disclosed the new details in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Duration:: 2h 25m
Broadcast on:: 24 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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"My dad works in B2B marketing. "He came by my school for career day "and said he was a big row as man. "Then he told everyone how much he loved "calculating his return on ad spend. "My friends still laughing at me to this day." - Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be. (upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome to Police Off The Cut for Your Crime Stories. I'm your host, retired NYPD Sergeant Bill Cannon, a 20-70 veteran of the NYPD. And as we can see, today, FBI Director Christopher Ray was going to testify before Congress about the Trump-attempted assassination case. In addition, we're supposed to hear from Attorney General Garland in regards to this. Now, so far, as we all know, Kimberly Cheadle, the Director of the Secret Service, resigned. I think it was inevitable. And if she did not resign, I believe she would have been fired. If you watch the hearings, the questioning, there was a level of failed leadership. There was a level of extreme, I felt, incompetence, a level of not having her finger on the pulse of what was occurring in her very, very important law enforcement organization, known as the Secret Service, that protects some of the most high-target individuals on this planet. And when you watch her testimony, it did not give you a great deal of confidence in her ability to do that. In fact, it left a great deal to be desired. And I think we were all expecting that she would have been fired rather than to resign. I think she had no choice, but to resign, and especially after the performance she gave in her testimony, she was evasive. I always compared it to myself appearing at CompStat, which was such a lesser thing than appearing before Congress, but nonetheless, a very stressful thing that I had to do as a police sergeant in presenting the crime statistics, either from my robbery unit or from the detective squad that I worked in. And it was very confrontational. And I would study for those meetings for days, absolutely days and have notes and have all of the cases at my fingertips. So I, when I brought up a case, I wasn't like, "Door," but she didn't seem to know anything about the cases, about the incident. She never visited the site in Butler, Pennsylvania. That was, I thought, somewhat inexcusable that she did not visit the site on the screen. We see this little thumbnail. Messaging from the Secret Service, there was not a single press conference in nine days before she testified that the Secret Service laid out what they knew about the occurrence up to that point, not a single press conference. So what does the public do? That rumors start running rampant. Information starts getting filled by the press. And by the way, I thought, for what it's worth, that the press did an outstanding job in reporting this. And had they not shined the light in this incident, we wouldn't know half the things that we know right now. So we have to give them kudos, but at the same time, we have to question our government as to what the hell are you hiding? Why are you not telling us what the heck happened here? And granted, in the messaging, they have to always present it with an addendum that this is preliminary information and it is subject to change. Because when you give out investigative information quickly, it isn't always accurate. But you give out what you know at the time and you do it very carefully. However, they gave out no information. So obviously, us and the public were quite concerned about it. So folks, hold onto your hats. Hold onto your loved ones. Hold onto your service dog. Hold onto your opinions. You're about to enter true crime from a police perspective. You're about to enter the off-the-cub zone, the police off the cub zone. (dramatic music) (car engine roaring) (dramatic music) (car engine roaring) (dramatic music) - They asked me some common sense. - Yes, sir, and the other cars do not intend to grant you my requirement. - We still don't know before the trailer. (dramatic music) (car engine roaring) (dramatic music) (car engine roaring) (dramatic music) (car engine roaring) (dramatic music) - You know, when a leader of an organization is questioned by a higher authority in front of the entire nation, preparation is key. And it appeared that Kimberly Cheetel didn't prepare at all, at least based on her performance. It appeared that she did not know little tidbits, tidbits, this is the attempt at assassination of a former president. She didn't know the most basic information. How many spent shells did the FBI recover on the roof? No answer, no answer. How, what was the timeline of when he was first spotted as to compared to when the shots first rang out? No answer, had no absolutely no clue. How did he get up on the roof? She had no, all of these things. Does that give anyone pause? Does that give anyone questioning their government? Like, this is the best person on this earth to be the director of the Secret Service? I mean, when I was watching that, and of course, no one likes to see another human being lambasted and ripped to shreds, but this is a person that is the director of the US Secret Service. So A, you must have to have much thicker skin. That's what we're told in the police service. When we first come on the job, you have to have thicker skin than the public, okay? All right. So multiply that by a thousand if you're the director of the Secret Service. But yet, she was not convincing that she was competent. She was not convincing that she knew her job. She was not convincing that she knew anything about this investigation, and that gives us as citizens tremendous pause. I wanna play a little bit of this, and this was one of the most brutal parts of this questioning. - I'm gonna be asked again, and hopefully we can get some answers to those questions. I strongly implore you to answer those questions. You're here with a subpoena, and we expect you to answer the questions. Chair now recognizes Ms. Mase from South Carolina. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Director Chidl. The American people are watching, and they're wondering if there are any questions you can answer honestly today. So, Director Chidl, I have a series of questions, very specific questions. I want very specific answers. Most of my questions are gonna demand a yes or no answer. Do you understand? - I do. - Okay, my first question. Both sides of the aisle today have asked for your resignation. Would you like to use my five minutes to draft your resignation letter? Yes or no? - No, thank you. - Was this a colossal failure? - It was a failure. - Yes or no? Was it a colossal failure? Is the question yes or no? - I have admitted this is a tear. - This is a yes or no series of questions. Was this a colossal failure? Yes or no? - Yes. - Was this tragedy preventable? Yes or no? - Yes. - Has the Secret Service been transparent with this committee? - Yes. - Would you say the fact that we had to issue a subpoena? - You know, that question right there has the Secret Service been transparent. If she was Pinocchio, her nose would have grown about 10 feet because that was just absolutely untrue. They have been anything but transparent. - I want to get you to show up today as being transparent, yes or no? I have always been eager to-- - Yes or no, you didn't want to answer the question. We had to issue a subpoena to get you to show up today. That is not transparent, by the way. You stated earlier, Secret Service is not political, is that correct? - Yes. - Okay, would you say leaking your opening statement to punch full news? Politico's playbook in Washington Post several hours before you sent it to this committee as being political, yes or no? - I have no idea how my statement got out. - Does anyone believe that? Does anyone believe that leaking her statement? She had no idea how that got out. Does anyone believe that? I think that's extremely hard to believe if you ask me, because it was almost like it was damage control, putting that statement out. And again, when we watch this as American citizens, and we see our leaders clearly telling untruths, I soften that up by not saying lies, absolutely lying. It really is disheartening because she's under oath. Could she be held in contempt of Congress? Could she be charged with perjury? I doubt it, but it's easy to see at times when she's not telling the truth. - Well, that's bullshit. So Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record, articles by punchbowl news, political playbook, Washington Post. All done at 5, 24 a.m., 6, 12 a.m., 6, 34 a.m., a solid three to four hours before this committee got your statement. - Without objection to order. - Okay, is the Secret Service fully cooperating with our committee? - Yes. - Okay, you say you're fully cooperating with this committee. On July 15th, this committee sends you a list of demands of information that we wanted. Has the Secret Service provided this committee a complete list of all law enforcement personnel that were there that day? Have you done that? Have you provided a list to the oversight committee? Yes or no? - I'll have to get back to you on that. - That is a no. Have you provided all audio and video recordings in your possession to this committee? As we asked on July 15th, yes or no? - I would have to get back to you. - That is a no. You're full of shit today. You're just being completely dishonest. - Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I want to-- - Mr. Chairman, we have to maintain the quorum in this committee no matter how upset we get. - Have you provided any and all memos to this committee that we've asked you on July 15th? Have you provided all of them ran? It was within the Secret Service. - I would have to get back to you on that. - That is a no. You are being dishonest or lying. I just, you're being dishonest here with this committee. These are important questions that the American people want answers to. And you're just, you're just dodging and talking around it in generalities. And we had a subpoena you to be here and you won't even answer the questions. We've asked you repeatedly to answer our questions. This isn't hard. These are not hard questions. Have you provided us all communications from the Secret Service related to that day and that rally? Have you provided this committee? We've asked for this information on July 15th. Have you provided any of this information that this committee has asked of the Secret Service, any of it? - I'll have to get back to you. - Have you even read this letter that we sent you? Did you even read this? - Yes. - Okay, and you have said you don't know, you have no idea. The answer is no. We haven't gotten a single document or piece of information or data from you or your agency in related to the rally that we have asked you for. So, is this attempted assassination of Donald Trump, both failure of training or execution or both? - I think that those are answers that we need to-- - Training, execution or both, which one? - I think those are answers for-- - All right, how many Secret Service personnel have lost their jobs due to this colossal failure? - At this time, none. - How many Secret Service personnel have been required to take a refresher course on how not to let people shoot Donald Trump? - Our personnel are currently operational. We are examining the facts of this investigation and we will make the changes necessary. - What time did law enforcement become aware that there was an individual on the roof with a clear line of sight to President Trump? I am still verifying timelines, of course. Nine days in, you have no answers. How many minutes went by? Between the time law enforcement saw and took photos of crooks and the shooting, how many minutes? - I am still verifying timelines. - 15, seven minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. - That was, I watched a great deal of these hearings. That was the most brutal of all of the interviews. And you know, you may say she was quite rude, she was quite to the point, but it was distressing to me and I think all citizens that she didn't have answers. She did not have answers to the questions that were being asked. And requests made, we wanna know how many people were working, how many Secret Service agents were working, how hard is that to ascertain? You bring that information. Who were they? That's something that shouldn't be published, of course, in a public forum. However, how many were working? Was the rally understaffed? How many minutes was the shooter spotted on the roof before the shots rang? She doesn't have any answers to this. It's absolutely distressing. And again, if we didn't have Rock Chalk from the chat, welcome, became a YouTube member. Thank you so much for joining our YouTube. Rock Chalk is also a podcast. Thank you so much. You know, Fox News came up with a new video. And I wanna play it for you. And this is how the investigation will be successful is 'cause private citizens have taken video and submitted it to the FBI. And let's watch this here. - A new video of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. National correspondent Brian Yennes is live in Butler. Brian. - Jesse, good evening. We just obtained exclusive new video of the assassination attempt 10 days ago. It is the clearest and closest video we've seen yet taken by an eyewitness who was there with his family next to the AGR building as Thomas Crooks opened fire. You can hear eight shots, which sounds like eight shots, followed by two counter sniper shots, including the kill shot from the Secret Service. Watch and listen. (crowd talking) (crowd talking) (crowd talking) (crowd talking) - At one point, Thomas Crooks points his rifle at the eyewitness and those rally goers. This is what he told us about security on that day. - Definitely wasn't secure. I'm actually ex-military. One of the first things I noticed when we walked up, I'm like, we're, none of us have been vetted. We're all along the fence. We all have view of the stage. We could see Trump. - John Grassley, the Senator Grassley just released video as well of body camera footage, which confirms that a local sniper took a photo of Thomas Crooks before the. - Unbelievable. You know, and the thing is, Thomas Crooks was there, not just to assassinate former President Trump. He was there as an active shooter, and that in itself is quite distressing and quite scary because we all know what the goal of an active shooter is. Just to keep shooting until everyone is dead or until he's taken out, or the, he commits suicide, which is quite common in active shooter incidents. So it's just, it's absolutely pathetic. And, you know, one of the things that we also found out is Thomas Crooks had three magazines with 30 rounds each. He had 90 rounds in 30 round magazines. Think of the carnage he could have committed had that sniper not taking him out as quickly as he did. The carnage would have been unbelievable. So what we do, there are heroes in this incident. There absolutely is tons of valor here. And when we talk about valor, we talk about these men and that woman there who's been criticized, she didn't hesitate to jump in. And she's been criticized for being short. She's been criticized for, okay, I think we're gonna. Okay, I think the hearing is about to begin with, let me put this up on the screen with F.B.I. Director Ray. Okay. (indistinct) This is a F.B.I. Director Ray is gonna testify before Congress. The meeting is about to start. I want to begin today's hearing by recognizing the fact that we no longer have a lot of our great members with us. Sheila Jackson Lee, as we all know. Put this up on the screen. And we're thinking about her family. We all certainly will miss Sheila. I yield the ranking member for comments. