Citing the Dec. 4 report, the senators in their letter this week pressed Wray on why he testified that the memo was “a single product by a single field office” when new information has indicated that other field offices provided input and “another product was drafted on the same topic for external distribution.” The Dec. 4 report found plans to develop an FBI-wide memo that would have been based on the Richmond document.
“The fact an FBI office produced even one discriminatory document like this — let alone two — is deeply troubling,” Grassley said in a statement on Thursday.
“It’s unfathomable the agency’s response has been to cut corners, dodge questions, and stiff-arm Congress,” he said. “From where I’m sitting, it seems like the FBI is working to sweep the issue under the rug rather than address it.”
The senators’ letter further stated that Congress did not receive all of the information it requested because the FBI allegedly “deleted the records as soon as the incident became public.” The senators instructed the agency to “provide an immediate explanation for its order to delete records related to this incident.”
According to the senators, the deletion of files “not only obstructs congressional oversight but also means the FBI’s internal review itself did not have access to documents that may have provided critical information on the incident.”
“Why did the FBI permanently delete files related to the Richmond internal memo rather than simply removing the memo from distribution, and does [the] FBI have a backup of this information?” the letter said. “Was this deletion of records in accordance with FBI policy and federal document retention laws?”
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