--- title: Trump-Appointed FBI Director Punches Back Against GOP Attack description: Christopher Wray found himself defending all of federal law enforcement as House Republicans accused him of doing Biden's bidding canonical: https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/ author: Eric Cortellessa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-12T21:24:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:05.327Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump-Appointed FBI Head Denies He Is Doing Biden's Bidding og:description: “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Christopher Wray, the Trump-appointed FBI director, told his fellow House Republicans. og:url: https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1954f621535ed9fb/698a3ea216d8843cd6c3c078/GettyImages-1527949929.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump-Appointed FBI Head Denies He Is Doing Biden's Bidding twitter:description: “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Christopher Wray, the Trump-appointed FBI director, told his fellow House Republicans. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1954f621535ed9fb/698a3ea216d8843cd6c3c078/GettyImages-1527949929.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump-Appointed FBI Director Punches Back Against Republicans Who Claim He Does Biden’s Bidding > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: TIME World Report: What's Next For Putin's Power [Watch (HLS stream): TIME World Report: What's Next For Putin's Power](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Dlymjvhx.m3u8) (5:44)  _Published 2023-07-06. Russian President Vladimir Putin faced the greatest threat to his authority in decades when the mutinous Wagner Group seized major cities in an armed rebellion against the Russian military on June 24. TIME Senior Correspondent Simon Shuster explains what this insurrection means for Putin's power._  by [Eric Cortellessa](https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/)  ## Eric Cortellessa Senior Correspondent Jul 12, 2023 9:24 PM UTC  FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 12, 2023, in the Rayburn Building in Washington, DC FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 12, 2023, in the Rayburn Building in Washington, DC Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images  by [Eric Cortellessa](https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/)  ## Eric Cortellessa Senior Correspondent Jul 12, 2023 9:24 PM UTC FBI Director Christopher Wray carried a heavy burden when he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. As Republicans pounded him with withering criticisms over his role in the Trump documents case and his efforts to combat right-wing extremism, he was tasked with sticking up not only for himself but the entire federal law enforcement community. One by one, GOP lawmakers put Wray on the defensive, alleging that the FBI has systematically targeted conservative Americans under his watch, including former President Donald Trump. “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” said Wray, a registered Republican who was appointed by Trump. Wray’s testimony comes as Republicans seek to tarnish the Biden administration’s reputation ahead of the 2024 election and delegitimize the U.S. justice system after Trump’s federal criminal prosecution. At the center of their effort is an attempt to portray a weaponized Justice Department that acts on President Joe Biden’s behalf. The hearing was Wray’s first congressional testimony since Trump’s indictment last month for allegedly mishandling national secrets and obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them. “The American people have lost faith in the FBI,” said Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. “This is about whether the very system of justice in our country can be trusted anymore.” --- ### More from TIME --- Wray strenuously rejected GOP allegations that he has shielded Hunter Biden, the president’s son who recently struck a plea deal for misdemeanor tax charges. House Republicans plan to [ramp up](https://time.com/6291109/hunter-biden-house-gop-irs/) their investigation into the younger Biden after an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower said he received special treatment from federal prosecutors. At one point, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida asked Wray point blank: “Are you protecting the Bidens?” Wray answered: “Absolutely not.” Wray also responded to a far-right [conspiracy theory](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/politics/jan-6-conspiracy-theory-ray-epps.html) that the Jan. 6 insurrection was really an FBI sting operation. “This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hard-working, dedicated men and women.” Democrats on the panel mostly came to his defense. While some questioned Wray over the FBI’s online surveillance practices, many sought to vindicate the agency’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last year following the former President’s refusal to return classified documents to the National Archives. “They seem incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald Trump for problems that are Trump’s and Trump’s alone,” Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the committee’s ranking member, said of Republicans. “When they do not like the outcome, they investigate the investigators and work to discredit the outcome.” For his part, Wray pushed back on the claim made by some Trump allies that the Biden Administration raided the former President’s home. “I would not call it a raid,” he told legislators. “I would call it the execution of a lawful search warrant.” Ultimately, the findings of the search of Trump’s South Florida estate led to his indictment last month. In a [49-page](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0.pdf) filing, prosecutors included photographic evidence that Trump stored boxes of classified information in various locations at Mar-a-Lago. “There are specific rules about where to store classified information and that those need to be stored in a SCIF,” Wray said, referring to a sensitive compartmented information facility. “In my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms are not SCIFs.” During the hearing, Wray made his first public comments since a Louisiana federal judge banned U.S. agencies from collaborating with communications platforms to combat misinformation. He said the agency would comply with the order. “We don’t ask social media companies to censor information or suppress information,” Wray told lawmakers. “At the end of the day, we’re very clear that it’s up to the social media companies to decide whether to do something about that.” That’s unlikely to satisfy Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and one of Wray’s most vociferous critics. In his opening statement Wednesday, Jordan labeled the FBI’s work “Orwellian” and encouraged Democrats to join with him in pushing to move the agency’s headquarters out of the D.C. area. (He has recently [called](https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-eyes-sweet-home-for-new-fbi-headquarters-in-alabama-479b19d8) for the FBI to be relocated to Alabama.) Otherwise, he said, it should lose funding altogether. “I hope they will work with us in the appropriations process to stop the weaponization of the government against the American people,” he said. When Wray responded to those charges later in the hearing, he tried to avoid coming across as outwardly political. Rather, he remained placid as he depicted the bureau he leads as a staid institution of crime-fighters. “Our folks take great pains to be rigorous, professional, objective,” he said. “Sometimes that’s frustrating to others.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/"},"headline":"Trump-Appointed FBI Director Punches Back Against Republicans Who Claim He Does Biden’s Bidding","datePublished":"2023-07-12T21:24:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:51:05.327Z","description":"“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Christopher Wray told his fellow House Republicans.","url":"https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/","keywords":["Congress","republicans"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1954f621535ed9fb/698a3ea216d8843cd6c3c078/GettyImages-1527949929.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Cortellessa","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1954f621535ed9fb/698a3ea216d8843cd6c3c078/GettyImages-1527949929.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation","caption":"Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation","creditText":"Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6294244/fbi-christopher-wray-house-republicans-trump/","name":"Trump-Appointed FBI Director Punches Back Against Republicans Who Claim He Does Biden’s Bidding"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME World Report: What's Next For Putin's Power","description":"Russian President Vladimir Putin faced the greatest threat to his authority in decades when the mutinous Wagner Group seized major cities in an armed rebellion against the Russian military on June 24. 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