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in this room and our hearts, they're a little emptier today as we were in the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee. In the nearly 30 years that I've served with Sheila on the Judiciary Committee, I witnessed her boundless energy, her courage and her character. As she lent her voice in her legislative talents nearly every issue that came before this committee. Whether it's advocating for Justin who made an immigration reform, working to protect voting rights and preserve our civil liberties, but delving into the technical details of administrative law and property, intellectual property. Sheila was always at the forefront of our work. Sheila made perhaps the greatest mark serving as the chair and later ranking member. - We're waiting for F.B.I. Director Christopher Ray. They are just acknowledging Sheila Jackson Lee who just recently passed away a member of Congress. But we're all waiting for F.B.I. Director Christopher Ray to begin his testimony before Congress. - For the Crime Subcommittee. In this role, she worked in a bipartisan fashion to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and to protect victims of trafficking among many other successes. She was also a leader in such issues as sentencing reform, unsafety, police accountability, and racial justice. Sheila engaged in many spirited debates, but she always had the deepest respect for all of her colleagues, even those of whom she vehemently disagreed. She deeply loved the institution of Congress and particularly the Judiciary Committee because it gave her a platform to make a meaningful impact on the lives of millions of Americans. If Sheila took up a cause, she could be relentless in her determination to see it through. Whether that meant making one extra phone call, going through one more meeting, offering one more amendment, or making one more speech. If you would not rest until she thought she had done everything she could to fight for the issues she cared about. Through it all, she stayed true to her values and always had the people of Houston close to her heart. You're all better for having known her. The American people are better for having had her in their corner all these years. I will deeply miss my friend and colleague. May her memory be a blessing. Are you back? - I wanna thank the ranking member, well said. Now, Chair and I recognize himself for an opening statement. July 13th was a terrible day for America. We all agree spirited debate, fighting for what you believe in, are part of what makes this country the greatest nation in the world. But the First Amendment and robust political debate are not consistent in any way with violence. What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania was a tragedy that took the life of a good man, Corey Compertore, leaving a wife without a husband and two daughters without a father. Others were injured, and of course, former President Trump by the grace of God survived the assassination attempt. There are a lot of unanswered questions about the security failures that day. Questions about decisions made before the rally. Questions about actions during the rally. And questions about statements made after the event concluded. Prior to the rally, why was the president's security detail denied requests for extra resources? Why weren't all the buildings secured? There were a finite number of buildings that needed to be secured. Why wasn't that done? Why was the president allowed to walk out on the stage when there was a suspicious person on the property? During the rally, what exactly happened between 609 and 614, those critical five minutes? We know from briefings from the director and the deputy director at the FBI and other information we've gathered, that at 609, the shooter was identified on the roof. At 610, the counter sniper was notified. Counter sniper teams were notified about the shooter. 611, the shooter fired several shots, injuring and killing one person, injuring others. At 612, the counter sniper took down the shooter and the 614, President Trump, was escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents. We need to know what happened play-by-play moment-by-moment, second-by-second, the communications that took place, again, during that critical five minutes. And then finally, after the rally, why did both the Secret Service and Secretary of Homeland Security, my orcas, lie to the American people? July 14th, the day after the attack, Secret Service spokesman, Anthony Gugliami, said this, quote, "The assertion that a member of the former president's security team "requested additional security resources "that the U.S. Secret Service, "with the Department of Homeland Security rebuffed, "is absolutely false." The next day, Secretary of Homeland Security said, "That is an unequivocally false assertion. "We had not received any requests "for additional security measures that were rebuffed." But five days later, top officials repeatedly rejected requests from Donald Trump's security detail for more personnel. And on the 21st of July, the New York Times confirming what the Washington Post reported said, quote, "Mr. Gugliami acknowledged "that the Secret Service had turned down requests "for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump's detail." 180-degree change. Why did they initially lie to us in the days after the attack in Pennsylvania? Finally, we hope to learn more today from Director Ray about the shooter. His use of the drone, the explosives that ring his car, how he got on the roof, and a host of other questions. It is our hope that Director Ray's testimony can begin to give answers to the American people about all of these questions and concerns. So Director, we appreciate you being here, and we trust that you're going to be as transparent with the committee and the country as you possibly can. And I'm sure you understand that a significant portion of the country has a healthy skepticism regarding the FBI's ability to conduct a fair, honest, open, and transparent investigation. And that skepticism is based on what they've witnessed over the past several years. The American people have seen a Biden-Harris Justice Department that can't tell us who planted the pipe bombs on January 6, that can't tell us who leaked the Dobbs' opinion, and that can't tell us who put cocaine at the White House. Biden-Harris Justice Department who raided President Trump's home. Biden-Harris Justice Department who worked with social media companies to censor Americans. Biden-Harris Justice Department who let the country believe that the Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation when they knew at the time it was authentic. And maybe most importantly, a Biden-Harris Justice Department who retaliated against whistleblowers who came to this committee and spoke to us about these issues. Last week, we sent you 12 questions about what occurred on July 13th. We expect you to answer those questions and the others that I've just outlined. And again, we thank you for being here today and appreciate your willingness to answer the questions that the committee is going to have. And with that, I would yield to the ranking member for an opening state. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, two weeks ago, our country witnessed a shocking assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. Now, I disagree with Donald Trump in almost every policy area imaginable. I am frequently shocked and outraged at the plans he has for our country and the words that come out of his mouth. I have dedicated much of the last eight years to fighting his agenda. But regardless of my strong feelings about Donald Trump's behavior, I unequivocally and unabashedly condemn with every fiber of my being the attempt against his life. This was not just an attack on a man but an attack on our democracy. Political violence erodes the very foundations of our nation. The concepts of freedom of speech, of peaceful transitions of power, of a democratic government at its core. These cannot exist if political violence is allowed to fester and to go unchecked. And if you think that this one assessor's bullet was a bolt out of the blue and not part of a wave of violence that has threatened this nation for years, then you have missed the point of what my Democratic colleagues and I have been imploring you to hear for some time. Election workers, many of them working for free, face near constant threats of violence. In one recent instance, an Indiana man paid guilty to threatening to kill an election worker who said that there were no irregularities in a recent election. That man said, quote, 10 million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it and will expose to kill you, close quote. That is political violence. In another instance, speaker married and Nancy Pelosi's husband was bludgeoned over the head with a hammer by the intruder in his home within it to capture Miss Pelosi, interrogator and possibly quote breaker kneecaps because of her liberal views. That is political violence. The death threats surging against Vice President Harris, former President Obama and his wife Michelle and Governor DeSantis, as well as many others, including videos online of individuals holding guns making assassination threats. That is political violence. The plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow parts of the state government. That is political violence. The brutal deadly attack three years ago against this very building, with rioters breaking through police barriers run through these halls chanting kill Nancy and hang Mike Pence and even hanging a noose outside the building. These rioters, battering Capitol police officers and forcing members of Congress in their steps to go into hiding, squaddling spaces under desks or in closets. That is political violence. This assassination attempt as horrific as it is should surprise no one. And you would think a political party that almost lost their presidential candidate through an act of political violence would have something to say about the way their leaders keep talking about the next election. Donald Trump is warned there will be a quote bloodbath if he loses. The Republican Ohio State Senator George Lang said just last week at a rally for JD Vance that he is, quote, afraid that civil war might be necessary if Republicans lose the November election. President of the right-wing think tank and Project 2025 leader, the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts said on Stephen Patton's podcast, quote, "You're in the process of this second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," close quote. The Republican former elastic governor Sarah Palin said in August of last year of Trump's indictments, "You want us to be in civil war? Because that's what's going to happen. We're not gonna keep putting up with this. We do need to rise up and take our country back," close quote. I could go on, but it's more and more of the same. And I hear nothing from the other side of the aisle in this room about these statements. You support a bloodbath if you don't get the election outcome you want. You justify violence if the left does not agree with you. And what exactly has preoccupied this Republican majority while their allies threaten violence to their political enemies, real and imagined? We have chased on baseless conspiracy theories designed solely to influence the 2024 election in favor of Donald Trump. We have spent millions of dollars, thousands of hours of staff time in more than 100 transcribed interviews, chasing false accusations against President Biden, supporting an impeachment effort that seemed designed to fail and hunting for a smoking gun that simply does not exist. And instead of admitting that these investigations found no corruption, coercion, or unethical behavior by the administration, Republicans chose to just dig deeper and spend more money. Imagine what could have happened if we had spent these thousands of hours of staff-- - I thought we were supposed to get really testified. This was like absolutely ridiculous. - Just to eat in one aspect of the political violence that now threatens our country. Perhaps at this Republican majority lifted a finger to help a nation that has awash in guns, the assassin of Butler would not have had such easy access to the weapon he used to fire on that crowd. Director Ray, your agency is responsible for addressing some of the most serious issues of our time. The Bureau fights gun violence, which claims the lives of 40,000 Americans every year. It protects election security from growing threats from aligned foreign actors who are working tirelessly to influence our elections. It protects against domestic terrorists and violent extremists who have been a growing threat in recent years and have carried out horrific mass shootings and deadly events around the country, and so, so much more. I apologize to you, Director, that instead of supporting you in these missions in the 118th Congress, some of my colleagues have instead hindered your work, aligned your agents, and called to abolish and defund your agency, or for political gain. It is despicable, especially from the party it claims to quote back the blue. And I know that you and your many agents and employees have paid the price for these baseless attacks. I know you have faced a barrage of threats, distrust, and vitriol from the public as a result of these wild politically driven conspiracies. I know it has become even more dangerous and difficult for you to come to work each day. I may not agree with you on everything, but I sincerely thank you and every employee in your agency who continues to protect our country. The FBI is vital to keeping America safe, and I pray that today we can focus on the real substantive work of the agency. It is the least we owe our country in these times. I yield back. - Gentlemen, yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness, the Honorable Christopher Ray, has been the Director of the FBI since 2017. You previously served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, an Associate Deputy Attorney General, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. Again, Director Ray, you've been here many times, we appreciate you being here today. I look forward to your testimony in answering our questions. We will begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and beliefs to help you God? Let the record reflect that the witness is answered in the affirmative. Thank you, and please be seated. We have votes coming in about 10 minutes, but we definitely want to get through your opening statement as far as we can, and this is going to be an interesting day on Capitol Hill with the Prime Minister of Israel here as well. So, Director Ray, you're recognized for your opening statement. - Good morning, Chairman Jordan. Ranking Member Nadler, members of the committee. I want to begin by offering my condolences on the passing representative Jackson Lee, who served the people of Texas in this body and on this committee for so long. Thank you all for your support of our efforts to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. I am proud to be here today, representing the 38,000 special agents, intelligence analysts, and professional staff who make up the FBI. Men and women who every day work relentlessly to counter the most complex threat environment I've seen in my tenure as FBI Director, and maybe in my entire career in law enforcement. Before I go any further, I also want to acknowledge and offer my deepest condolences to the victims of the horrific assassination attempt in Butler County, to the friends and family of Corey Compartur, who, by all accounts, lost his life, protecting others from danger, to the other victims, too, of whom were critically wounded, and, of course, of course, to President Trump, former President Trump and his family. As I've said from the beginning, the attempted assassination of the former president was an attack on our democracy and our democratic process, and we will not and do not tolerate political violence of any kind, especially a despicable account of this magnitude. And I want to assure you and the American people that the men and women of the FBI will continue to work tirelessly to get to the bottom of what happened. We are bringing all the resources of the FBI to bear both criminal and national security. Now, there's a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do, and our understanding of what happened and why will continue to evolve, but we're going to leave no stone unturned. The shooter may be deceased, but the FBI's investigation is very much ongoing. To that point, I also want to acknowledge that I recognize both the congressional and the public interest in this case and the importance of this investigation to the American people. And I understand there are a lot of open questions. So while the investigation is very much ongoing and our assessments of the shooter and his actions continue to evolve, my hope here today is to do my best to provide you with all the information I can given where we are at this point. I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated threat environment. And tragically, the Butler County assassination attempt is another example, a particularly heinous and very public one of what I've been talking about. But it also reinforces our need at the FBI and our ongoing commitment to stay focused on the threats, on the mission, and on the people we do the work with and the people we do the work for. Every day, all across this country and indeed around the world, the men and women of the FBI are doing just that, working around the clock to counter the threats we face. This is FBI Director Ray giving his opening statement before Congress. I know we want to all get to the questioning and the politicking is just going on way too long. Yes. Just in the last year, for example, in California, the FBI and our partners targeted an organized crime scene to get responsible for trafficking, fentanyl, meth, and cocaine all across North America. We charged the Mexican-based suppliers who brought the drugs into the United States, a network of Canada-based truck drivers who delivered the drugs. And the distributors in the United-- All right, how is this about the investigation? Please, this is too much politicking. Let's get to the questioning. It states who spread the poison into our communities. Staying on threats emanating from the border, I have warned for some time now about the threat that foreign terrorists may seek to exploit our Southwest border or some other port of entry to advance a plot against Americans. Just last month, for instance, the Bureau and our Joint Terrorism Task Forces worked with ICE in multiple cities across the country as several individuals with suspected international terrorist ties were arrested using ICE's immigration authorities. Leading up to those arrests, hundreds of FBI employees dedicated countless hours to understand the threat and identify additional individuals of concern. Now, the physical security of the border is, of course, not in the FBI's lane. But as the threat has escalated, we're working with our partners in law enforcement and the intelligence community to find and stop foreign terrorists who would harm Americans and our interests. As concerning as the known or suspected terrorists encountered at the border are, perhaps even more concerning, are those we do not yet know about because they provided fake documents or because we didn't have information connecting them to terrorism at the time they arrived in the United States. Staying ahead of today's threats demands that we work together. And for the FBI, that means doubling down on our partnerships, especially with state and local law enforcement, whether it's working through our hundreds of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to build out source networks to identify those who slipped through the cracks or targeting the worst of the worst responsible for the violence that still plagues far too many communities. There are safe streets task forces. We're taking the fight to the cartels responsible for trafficking the dangerous drugs like fentanyl, pouring into our country and claiming countless American lives. Staying ahead of the threat also means continuing to disrupt the cyber criminals, ravaging businesses, large and small and confronting nation states like China, targeting our innovation and our critical infrastructure. - This is Director of the FBI, Christopher Ray, making his opening statement. It sounds like he's running for office before Congress. This is supposed to be an investigation into the shooting on July 13th. Let's hope that he gets through his statement quickly and we get to the questioning. At the Bureau, we're proud to work side by side with our brothers and sisters in federal, state and local law enforcement, our partners in the intelligence community and others around the world to fulfill our commitment to keep Americans safe. Now on Friday, the FBI will celebrate its 116th anniversary, 116 years of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. 116 years of working with our partners to safeguard the communities we serve. 116 years of innovating to stay ahead of the complex evolving and very real threats out there. I am proud of the legacy the men and women of the FBI have built and all they have accomplished for the American people. So if I may, as we approach this week's anniversary, I would just like to say to all those who are part of the FBI family from our current employees, to our former and to our partners across law enforcement and the intelligence community, thank you. Thank you for dedicating your lives to this country and to its people. It is both humbling and an honor to serve alongside you and I look forward to the work we're gonna continue to do together and with that, thank you again for having me and I look forward to our discussion. - Thank you, Director Ray, excuse me, we'll now proceed under the five minute rule, the gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for five minutes. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ray, I'm way down here. I appreciate the Chairman giving me this 'cause I've got to leave. But let me ask this question. Why doesn't the FBI disclose to the American people all of the investigative, detailed and evidence that you are gathering as it is gathered? - Well, we have tried to be transparent with both Congress and the American people as we're going along in the investigation. Frankly, unusually so for an ongoing investigation given the sheer nature of it. We have provided a lot of information, I expect to continue to provide information, I expect to be able to provide some additional information here today in response to your questions and your colleagues. But part of the issue is that as, like in any investigation, as we proceed, facts evolve. Our understanding of what somebody said turns out to have more context than we didn't have before. We have additional leads out there. So part of our goal is not just to respect the ongoing investigation process, but also to make sure that we don't prematurely provide information that then two days later it turns out to be different than what we hope people. 'Cause that's very much kind of a natural part of any investigation. So did Crook's fire eight shots? We have recovered eight cartridges on the roof. That's the first time we are hearing this, hurrah. Why was Crook's allowed to get off eight shots? Well, that I think is something we're still digging into. Again, maybe this is a good place for me to make clear the different investigations that are going on. So, because certainly I understand. Well, and given that I've only got three minutes left, and I know other members, I'm really interested 'cause I appreciate your invitation. You said you're prepared to disclose things as questions are asked. So I don't wanna waste time, sorta. I just wanna get to the questions that might, and as many members as can, ask questions that you'll answer. I actually think you, I'd be glad for you to go on soliloquy, frankly, and tell us what you know. I think the American people wanna know. Why was President Trump not kept off the stage? We don't know the answer to that, but I wanna be clear, and this is important because I think it goes to questions that I can and cannot answer. Our investigation, the FBI's mandate, is focused on the shooter, and all things related to his attack. Now, obviously, I understand very much the intense interest and focus on the secret services, performance, actions, decision-making, et cetera, there are two separate after action reviews that the DHS Inspector General and the outside independent panel has been convened that are focused on that. Now, our investigation will-- - Everybody understands it. Your body understands it. - Your body understands it. - Here's the problem. We're out 13 days, and you say we've been disclosing, you know, we had the director or the colonel from the Pennsylvania State Police in front of Homeland yesterday. He was quite candid. He disclosed to us that Butler, Emergency Services Unit personnel were posted into the windows on the second floor of the AGR building, that they left there to go pursue the person that they spotted crooks, that they texted a photo of crooks to the PSP representative in the command center. That information was relayed to the United States Secret Service. They asked that it be texted to someone else. That was many minutes before President Trump took the stand. What we don't know is, why did he not, why were they not keeping him off the stand? And to the extent, you know, I know we always hear when there's a criminal investigation, you've got to wait for that to develop, but the, do you have any reason to, do you have any other target of your criminal investigation other than crooks, who's dead? - We are investigating the shooter both to determine his motive, and his preparations and activities before the shooting, but also to make sure whether or not there are any co-conspirators, accomplices. - At this point, have you developed any evidence to so suggest that there are any accomplices or co-operators or sisters? - Not at this time, but again, the investigation's ongoing. So here's the thing. While we wait, maybe for months, and I hate to say this just, I'm not trying to take a pot shot, but the country went for years with the understanding that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation is offered by respected former intel officials, and the whole time the FBI had the laptop, and it didn't let that happen in public until finally offering testimony in a case. To the degree we wait to hear is a country and is a Congress. What has happened in this event, because the FBI is conducting an investigation, it provides quarter for the US Secret Service, not perhaps to reckon with the problems that are obvious to everyone. So, I'll just get a couple of them while I've got 13 more seconds, one more question perhaps. Senator Grassley says that the records of the day show that there was a counter unmanned aerial surveillance operator on site. Was there? And why did that person not prevent crooks from being able to use a drone? - So, again, questions about the Secret Service's performance are better directed to those other reviews. What I can tell you when it comes to drones is that Crooks himself had a drone, and I'm prepared to answer questions here today about the shooter and his use of the drone, for example. - My time's expired. - At least we get some new information that was not out there. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said in my opening statement, political violence is a scourge, an entirely unacceptable no matter the source or the target. Last October, far-right conspiracy theorists broke into Nancy Pelosi's home in bludgeon, or how does this have to do with their shooting? - The Republicans mocked the attack and promoted conspiracy theories about it. Last August, an armed Utah man who threatened to kill President Biden was killed as FBI agents attempted to serve a warrant on him. Hours before President Biden landed in his state, some on the right claimed that the man was simply a, quote, "second amendment enthusiast." In recent weeks and months, those on the right have repeatedly called for, quote, "civil war." We're gonna Ohio State Center is saying that if Republicans lose the election, quote, it's going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved. The president of the Heritage Foundation likewise said that, quote, "We are in the process "of the second American Revolution, "which will remain bloodless "if the left allows it to be," post-quote. Director Ray, it's obviously important that we respect First Amendment protections. There is clearly a point at which some violent rhetoric crosses over into threats of violence, or lead sexual violence. Could you describe how the FBI looks at this relationship between rhetoric and action and what you are seeing around the country? - So I appreciate the question, and this is an issue that I've been talking about for some time, you know, in our view, there is a right way and a wrong way under the First Amendment to express your views, no matter how passionate or even angry you are. And violence and threats of violence is not the right way. And we don't care what you're upset about or who you're upset with when, from the FBI's perspective, when it turns to violence and threats of violence, that's when we have to draw the line, that's when we get engaged. And there is an alarming phenomenon that we've seen over the last several years of that kind of passion and heated rhetoric turning into actual violence and threats of violence. We've seen it against public officials of all sorts. We've seen it against law enforcement. The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty in this country is frankly outrageous and alarming. And I know that because every time an officer is shot and killed anywhere in this country, since the day I started as FBI director, I personally call the chief or the sheriff to express my condolences and to talk to them about the victim's family. And the number of those shootings that are ambush related, meaning somebody is targeting law enforcement because their law enforcement is particularly alarming, I have made around 400 of those phone calls. It's almost every five days that a law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty. And that is an example of the kind of ways in which passions and heated rhetoric can bubble over into violence. - Thank you. Members of Congress, their families and their staffs have witnessed an alarming rise in threats against them. I appreciate the work your agency has done to investigate and address these threats, but I'm concerned that we do not seem to be sending it tight. What is the FBI doing to ensure that members of Congress, their families and their staffs are safe? - So we have a very close relationship with the Capitol Police and we have members of the Capitol Police, for example. - This is Christopher Ray testifying, the director of the FBI, again, this is becoming quite political. We thought we were gonna hear questions about what happened on July 13th. This police off the cuff, real crime stories. If you're not subscribed to us going on YouTube, hit that subscribe button, give us a thumbs up, bring that bell share us with your friends and your family. If you'd like to contribute to us, we have a Patreon with four different levels and we also have a YouTube channel membership with five different levels and you can contribute to police off the cuff. We are hoping that Christopher Ray would be specifically addressing questions in regards to what happened on July 13th. Instead this has become some political theater here and I don't think Nadal liked it when he said over 400 cops have been killed. He wants to talk about Congress, congressional people, but cops are a much bigger threat than congressional people. Let me go back to Christopher Ray. I'm hoping Nadal's political grandstanding is over. - A couple who are on some of our task forces. We share intelligence information about things that we're seeing, trends that we're seeing with Capitol Police and others in law enforcement. Obviously, if we have specific information about an effort to target a member of Congress, then we're getting with Capitol Police in a much more specific way. But those are some of the things that we're doing. - Thank you. Now, Director, your office is leading the investigation to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Republicans in Congress, including members of this committee, repeatedly called for defunding the FBI. What impact would defunding or even just limiting your funding have on the FBI's ability to conduct this in other investigations? - So, I understand that there are heated views, opinions about us, just like there are about every institution in today's America, but cutting our funding is incredibly short-sighted and the people it really hurts are state and local law enforcement and the American people were also warned to protect. - Thank you. During my remaining time, I wanted to turn into a different matter. In recent days, Republican members of Congress have attacked presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as a, quote, DEI candidate, which presumably is code for women in person of color. It's not a new theme for them. In May, Chairman Jordan wrote to you, claiming that because of DEI initiatives, the FBI is no longer hiring, quote, the best and brightest candidates to fill the position of Special Agent. The remaining time, with my remaining time, Director, can you please answer the following questions. Is it true that hiring women and people of color means that FBI is no longer hiring the best and the brightest? The service law enforcement officers, is there any evidence that women and people of color are less effective in law enforcement roles? And what message does it send to prospective applicants when the leaders demean them and make judgments about them based solely on the race or gender? - Wouldn't this may respond? - So, any notion that we have lowered our standards, our hiring standards, is just not accurate. In fact, our standards are as competitive and selective as ever. We have tens of thousands of people applying and our selection rate is about 3.1%, which is more selective than just about any university in the country. And most of our applicants, I think, like something like 50% of them are coming from military or law enforcement backgrounds. About 50% of them also have advanced degrees. The average age is around 31, which means they're bringing a wealth of personal and professional experience when they arrive. And to suggest that those people, because of efforts related to diversity or anything like that, are less qualified, frankly, is not at all consistent with what I see. Having visited all of our field offices and seen these young people in action, I think, as an insult to those hardworking men and women who've signed up to dedicate their lives for this country. - Thank you, Director, I yield back. - Tell me I yield back. Director, let me go back to where Mr. Bishop was. Tell me about the drone. You act like you wanted to double send on that. Don't send. - So we have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used. It's being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab. The drone was recovered in his vehicle. So at the time of the shooting, the drone was in his vehicle with the controller. In addition, our investigation has uncovered. - You know what time of day he flew it and if he flew it on the day and shot it, go on. - So in addition, it appears that around 3.50 PM, 4 o'clock in that window on the day of the shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area. - Two hours, 11 minutes, I want to be clear, but when I say the area, not over the stage and that part of the area itself. But I would say about 200 yards give or take away from that. We think, but we do not know. So again, this is one of these things that's qualified because of our ongoing review, that he was live-streaming, viewing the footage from that again, about 11 minutes and around the 3.50, 4 o'clock PM range. - Two hours before he's flying a drone in the vicinity of the route. - About 200 yards away. - Okay, that's important information. What about the bombs that we've heard about in the shooter's car? - So again, the FBI lab is exploiting those explosive devices. There were, we've recovered three devices, two in his vehicle, and one back in his residence. Are these what you would call, are your experts would call sophisticated operations, or this, I mean, I think, I mean, I don't know. That's what I've been told by people who have some understanding of this area. - Yeah, I think it's, we've seen more sophisticated and less. I would say these are relatively, again, keyword relatively crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely. And so to that point, in addition to the two devices that we recovered out of his vehicle, there were receivers for those two explosive devices with the devices, and then on the shooter himself, when he was killed by law enforcement, he had a transmitter with him. Now, I do want to add one important point here, is that the moment it looks to us, again, ongoing review, and I can't say that too many times. At a moment, it looks like because of the on/off position on the receivers, that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked, but that doesn't mean the explosives weren't dangerous. - I'm sure we're going to get in all these subjects a little bit later as well. Tell us what you can about the encrypted platforms we've heard about. - So one of the things that we're drilling into hard with the shooter, in an effort to try to learn more about his state of mind, his mode of his ideology, his contact, everything else, is to look at all of his devices, any social media accounts, et cetera. And one of the things we've learned in finally getting into his phone, which was also a significant technical challenge from an encryption perspective, but in addition, once we got on the phone, it turned out he was using some encrypted messaging application. - Again, the same question relative to the bombs. Was this a pretty sophisticated, or is this kind of the norm you see with folks like, you know, similar situation? - On this subject, I would say this is unfortunately now become very commonplace, and it's a real challenge for not just the FBI, but state, local law, unfortunately. - Tell me exactly the scope of your investigation, include what I call that critical five minutes from when the 609, this is based, I think, on information you've given the Congress, 609 when the shooter's identified on the roof, and 614 when President Trump has ultimately escorted off, and all that happens, the shots that take place in between there, do you have access to the communications that were going on at the time in that critical five minutes? - So our investigation, when you say scope, our investigation includes that timeframe, although focused again on the shooter himself. - Understands that. - He's involved in that? - He's obviously involved in that timeframe. - Correct, and as part of that, as part of our focus, our investigation of the shooter and the attack, of course, we are interviewing law enforcement from the scene, because those are some of the most significant witnesses, and we're obviously getting access to their materials and that kind of thing, and the cigarettes have been fully cooperative. - You have access to the communications that exist there? - That exact question, as I sit here at the moment, I don't know the exact answer to that question, but I know that secret service has been cooperative with us. - The Congress would like access to those communications as well. I mean, not just that five minutes, although I think that's the critical timeframe. There's lots of communications we'd love to have access as well. I see my time is up and they have called votes on the floor. I think there are about six minutes left in votes, so we will, committee will stand in recess until approximately 10 minutes after votes conclude on the House floor. - So, folks were finally getting answers. Amazing, right? I think pretty amazing, because look, you compare Christopher Ray, the director of the FBI, his presentation here today, and you compare that with Kimberly Cheetle from the secret service. We got basically no answers. We got a lot of incompetence, a lot of no answers, a lot of I didn't know, I don't have that information with me. That's inexcusable, you know? And we found out of something very significant, just in these last 10 minutes. And that is that the shooter, Thomas Crooks, had three, not two, three, improvised explosive devices, two in his car and one in his home. Director Ray said that the remote control was in the off position. So, I don't know if that meant that he couldn't have detonated it remotely. I wish he would have asked a follow-up question to that, but he didn't. But at least we're getting some pertinent information and information that's really actually quite, quite important. And this gives us a little, more faith in our government. The questions and the presentation by Nadler was absolutely brutal. Had nothing to do with anything. He's spooked for nonsense. And you know, it's really annoying. We had an assassination attempt on a former president. He starts talking about his nonsense. You know, and that's why we lose faith, I think, in our government when they, instead of asking questions here in a fact finding, from the director of the FBI, we're getting all kinds of nonsensical, political rhetoric from, you know, and both sides, both sides do it. But so questions that were, here we have Phil Grimaldi's in the chat. Nadler claims that political violence was being incited by the right when he did exactly that. He was inciting political violence. He's a hack. That's my co, my frequent co-host. You know, look, January six was obviously a stain on this country about what happened at the White House. But I mentioned, and it's never, they don't acknowledge it. There was two years of riots that had the left endorsed. So, which 20 people were killed. On January six, one person was killed, and she was killed by a police officer, a woman, who was a protest riot or whatever you want to call him. So, they want to forget that, that they endorsed two years of riots. And, you know, so, you know, they want to talk politics. It's absolutely outrageous. Placer, here we go, Placer. It's the government, they don't have to be held accountable for anything, and they know it. Well, you know something, at least today, we're getting some answers, which we didn't really get many answers when Secret Service Director Cheetah was being questioned by Congress, and at least it's a breath of fresh air that we're getting some answers rather than, "I don't have that information. "I'll have to get back to you." You were told you were subpoenaed to come here nine days ago. How do you not have any information? You know, it just outrageous. I want to play a little bit some of the former questioning of Secret Service Director Cheetah. - This is about your organization. What happened nine days ago? Are you receiving regular updates from the FBI on their investigation? - Yes, I am. - So you know some things are true, some things are probably not true. We want to talk to you about the things that we're hearing about and find out if they're true. Have you been in contact with the FBI, then you're getting updates on a daily basis, right? - Yes. - Based on what you said. Okay, so, and are you confident that the person in question, Mr. Crooks, was the only person firing that day against the president or the crowd? Is he the only one? I'm not asking you yet if he acted alone, but is he the only one, can you say that with certainty to the American people? - That is the information I have at this time, yes. - Okay, does it appear he acted alone? - That's the information we have at this time. - Okay, now let's talk about the fact that he was noticed as a person of interest, of concern, suspicion, as you say. Your PI team, how do they stay in, does a sea of people, how does the PI team get to that individual that's in question in the sea of people? How's that individual tracked? - Our protective intelligence teams that work at our sites are paired up with a local police counterpart, and so they work in conjunction together. - They just follow 'em around or, let me ask you this. Looking at the site, you have multiple perimeters, right? You have the inside perimeter, we have multiple, secure, or multiple perimeters, was the AGR so-called building the highest location affecting the site of the rally? Was it the highest location? - I believe the highest location at the site was where our countersnipers were. - What about the water tower in Jason? What about the, how high is the water tower? - I don't have the height on the water tower. - Okay, seems like water towers are pretty high, at least in the photo, it looks like, there might actually be a building right behind the AGR building that is even higher than the building that crooks fired from. You're familiar with cover, concealment, and defellate, right? You're familiar with those terms? - Yeah. - So how would your sniper team or your PI team track the individual and give vectors to secret server on the PI team to get to that individual, to question 'em? And how would you cover the defellate, the cover and concealment of low areas that you can't see from where your sniper team immediately adjacent to the president were cited? How would you do that if you're not up on the high ground? - So when our counter sniper teams go out and conduct an advance, they have a methodology and provide a grid system that our response teams are able to vector in if they see something that is troubling. - So when Mr. Jordan asked about the assets that were requested, let me just ask you about assets requested. Were aerial assets requested for this event? From either the secret service or state police or anybody else and drone manned otherwise? Aerial assets, were they requested? - I can't speak to what the local police-- - Just ask if they were requested. - They have conversations with the local police, but I can tell you that the assets that were requested from the secret service for the site that day were all granted. - So you see the difference between Christopher Ray and the director of the secret service, Cheetah. And I think that part of it, confidence wise, is that she wasn't up on everything. She didn't have the answers. One of the things we learned today, of course, was that, and she didn't have the information, which that's for the other day, there was eight spent casings on the roof, next to Thomas Crook. So that would, that's pretty indicative that that's the amount of shots that he fired. Eight spent shell casings. Many people are dwelling on the fact that there appeared to be three different gunshot sounds. Yes, the sniper and two sniper teams. So it's for three different guns, three different sounds. Doesn't appear to be a second shooter at this point. Is there a conspiracy here? That's what the FBI's job is gonna be. Gracie Mitchum from the chat. Exactly, these people before the meeting need to answer questions or quit and let someone who can answer them give answers. Absolutely. Nancy Drew, Steven God. I had Chris on, he demonstrated shot analysis, which indicated two shooters. I don't think that's what that indicated. I think that what it indicated is that there's three different guns, all right? And one is the sniper and two are from the sniper teams. One who took him out. So I don't think you could say that there's two shooters. I mean, that's jumping to a conclusion that we don't have the answer to right now. Eric Blair in 1948 from the chat, he was asked how many shots that crooks make yet he answered eight casings on the roof. Well, Eric Blair, that's pretty indicative that he made eight shots, all right? The other way, of course, is to count how many rounds are left in the magazine, all right? But if there's eight spent shells on the roof and he was alone on that roof and those spent shells, there's a way to analyze them, right? Breast catcher, right? And the imprint on the firing pin from, excuse me, on the casing. With the firing pin impression, the way to analyze that it came exactly from that gun. So that would make me, as a homicide investigator, satisfied that the shooter Thomas Crooks took eight shots. That would satisfy me. Now, if we wanna get really splitting hairs on this, you can say, well, someone could have thrown a spent shell up on the roof, yes, but I think they could throw a spent shell up on the roof that positively came from that AR-15, I think not. So cannonballs, are they on break already? Yes, they're on break. They're taking some kind of vote right now. So we'll get back as soon as Christopher gets back to testifying. Had the whatever, where people were located when taking video, changed the sounds. The first video sounded like small shots, but sound was louder on videos taken from the right, facing the stage, same shots, but louder. Yeah, Sherry Murray would be nice, so if you could get them on your show. Yeah, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? We are done. They want the same range as Crooks, easy to collect brass from the chat. We are done. Yeah, that's a pretty cool name too. Bob said, the incident, you're absolutely not sure why the Congress can't hold the contempt of court for not answering. Well, I mean, if you watch these congressional hearings, from the chat, allegiance to Yahweh, Ray did not say the kid made those shots. Allegiance to Yahweh, it's indicative though, that there was, it's indicative that if there was eight spent shells on the roof with the shooter, he was the only one on the roof, and those spent shells match the firing pin impression on the spent shells on the primer, that it came from that gun. Agreed, therefore you can leap, it's not even a leap, it's a little tiny piece of evidence that, yes, it came from that gun, he fired eight shots. You know, I mean, you guys wanna, that this is how evidence is collected, this is how evidence is determined, now people are gonna question that, eight spent shells next to them, they were fired from that AR-15, based on the firing pin impression on the primer, that to me, I'm satisfied that that came from that gun. Gracie Mitchell, they are tracking a phone that made trips to DC and to shoot his house by ad content. Look, there's a lot left in this investigation, there's a lot more to do. Nancy Drew from the chat, it was my impression that Chris indicated, the shots also matched up with sounds of shots, picked up from Trump's mic, that they were aimed in Trump's direction, not the snipers who shot at crook. Look, there has to be a lot more investigation, but at this point, I believe they are saying that there's no indication that there was one more shoot, there was more than one shooter. Again, this is preliminary. Every presentation given by any good law enforcement agency in this country, when they do a presentation, it is always said that these are preliminary findings and they are subject to change. So, when and if new information comes forth, we will give you that information, but as for right now, this is the information we have, this is the information we are going with and there's no, excuse me, there's no truth right now or there's no indication that there is more than one shooter at this point, okay? The ugly trucking, a big risk of living in this planet is getting hit by lead, a big blessing of being a USA citizen. Many will protect you and eliminate that threat. Absolutely. Suhala A, Ray is reading, practicing before, wouldn't you have already had it in your brain, all the operations you were involved in or educated about? You know, Suhala, I think Ray is pretty, he comes across as pretty knowledgeable. He's got fantastic credentials. Whether you like him or not, he was appointed in 2017. And he comes across, in my opinion, as quite competent. Cliff Eaton, look Google Maps, excuse me, sea level elevation, the Patsy and Trump's head was almost exactly level. Proving the bullet in that image was shot, was not shot by the Patsy, think, think, think. Cliff, I don't know what your credentials are as a ballistics expert, but I'm certainly not one. So I'm not going to challenge your knowledge in regards to that, but until ballistics experts say that there was more than one shooter, I think we have to go with the fact that they believe there was just one shooter. And we can count, by the sound, the amount of shots that were fired. And that will be what we know. And again, all this investigative information is subjective to change. Kim Allison, night out, sending blessings back to Sergeant Bill, his team valued all their friends, friends, fans and friends. Thank you, Kim. DJ Billy D, all his ads to be his lap security with opportunity to pull this attempt off. Yes, and that's the most disturbing thing about that. There was laps in security. The person was supposed to be on the roof, but was not, could have been the other shooter. Where is their weapon just saying? Well, Gracie, Mitch, and we're not, I'm not saying there was a second shooter. Many people, there are people that are saying that. Philip Burns from the chat, police often call for a habit, they fed the multiple audio recordings at the shot spotter software, along with GPS data from the phones, answer the shooter question definitively. Well, Philippe Burns, we don't know that they haven't used every bit of technology possible, but I think, and I'm not sure. I don't know if you can use shot spotter after the fact to determine where shots came from. I think it's a live application. And I could be wrong, but I'm not sure you can. Phil Grimaldi from the chat, Director Ray seems pretty forthcoming today. Yes, so far he hasn't said, oh, it's under investigation. I think they expect him to be come out and be forthcoming. Eric Blair from the chat, the issue is FBI's track record is very unbecoming, is giving the people the truth, so we must scrutinize Eric Blair. No doubt, we have to take all of this with a, the 49ers, 2024, the whole thing looks staged. The government wants civil unrest. I don't think this is the stage, the 49ers. This was what we would call law enforcement as an active shooter who was stopped before he was able to get even that more active. Simby from the chat, hi all, can't fathom out how to become a member again. Well, if someone could let Simby know how to do this, that would be much appreciated. DJ Billy Dee from the chat, Nadler sent his time denouncing the right, how about all the hate rhetoric from the left? Yeah, exactly, that's why I wish this didn't become a political theater here and we would have stuck to the facts and that this was a fact finding, or is a fact finding day. With James, he saw how it went with Secret Service hearing, he came prepared, you know, with James, I think you're right, I think you're absolutely right, but direct array is no stranger to testifying. DJ Better, my felt ray was sarcastic when apologizing to Trump. I don't know, I don't know about that, DJ Better, but if that's how you feel. So some of the new things we learned today, one of the things is the shooter, Thomas Crooks, had an encrypted device on his phone. Does that mean anything? Can they track those? Can they unencrypt them to find out who he was communicating with? According to direct array, that that's not so uncommon these days to have an encrypted device, even regular citizens to have an encrypted device on our cell phone. James from the chat was the assassination attempt because of the name MAGA, which is the title of the High Priest of the Church. I don't know, I don't think I'm gonna read that all. Explore core, I agree that civil unrest is wanted. Well, I don't agree that anyone wants civil unrest. Phil Gremaldi, the encrypted messaging is going to be very key to this investigation. Phil, I think you're right. I think every piece of evidence in this investigation will be important. How long it takes till there's a full report on this? According to Director Cheetel of the Secret Service, she felt that she was going to come back in 60 days. And that clearly was unacceptable. It was unacceptable. Even Acasio-Cortez, Alexander Acasio-Cortez objected to that in a bipartisan fashion series. We cannot wait 60 days and absolutely. So, when you think of this investigation, let's see, history, genealogy, Cynthia, they seem to obviously stoke hate and division. Yeah, isn't that, there is a lot of hatred and division out there from both sides. And we've seen it in our country. I mean, you used to be able to have a political conversation with someone without it getting combative. I don't think any more. Mark M from the chat, the problem, Bill, is that it defies logic in complete. Common sense to leave that rooftop unattended. The Secret Service is better than this. Mark M, you're preaching to the choir. I won 100% agree with you. How they did not cover that roof and didn't have someone on that roof is quite unbelievable. I agree with you. American Dreamer, we were all militia. The Second Amendment is to control our government. Well, that is in the Constitution. American Dreamer, absolutely. Folks, I'm seeing a lot of new people in the chat and I would appreciate if you knew people in the chat, if you liked this show, police off the cover of your crime stories, that you go on our YouTube, it's free. Hit that subscribe button, ring that bell, give us a thumbs up, hit the like button, share us with your friends and family. Also, if you want to contribute to us financially, we have a Patreon with four different levels. We also have a YouTube channel membership with five different levels and we appreciate all our fans, friends and subscribers. Eric Blair, 1948. Routine Standard and 101 Security Protocol was not followed as yourself, why? You know, Eric, we can jump to that. Many can jump to say elementary security protocols were not followed. Therefore, there must be a conspiracy here. There must be, because they didn't follow elementary procedures. And you can jump to that if you'd like, but I would rather wait until the investigation is completed and come to a conclusion. Gracie Mitchum, Gracie Mitchum became a YouTube member. Gracie, welcome aboard. Thank you so much for joining our YouTube family. Heather, whatever, from the chat, I think anger is a secondary emotion. Under that is their fear. I think politicians could take the temperature down by exercising their duties and getting to proper change. You know, I think you're right, Heather, whatever. James, from the chat, the Santa said Trump was a Satanist. If I'm not mistaken, James, I'm not gonna go into the Satanist things. Cliff Eaton, CNN has a photo of bullet passing Trump's head showing the elevation angle. Cliff Eaton, I'm sure that will be used in this investigation and absolutely aside, believe it too, someone, somebody buddies are involved. You know, we can jump to conclusions that this is a conspiracy or we can wait till we get the scientific and the testimonial evidence that we can draw better conclusions from. Kathleen O'Rourke from the chat gristly released cop cam on the roof immediately after. The Secret Service agent is heard calling the bike and backpack suspicious, not threat. Big colossal failure. How long did they call the threat suspicious? Kathleen O'Rourke, I absolutely agree with you. And when we see that there was, they used the term colossal failure. And yes, one of the Congress women who was the most aggressive interviewer of the Secret Service Director, she called this a colossal failure. And Secret Service Director, Cheadle would not agree to use that word at first and then she thought it was forced to agree that it was a colossal failure. DJ Billy Dee from the chat, everyone needs to take a deep breath for lacks and stop all the hate we are better than this. Agreed DJ Billy, Eric Blair, 1948. I agree we need to hear the results however we have the government. Some say deep state investing in itself doesn't fill me with confidence. You know, something Eric Blair, there is truth to that. I think you're right. We don't always love it when the government does investigate itself. There's not always a lot of trust in that. And that's why we need, of course, I think when this investigation is completed by the FBI, I think we need a commission. And there already has been. Handsome devil, Amen DJ. Good to see you handsome devil. There was going to be a commission of bipartisan commission from Congress of equal amount, I believe, perhaps one more Republican than Democrat, a commission that's going to investigate, investigate the FBI, Homeland Security and secret service on what happened here. And is this investigation transparent? Is the investigation correct? And they can use all of the investigative resources based on the completion of the investigation by the FBI, but simultaneously conduct their investigation and hopefully share resources with the FBI as to what's going on in this investigation. Average Patriot guy, no one trusts the FBI investigation. It isn't that sad and I think you're right. There's a lot of mistrust in our law enforcement community of based on the fact that many believe that the Department of Justice has been weaponized for political purposes. American Dreamer, it's not about hate for markets, about fair elections and shining a light on government corruption. American Dreamer, good point, absolutely great point. DJ Billy Dee from the chat, I just thought the JFK assassination and we still don't have all the facts. I hope it doesn't take 61 years to find out what happened here. DJ Billy Dee, good point. You're preaching to the choir, you know? I'm hoping that the direct array, this is supposed to be a 10 minute break. If anyone sees that he's come back on and please let me know and I will go right to his testimony because I'd like to go to another video soon. The ugly truckling, DEI led to a bunch of unemployed loss prevention officers from Cali on the ground and forcing wrong pronoun use with Nerf guns while riding unicorns. That's a pretty funny statement, ugly truckling. Gracie Mitchum from the chat. This was such a huge Charlie Fox shot that it begs to be labeled an inside job. I don't know, Occam's Razor, I guess. From the chat, handsome devil, Sergeant Brillo, seeing inept corrupt bureaucrats, not conspiracy. Yeah, I, you know, I'm not, I believe in the system, you know? And I believe also in transparency. And I believe that shining a light on this is what ultimately will get us the truth. And, you know, I don't frequently praise the press, but I believe the press did a fantastic job in the first nine or 10 days after this, shining a light on this incident when we were getting no information from our government. Not a single press conference from the Secret Service, not a single press conference from the FBI, not a single press conference from Homeland Security, one press conference from the Butler Police Department. They were the agency that was the least responsible for this. Yet they held the press conference. Beef price, he said 10 minutes after the vote was over. Oh, okay, so that could mean 20 minutes then, you know? Yes, you know, something, it's transparency. And we got our information. And as I said, Gracie Mitchen, they have a vote going on 10 minutes as a ballpark figure. Yeah, 10 minutes in Congress could mean a half hour, for sure, right? So, Phil Grimaldi from the chat, I'm always a little skeptical of anything that the government tells us. However, when directed sheetal was not forthcoming, this makes me even more suspicious than that they're covering something up. Absolutely, DJ Billy Dee, Bill, what do you think would have happened if this was a successful assassination? Wow, you know, I don't even wanna think of that. What I wanna think about is the victims in this, you know? And the accountability, the victims, of course, Corey Compertor, the volunteer fire chief who died defending and covering up his loved ones with his body, David Dutch, critically wounded, still alive, James Copenhagen, also critically wounded. And of course, former President Trump sustained the wound to his ear, cut off a piece of his ear. And, you know, that's one of the things, many, there's many people making light of that. There's some people actually saying, "Oh, this never happened, this was staged," you know? And that's why we need transparency. And in this incident, the transparency we got was not from our government, but was from the press. Nina Chandro, how often does a federal agency answer any questions from the press after an event like this? Nina Chandro, very rarely, you know, the press gets information like in this, from whistleblowers. Many secret service agents called congressional leaders as whistleblowers, if caught, they could get fired for what they would be charged with giving out confidential information. But many secret service agents that were assigned, many secret service agents knowing that they cut back on staff to God, former President Trump, gave that information to Congress. And, Mayorkas, the head of Homeland Security on an interview with CNN, denied that, adamantly denied it. And the secret service spokesperson, I don't have his name in front of me right now, he was their press guy, he admitted that they did that. So, who was lying? Who was lying? That's one of the questions we have. Phil Gremaldi, yes, Bill, we cannot forget the victims. Absolutely, the victim is so important in this people just going to a political rally and in the case of Baccori Kampertur lost his life. That's, you know, we must always, in these incidences, remember the victims. Handsome devil from the chat, handsome devil 13, DEI as a fall left ideology has nothing to do with race and gender. Costas Giannullius, American, gotcha, thank you. Phil Gremaldi again from the chat, I think the press and the media saw that this was a historic event and they had to jump in and report on it, they would have been missing a tremendous story had they not Phil absolutely, but the press has done a fantastic job. And on this case, people also call the press and give information. Look at the video we saw of the shooting that was taken by someone's cell phone and more information we have that Thomas Crooks, not only was up on that roof with his gun and he remembers of the crowd yelling, he has a gun, he pointed the gun at the crowd, which shows me that he intended to be not just the assassin of former President Trump, but an active shooter, he was on that roof to not just shoot former President Trump, but he was there to kill lots of people. And apparently to be transparent and fair, they had found threats on his social media or excuse me on his phone, on his computer of threats against President Biden. So he, like many potential active shooters, had issues, had lots of issues. Perhaps, what's amazing to me is that both his mother and his father are mental health counselors. And isn't that always the case? It seems like mental health professionals, their own kids are all messed up. I don't know if I'm being truthful. I mean, but not truthful being just unfair with that, but I've seen that a great deal of time in my life. DJ Billy Dee, just like all law enforcement military members give the ultimate sacrifice, Corey gave his life to defend his family. DJ Billy Dee, and we salute him for that. Absolutely, a real hero, an American hero, thought of his family first and lost his life over that. American Dreamer from the chat, Trump knew he had to be strong. They said, shoot it down, he needed his shoes. It's called courage under fire. Well, American Dreamer, I take a little bit of a different view of that. I take the view that even I cannot criticize the Secret Service agents that willingly dove and gave up their own bodies to save his life. But in my opinion, as a security professional, as a law enforcement professional, it took them too long to take former President Trump off that stage. So that had there been a second shooter, Trump would have been an easy target at that point. Mary Speth from the chat, somebody needs to tell Nadler it's the left killing folks and isn't odd, the senator who called for mayhem on anyone who wore a red hat is conveniently dead. Well, I don't, just as, just as, you know, we didn't appreciate Nadler getting political. I don't want to get political with this in the chat. You know, we hoped that we would find out questions or a lot of questions we had in regards to this investigation to hear direct array testify. And unfortunately, he gave a 10 minute intro and then he gave it about a 10 minutes of questions and then they went to take a vote. I wish that this would, he would just be back on the stage and continue his testimony. Kastas Gianulius, in my opinion, the vacuum and lack of information causing all these conspiracy theories and disinformation Kastas, you're very wise, I agree with you. That's 100% because conspiracy theories die as they say when light is shown, shown, shined on them. And that's how when we get the truth. Yes, that is how it dies. Jaclyn Johnston manifested, hey, with all those, is that purple or blue hearts? But thank you so much, welcome. POCA 26, this was a 20 year old clown that pulled this off, can you imagine a trained psycho? This would have been even worse. You know, something we've seen throughout this country and unfortunately, the term active shooter is something that has been all too common in this country. And we go back to one of the most famous active shooters, Columbine, Kleebold and Harris, right? Harris and Kleebold, two early shooters that also made pipe bombs that brought 'em to their school and shot up their school in Columbine. And they were used as sort of the model of the psychology of an active shooter and that they were bullied at all this hatred built up in them. And even the response to that case in Columbine, Colorado was horrible. In fact, emergency service units and SWAT units, whatever you wanna call them, have all changed their response to how they respond to active shooter incidents because of Harris and Kleebold from the Columbine shooting. However, it appeared last year that we learned nothing or probably longer than one year ago, Yuvaldi, how just everything about that shooting and the police response was horrific. And we watched and heard the shots and young kids being killed as the police stood by and didn't go in. Absolutely horrific, you know? I'm gonna go back right now to some of the questioning of Director Cheadle from Congress and to show you just a little bit of the differences between the questioning here and the question of course of Christopher Ray. - The agency? - 29. Well, I spent 16 years with AT&T moved seven times with them and had a really good feel about their operations, how they worked, what was acceptable, who was responsible. And I've heard you say today, numbers of times, well, you've got to wait. Well, you've got to wait. Wait for the final report. When is the final final gonna happen? - I am happy. - How long do we have to wait before you can give us credible answers? You've been there 28 years. You've had a few days to be able to draw your own analysis of this. You should understand the entire process. You've talked about being on the team, perhaps in Georgia. You have talked about your experience in this. You've talked about the professional nature of the agency. That I don't doubt. But the director, just like it was when I ran my operations at AT&T, was responsible for making sure they worked. And in business, either works or it doesn't work. There's no in between. Either works or it does not work. And your job as the, in essence, administrator, the director is to make sure it looks right and works. And I've not heard you say one thing about, my analysis is I have asked these questions. It's always, I've got to sit back and wait for someone else beside that. Folks, I'm hearing that Ray is back on. I'm going to go back to Secret Service. Let's get him back on the air here. Whoops. I'm going to put Director Ray back on the screen here. OK. We're about to have FBI Director Ray back on the screen, giving testimony. Congress took a break to take a boat. It was a hell of a lot more than 10 minutes. But we stayed with it. I hope everyone is stayed with us, folks, that went away. I hope you come back. Listen to the testimony of Director Ray as he comes back onto the stage. We learned some things today. And I'm glad that Ray is being more transparent than what we've heard thus far from both Secret Service Director Cheadle who we all know resigned. And well, Ray is not back on the stage yet. I'm hoping he's coming to the microphone, I hope. So far, let me see if he could be on another live feed. Hang on, let me see if I can get this one's not up to speed here. OK. Let's get Director Ray back up on the screen. You know, when we watched the initial opening, again, Chairman, FBI Director Ray is supposed to come back on. And there we go. She was just a pleasant spirit who we all enjoyed. And we're thinking about her family. We all certainly will miss Sheila. And you'll be the ranking member for comments. To get to the bottom of what-- Is that I said in my opening statement-- This is-- When it's an assault on a political figure, immediately assume there's a political motive. And that may be the case here, we don't know yet. But I was interested in what you're seeing on his phone. The press has reported that he had pictures, not only of Mr. Trump, but of Mr. Biden and various other members, political figures. Can you discern, was there an element of mainly Republicans, maybe Democrats, was it all over the board? Can you enlighten us about that? Well, this is a place where it's particularly important for me to reiterate the caveat that I've included before. Because in this instance, in particular, we have a lot of legal process out for additional accounts and things like that that the shooter is associated with. So we're hoping to learn more. And we're still exploiting a number of the digital devices. I think it's fair to say that we do not yet have a clear picture of his motive. And I think it's important for me to explain, because I understand, of course, why everybody wants to know the answers to those questions. Often in an investigation from interviewing people that the subject was in close contact with, looking at the individual's social media accounts, messages, often things, physical evidence in the person's residence. You might see a manifesto, things like that. We're not seeing that yet, but we are digging in hard, because this is one of the central questions for us. What I can say is that the shooter appears to have done a lot of searches of public figures in general. But so far, we're seeing news articles and things like that. And so the images that have been reported about-- really, what we're talking about there are when you do a new search of an article, the image appears in the cache, as opposed to a search for that specific individual. But again, I really want to be clear that that's a place that we're doing a lot of work right now and some more to come on that. Well, I thank you for that clarification. We're interested also in the role of access to weapons when it comes to this terrible crime. The shooter used a semi-automatic rifle, really, a weapon of war that sadly has also been used in mass shootings around the country, including in my own district. It seems to me that the assault weapons ban that was once in place has to be a part of the national answer to curbing the epidemic of gun violence in America. I wonder if you could, with your help, Director Ray, understand a few aspects of the investigation. It's my understanding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ATF was quickly able to trace the gun. The gun's purchaser, using records from an out-of-business gun store, records that the government is required to correct. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have suggested that collection should stop. There have been efforts to digitize it, which have been resisted. Can you tell us about how the origin of this gun purchase was discovered and the technology used? Well, I guess what I can say is we located a number of firearms associated with the shooter and his family. I think it was a total of, I think, 14 in the house. The weapon that he used for the attempted assassination was an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally, that he, as my understanding, acquired, I think, bought, actually, from his father, who was the one who originally bought it, again, legally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired, so I yield back. General Adios, back gentleman from California's recognized. Thank you. Director, I'll try to ask questions that are answerable to. I think that's been done pretty well on both sides. You do the advanced threat assessment and deliver that information as to the general threat and then specifics as to protected people to the Secret Service. Is that correct? Well, sort of. Secret Service does a threat assessment, but they're doing that based on intelligence that they receive from a number of sources, including, of course, the FBI. So whenever we have threat information related to a particular individual or a protectee, then we share it with the Secret Service at a number of levels. So you're a participant, but ultimately, the responsibility for threat assessment as to these individuals belong to the Secret Service? Well, again, the threat assessment for the individual belongs to the Secret Service, but we are an important part of that because we share threat information. If we have any, they get threat information from a variety of sources. So, and you get them from that same variety of sources. They've got no sources that are excluded from the FBI, do they? Well, I don't know. I'm not aware of any that are excluded from the FBI, but they may receive information that comes directly to them that didn't come to us. Sure. Okay. Director, do you believe that former President Trump was a high risk threat under your assessment? I believe that former President Trump really, frankly, like any president or former president is a very high profile figure and attracts a lot of, unfortunately, of the kind of... So it's fair to say, not on a scale of one to a million with little nuances, but on a scale of one to 10, President Trump's risk was very similar to a current president, very similar to... Because he was the presumptive nominee and leading in the polls and so on, that he was a high risk by any standards. Is that correct? Certainly, there's a reason why he has so much protection around him. Okay. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of a assassinated senator and the nephew of an assassinated president, would you say he was also as a presidential candidate at significant risk? Well, again, I think any presidential candidate raises some level of risk, it might vary from candidate to... No, but it's clearly a risk. Okay. So, in a nutshell, the day before this attack, President Trump was documented not to have gotten on multiple occasions from the Secret Service, what they asked for, the day after, it looks like they're getting more, the day before RFK had been denied by the president multiple times, Secret Service Protection, the day after he now has it. So now my question is, is the actions of a 20-year-old with a lone gunman on a roof sufficient to change the risk assessment in your mind for President Trump and RFK? Or are we just realizing the threat that was always there and being more appropriate in matching it? And I know that's a little vague, but you've been at this for a long time. Hindsight is 2020, now that we have hindsight, is it fair to say that giving Robert F. Kennedy, junior security, upping the security, including drones overhead support for the president or for president, these are all things that in hindsight should have been done the day before. Well, let me try to answer your question this way. - Of course, as I said, the assessments of the level of security to be provided to individual protection-- - No, no, I understand it's a secret service. - But what I would say to you is that, and I've been saying for quite some time, including in front of committees of this Congress, that we are in an elevated threat environment, and we have been for some time. And that comes from a variety of quarters. It is quite frankly a dangerous time to be a prominent public official. - In regards to that, the other side has spent a lot of time talking about what people on the right have said. But there was an attempted assassination on a Supreme Court justice. We have had the highest ranking senator on the other side of this body, saying that there were actions that they were accountable. We have had multiple members of Congress in both the House and the Senate berating the character of members of the Supreme Court as a result of their decisions made, sometimes six, three, sometimes unanimous, whatever. Are those comments, not any one of them, but are those comments and the generation of that sort of, oh, this guy's bad for democracy. This Supreme Court justice is a threat to democracy. Is that the kind of thing that raises the threat level? And would you caution against that? - Well, I do believe that we've seen an increase in threats of violence, which again, that's the FBI's lane, not rhetoric, no matter how despicable or heated it is, but violence and threats of violence. We have seen an uptick in threats towards judges, among other prominent public officials, including as you say, a case that we helped investigate involving a threat to a sitting Supreme Court justice. - An attempt. - An attempt. - Thank you. - Right. And I think it's a reflection of a broader phenomenon that we are seeing in this country where people, again, very passionate, I respect that, very angry, I respect that, but there's a right way and a wrong way to express yourself when you're angry. And violence and threats of violence just can't be it. And that's where we fit in. It's not my role as FBI director to call out particular people's rhetoric. - You know, I think on both sides, this rhetoric has existed, and really in this heightened threat environment, it has to stop, you know, because there's wackos out there as we see, wackos with very powerful weapons that can act upon the hatred that is pushed, perhaps by both sides. And the rhetoric needs to stop. - There's a place for that, but that's not my role as FBI director, but when it turns to violence and threats of violence, that has to be treated as unacceptable, and that's the way we look at it. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to yield back. - Director, when the FBI learned that Iran was threatening President Trump's life? So I want to be a little bit careful here, not to talk about specific classified information, but we have been for quite some time, and I'll sit with what's in the open record. We, for some time, and I in particular for some time, have been calling out the efforts by the Iranian government to attempt to retaliate for the killing of Soleimani by going after current or former prominent U.S. officials. And we've even had an indictment against it, and I think that we need to recognize the brazenness of the Iranian regime, including right here in the United States. And I expect that we're gonna see more of it, and I expect there'll be more coming on that. I'm not aware of any threat information related to protectees that wasn't, you know, passed in a timely way, but I can't really get into specifics here. - It's my nobody's time here, but I just felt that was a question of the Committee to understand, and it sounds like you've known that for a long time, and that information was conveyed to the Secret Service. - Any information related to threats against the former president, which again, as we've sort of talked about, is, happens all too often, is something that we have a whole process where we routinely share with the Secret Service at a number of levels in a timely way, and to my knowledge, that has consistently been followed. Gentlemen, from George is recommending. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, Director Ray. Director Ray, the FBI is the independent law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice, is that correct? - Yes. - And does the FBI director currently report to anyone? - Well, you mean in a chain of command reporting structure kind of thing? - Yeah, so the FBI is part of the Justice Department. On the org chart, you would say that the FBI director, and it's been true for decades, reports to the Deputy Attorney General who reports to the Attorney General. Obviously, reports in a communication sense, I report to any number of people. - As opposed to a micromanagement reporting system. - Correct. And you would take issue, would you not, with any proposal that would change or alter that chain of command and place you, or place a FBI director in the position of reporting directly to the President, would you not, you would oppose that? - I don't think that would be a wise reporting structure. I think the structure that we've had for decades now makes sense. I think there's a difference between independence in a sort of organizational structure perspective and independence in terms of the way you do the work. Obviously the FBI is part of the Justice Department. - Well, reporting directly to the President would eliminate your independence, would it not? - I don't think it would help. - Yeah, and you're familiar with Project 2025, or you're not? - I mean, I've seen news reports about it, I'm not particularly familiar with it. - You are aware that it is a game plan for President Trump's first 120 days in office, correct? - I'm really not familiar with the details. I can't have seen reporting about it. - It is, and what he proposes to do is to force the FBI director to report directly to him. That's what he wants to do within the first 120 days. He also wants to eliminate the position of FBI General Counsel. That is also set forth in Project 2025. How would you recommend that? - I think the FBI's Office of General Counsel serves an incredibly important role, including in terms of advising our workforce. We have 38,000 people. The idea of having an organization like ours, an independent law enforcement agency like ours that doesn't have its own general counsel's office, doesn't make sense to me. - Well, it would seem like any proposal that would force the director to report to the president, and then there would be no legal counsel for the director of the FBI. That seems like it's an attempt to neuter the FBI and render it accountable only to the president. Isn't that correct? - Well, let me put it this way. I recognize that the FBI director, this FBI director and FBI director before me serves at the pleasure of the president, and that's part of our system. I was appointed by President Trump. I respect that, that I think that's a part of our structure, but independence in terms of how we do our work is what matters to me, and we need to be able to do our work in a way that is free from political energy. - Well, you wouldn't be able to do that by reporting everything you do to the president and getting his authority and approval before you take action, correct? - I don't think that would be a wise approach. And then there's even a proposal to replace many of those 38,000 dedicated civil servants who work for the FBI, replace them with a MAGA group that has pledged its allegiance to Donald Trump. What danger would that bring to the FBI? - Where's he getting this stuff from? - Well, again, I haven't read or reviewed this thing that you're referring to. But the FBI has made up of 38,000 dedicated career, law enforcement professionals. It has no political appointees of any kind unless you count me as a nominee. - You don't want that to change either. - I don't think that should change. I think that is part of how we do our work. - Right. - Being the employees of the FBI. - We're coming up on 116 years of the FBI, and that's the way it has been for 160 years. - He would be in a race to take 38,000 MAGA loyalists and put them at the FBI. That's frightening. That's what Project 2025 proposes. And I'm glad to know that you are not with that program and without our yield back. - Gentlemen, your back gentleman from Florence recognize. - Was the shooter on the FBI's radar in any way prior to the assassination attempt? - We did not have any information about the shooter. He was not in our holdings before the shooting. - No communication in any chat rooms, no CIs or confidential human sources, have any interaction? - No, we've run a thorough search for the subject through all of our holdings, and he was not in them anywhere. - Were there any FBI agents or informants present at the Trump rally in Butler? - Not to my not. - And Mr. Jordan was talking to you about Iran. Were law enforcement resources diverted from the protection of President Trump to John Bolton as a consequence of concern that Mr. Bolton might have been the target of Iranian malign efforts? - That's really a secret service decision. I don't know the answer to that. That's really something they would know better. What I can tell you is that there are a number of individuals, you mentioned one who brought a case a specific criminal case for the Iranians targeting for assassination. But are you gonna get that answer to us whether or not resources were diverted from Trump to Bolton? Is that just going to be part of your review? - I think that's going to be part of the reviews by the Inspector General and the FHS, right? - Of DHS and the outside panel. - And I think that's an important point because the Inspector General for DHS has really fallen out of favor with the administration because he's been pointing out all the problems on the border with Myorkis and Biden. We're always kind of worried that they're about to fire him which would be a really bad idea now that this role that you've identified is so critical. It'd be a bad idea to fire the IG for DHS during the pendency of this, right? - I don't think that would be a good idea. - I'm with you on that. So I want to zoom out a little bit. How often do you brief President Biden? - You mean on this, this is a case? - No, in your role as a pediatric. - I mean, I don't know that I could give you a number. - Is it like weekly, monthly, daily? - It's not on a regular cadence. There have been times when there have been months of the time when I haven't and then there have been times when several days apart, I have. - Okay. - It's always with other people. - The Vice President, is she typically there? - Often has been. - Okay, so when did you notice his decline? - In my interactions, in my role, all my interactions with the current president have been completely professional. - Right, but I mean his, the cognitive decline. I don't say he treated you unprofessionally, just maybe not picking things up as quickly as he used to. - Again, I don't meet with him very often, but what you're describing is not something that I've observed during my interactions. - I mean, we've had it observed so often that the ranking member and Mr. Schiff on this committee have said that he could no longer continue as a candidate. And so, since you're the FBI director, I was just sort of wondering, like, who's running the country? - If something, yeah, so if something bad happened, you'd have to go brief President Biden about it right now. God forbid. - And on any number of occasions, I have briefed the president. And as I said, those briefings have all been uneventful and unremarkable. - Oh, I could imagine them being uneventful. But in the work where the vice president is also present, like you say there's more than half the time there's these briefings she's there to. - I don't know if I'd said more than half the time. Certainly there have been times where she's been present, there've been other times where she hasn't. - I take you at your word when you say this is the most complicated thread environment you've ever observed over a long career in law enforcement. And I'm just kind of wondering with this assassination attempt, with the invasion in our border, with all the Hamas that have been led in that you've talked about and briefed about, like is Biden up to it? And if he's not up to it, and you're a guy who's been regularly briefing him, like who's been in on this conspiracy to hide the real Joe Biden from all of us for years? It never occurred to you that this guy wasn't up to it. And all these briefings he did. - As I said, my briefings with the president have all been completely fine. - Were they between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.? - I've briefed these asked questions. There hasn't been anything of note in the area that you're talking about. - Did you ever have to brief him before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m.? We hear those are as good hours. - I can't, I certainly times that I have briefed have included outside those hours. - Right, I just, you know, I think the American people want to know how we got to this point with someone who's very so diminished his own party has basically put him out to pasture. And since you had close proximity and the vice president had close proximity, I'm just kind of wondering if you were being straight with all of us about how things were going with him. I guess we'll have to figure that out. - You can count on me to be straight with you, sir. - We'll see. - Gentlemen, yield's back, gentlemen from Tennessee is recognized. - Thank you. Firstly, I'd like to recognize and unfortunate the fact that our colleague and my colleagues side by side made for many, many years in this committee, Sheila Jackson Lee is no longer with us. She was a great member of the force for America and our losses as a Belgium is great. Secondly, I'd like to say to the FBI director that there were some remarks made when you were introduced pre-imtrian remarks saying that people don't have great faith in the FBI and every center center center. I have great faith in the FBI and I think most of us on this side of the aisle do. We appreciate your work and you appreciate your being here. Some on the other side of the aisle have cast dispersions upon the FBI and upon law enforcement. If they don't want to support law enforcement, that's their business. But I support law enforcement and the FBI is the top rank of law enforcement in our country. So I thank you and all of your people that work with you. Secondly, there's been some questions about the FBI made me being weaponized. Did President Biden ever ask you to get involved in the case in Orlando, Florida where Kevin McCarthy says that Mr. Gates was investigated for some sexual involvement with a 17-year-old girl. Did the president or anybody at the Democratic party, as Mr. McCarthy has suggested, weaponized you and tried to get you involved in that case. - No, sir. - Good, thank you. Just wanted to make sure of that. Butler, Pennsylvania, I read something about a ladder. He used a ladder to get up on that roof and that the ladder was found somewhere a distance away. Is that true? - So we do know that he purchased a ladder. I think if I recall correctly, it was about a five-foot tall type of ladder. But importantly, we did not find the ladder at the scene. So it's not clear that he used the ladder to get on top of the roof. - So you don't think we're still digging into all that? Things related to the ladder and his access to the roof. But he did buy a ladder, but the ladder was not found at the scene. - Ladder didn't have any feet on it. He didn't walk off. - Oh, thank you, sir. - Thank you, sir. There have been a lot of threats against public officials. We've seen Mr. Scalise on terribly shot and we saw Gabby Giffords shot and other Congress people. Many of us have had death threats. And the FBI has made it aware of those to help protect us and I appreciate that greatly. But we've also had election officials and poll workers threaten them. What is the FBI doing in consultation with other law enforcement to ensure every eligible voter can safely and confidently cast a ballot this year? - So when it comes to threats to election workers, in particular, we participate in the election threats task force that DOJ set up. We also, and there've been quite a number already of arrests and convictions under that task force. We have got a number of investigations underway that involve all kinds of threats to election workers ranging from online threats to, there was even some mailings that included fentanyl. So there's been a number of types of threats to election workers and these are after all people who are putting in their own time for the good of the country to try to help us have a functioning democracy. And so the idea that they would be targeted with violence is just outrageous. We are sharing information with election officials about things to be on the lookout for. We have election crime coordinators and all victims. - You'll be prepared for election day with addition. FBI will be looking out for-- - Yes. - Thank you, thank you. Jeffrey Epstein, been in the news a lot lately about it involved and with certain people high in politics involved. The FBI conducted a raid on his townhouse in New York when he was incarcerated in New York. - You know, what does this have to do with July 13th? It's unbelievable. - He's not townhouse. - Well, I don't know about a raid. I know we executed a number of searches in the course of our fairly extensive investigation related to-- - Can you tell me during that search, if you came across and have within your possession of the FBI, tapes of him with other individuals that he might have taken in people in compromising-- - Yeah, I don't know that there's anything I can share related to that. I can see if there's information we could provide and maybe get back to you on it. - If there were tapes of people in prominent positions, friends of his he posed for pictures with, possibly in compromising positions, it would be the public I think has a right to see those. - Well, I mean, how we handle evidence recovered in a criminal investigation has all kinds of rules that apply to it. I recognize the intense public interest in the subject, but we'd have to follow our rules, but I'm happy-- like I said, I'm happy to follow up with my team on it. - Thank you, sir, and I appreciate your service and thank you for being here today. - Gentlemen, yield the last five. Chair, now I recognize the gentleman from Arizona. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Director Ray, for being here. How many shots did the shooter fire? - Well, we know that he fired at least eight because we recovered eight cartridges on the roof. - Okay, and are all the cartridges and the unspent bullets have they been, you know how many there are the count for all of those? - We believe we have again, there's lots of work still ongoing, but yes, we believe we have accounted. - And did the recovered shells, the cartridges match the shooter's rifle? - My recollection is yes. - And you conducted analysis that confirms that? - Well, we work with ATF, but yes, so some of the work has been divided up. - And how many shells, caseings, were recovered from the location of the countersnipers? - I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the last part. - From the countersnipers location? - That, I don't have the answer, at least here at my fingertips. - Okay. Did the blood and tissue pattern of the shooter, did it match the stories or the witness testimony that you've heard so far? - Can you, I'm not sure I'm following the question. - Well, I assume you've interviewed the countersnipers, and you have that evidence, and other witnesses describing the kill of the shooter. And I'm wondering if the blood and tissue and brain matter is consistent with the testimony that you're receiving. In other words, it's the physical-- - In terms of the manner of death? - Exactly, it's the physical evidence consistent with where the shot from the countersnipers. - Yeah, so the autopsy is being handled by, as it's not unusual, the state authorities. My understanding is thus far, I don't think it's fully complete, which is not again, not totally unusual, but so far, nothing remarkable on that front. - That's from the body itself, but from actually the scene where the shooter was found, is everything consistent with the testimony, the physical evidence at the scene, is that consistent with the testimony you've seen, that you've heard so far? - So far, yes, again, ongoing investigation. - Were you able to determine whether the shooter took the gun up with him when he climbed up to the top of the roof, or was it already placed there somewhere? - So that is something that we're drilling into right now, that we don't know the answer to yet. I can tell you, which may be relevant though, to your question, that, and I don't think this has been reported yet, that the weapon had a collapsible stock, which could explain why it might've been less easy for people to observe, because one of the things that we're finding is people have observed him, the first people to observe him with the weapon were when he was already on the roof, and we haven't yet found anybody with first-hand observation of him with the weapon walking around beforehand, so that doesn't mean he wasn't, obviously, but the collapsible stock is potentially a very significant feature that might be relevant to that. - Did he have a scope? - I believe so, but I just, as I said here right now, I don't remember. - Okay, you mentioned about two hours before in the incident that he'd had a drone, and he was using a drone, instead of me putting words in your mouth, just tell me how you discovered the drone, how you discovered the time, and how you discovered, if you can describe what he would have been observing with the drone and how you determined that. - So this is something that's very much ongoing right now, we're going back and forth with our lab as they continue to do work on it. What I would say is the drone was in his car. As I said, we've been able to, by exploiting the drone, determine its use and flight paths. There were no pictures or videos on the drone of the day of the rally, for example, but we have been able to reverse engineer the flight path of the drone from the day of the rally, and that's how we know that for about 11 minutes, I think it's around 350 p.m. to 4 p.m. somewhere in that range. He was flying the drone, and we have the flight path, it's about 200 yards away from where former President Trump would ultimately be speaking. And so that would have primarily given him a vantage point. I don't think how to describe this. If the former President's podium is that way, the drone would be over here looking, say 200 yards again, off this way, looking back. So it would have shown the shooter, we think. Again, we're still doing more work on this, I really want to qualify what I'm saying. I'm trying to feed transparent and lean in here. We think it would have shown him kind of what would have been behind him. - When you say behind him, behind the shooter. - Correct, like in other words, almost like giving him a rear view mirror of the scene behind him. Except again, he wasn't flying it overhead while he was later back for the assessment. - But he would have had, with the drone, he would have been able to also assess, kind of, 'cause the stage I assume was already said, he would have been able to assess that angle with rooftop as well, forward and backwardizing. - Well, certainly going towards the podium. Again, we're still trying to figure out exactly what he saw 'cause we're having to in effect, because there's no recording of what he's... - You know, folks, what director Ray, he does also doesn't have all of the information. It seems like the true crime community knows a lot more than the FBI director. However, what he's presenting today, again, is preliminary information. The investigation is by no means complete, nor does he have all of the information from the people in the field who are conducting this investigation because it's not just the FBI, but the ATF has involved alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. And in addition, the Secret Service does a, it's sort of tough to investigate yourself, but they are involved in this investigation. Let's put it that way. The strength of what we're hearing today is really the strength of the questions that the different congressmen and congresswomen are asking. And unfortunately, it's become like, it's political theater, it always is, but that's sort of, it's too bad that it is political theater. - He saw during those 11 minutes, you know, our hypothesis at this point, the experts think he would have been live streaming it. And so we're trying to, in effect, say, okay, if this was the flight pattern, given these capabilities of the drone, what would you have seen, what could you have seen for those 11 minutes? And again, it wasn't over the stage for the kind of the hub of the rally, about 200 yards away, but it looks like it would have been looking, let's say, you know, length of a football field or so, more, you know, kind of towards the podium. - Great, thank you, mister. - How many separate times was the shooter on the premises? - So again, with the caveat that we're continuing to do work on it, we believe that the first time he traveled to the grounds was, I think, a week before. And he spent roughly 20 minutes there. Then he went to the grounds again on the morning of the event. It appears for about 70 minutes, I think, but again, I'll tell you that, I'd have to go back and look and be sure of that part. And then if he came back in the afternoon, so that would be, I guess, a third time for good. But that included things like this drone activity we just talked about. - Gentlemen, from California, do you recognize? - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, thank you for appearing. Thank you for the extraordinary job that you're doing. Please convey our thanks to the men and women at the Bureau for their incredible work. I've worked with them since I was an assistant US Attorney more than 30 years ago. Let me start with a threshold question. I'm curious about when I applied to being an assistant US Attorney, I had to go through a background check. Do candidates for the FBI have to go through background checks? - Yes. - Would someone with dozens of felony convictions survive a background check? - All right, I'm done with this, because it's just, you know, we're here to hear what happened on July 13th, and it's becoming just outrageous political theater. What we learned, of course, from Director Ray, we learned some new things today, and it's that one of the things we just learned is that the gun had a collapsible stock, which would have allowed Thomas Crooks to conceal it. We learned that he had used a drone for recon, and more, well, we knew that, but he gave us more specifics in regards to it. You know, folks, I've been on the air with this. I was sort of hoping that this was going to be just questioning of Director of the FBI, Ray, and it really was just about too political, so I'm gonna go away from it right now. I hope that you enjoyed the coverage of those that stayed for us. It's almost been nearly two and a half hours. Perhaps what we would need to really examine FBI Director, Ray's testimony is the best of and to eliminate all of the political rhetoric from both sides and just get to the questioning. So, folks, I'm Bill Cannon from Police off the cuff, Real Crime Stories. Thank you so much for tuning in this morning, and we'll keep following this case. Have a great day, everyone, and God bless. (upbeat music) ♪ Just setting the norm ♪ ♪ Getting left up ♪ ♪ Getting into it too ♪