Both Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray knew to expect tough questions from Republicans during Tuesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing on terrorism threats, but the FBI head likely didn’t expect the opening lecture he got from Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the committee chairman.
“I want to start off today’s hearing with a little bit of housekeeping for our witnesses here, and I want to remind our witnesses of your responsibility to respond to inquiries and requests from Congress. The oversight responsibilities we have here in Congress are a core facet of our democracy, and executive branch officials must be responsive to requests from members of this committee,” Mr. Peters began.
“Questions for the Record (QFRs) should be answered promptly and accurately, which is not what we have been seeing. Director Wray, there are instances where QFRs are not answered until over a year after a hearing has taken place,” he continued. “In fact, we still don’t have answers from our questions from last year’s threat hearing. Director Wray, that is simply unacceptable.”
A QFR occurs when a senator or representative asks a hearing witness a question he or she cannot immediately answer, but promises to provide subsequently for the official record.
The Michigan Democrat then asked Mr. Wray, Mr. Mayorkas, and the hearing’s third witness, National Counterterrorism Center Director Christine Abizaid, for their promise “to respond as quickly and as promptly as possible” to QFRs.
Mr. Wray demurred, claiming, “Well, certainly you have my commitment to do everything in my power to respond to QFRs as quick as possible, but QFRs, unlike correspondence exchanges, have to go through an inter-agency Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance process and I don’t have complete control over that.”
A skeptical-sounding Mr. Peters responded, “Well, I hope it’s within your power to do that within less than a year.”
While the hearing’s official focus was on security threats to America from home and abroad, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) followed the QFR exchange with a blunt series of questions to Mr. Wray on what the committee’s top Republican views as the federal government’s threat to constitutional security.
“Secretary Mayorkas, is DHS still meeting with social media companies to discuss content moderation,” Mr. Paul asked. When Mr. Mayorkas declined to answer directly, Mr. Paul rephrased his query several times, only to receive from the witness a claim “that we do not meet with social media companies for the purpose of encouraging them to take down content.”
Mr. Paul challenged Mr. Mayorkas, asking, “So you’ve never met with social media companies to discuss content moderation?” Mr. Mayorkas carefully replied that “what we have done in the past, Ranking Member Paul, is we along with other federal agencies have met with social media companies in a public/private partnership to speak of the threats to the homeland so that those companies are alert to them.”
Asked the same question by Mr. Paul, Mr. Wray acknowledged having “some meetings” with social media companies, but claimed “to my knowledge” nobody from the law enforcement agency ever participated in such gatherings to discuss constitutionally protected speech. He also claimed a $3 million FBI payment to X that Mr. Paul argued was for content moderation expenses was only reimbursement for producing unrelated information sought by the law enforcement agency.
Both Mr. Mayorkas and Mr. Wray insisted “on the record” in response to Mr. Paul’s question that to their knowledge none of their employees ever discussed content moderation with social media companies.
The Senate hearing became extremely heated later in the proceedings when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Mr. Mayorkas if foreign students studying in the United States should have their visas revoked for participating in anti-Semitic demonstrations to demand violence against Jewish individuals or in support of terrorist attacks like that of Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7 that resulted in the massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis and at least 30 Americans.
“We are assessing your legal assertion,” Mr. Mayorkas responded, noting that he had previously received correspondence from the Missouri Republican arguing that federal law requires revocation.
Mr. Hawley then pressed Mr. Mayorkas about the employment status of Nejwa Ali, a DHS Immigration and Asylum office employee who on Oct. 7 posted multiple anti-Semitic remarks that encouraged the destruction of Israel. Also included among the posts was one depicting armed Hamas para-gliders invading Israel, as happened when dozens of the terrorists flew into Israel on Oct. 7 and slaughtered more than 260 young Israelis attending an outdoor music festival.
“What have you done about that?” Mr. Hawley demanded.
A clearly angered Mr. Mayorkas denied that the posts were “emblematic” of all DHS employees, then sought to respond further but was unable to do so when the Missouri Republican repeatedly demanded to know if the offending worker had been or will be fired.
After Mr. Peters intervened, Mr. Mayorkas said the DHS employee had been placed on administrative leave but he declined to provide further details about “an ongoing personnel matter.” A DHS spokesman did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request to interview Ms. Ali.
Mr. Mayorkas subsequently told the committee that he is the child of a Holocaust survivor and his mother “lost almost all of her family at the hands of the Nazis.”
Mr. Hawley and Mr. Mayorkas tangled again following a lunch break in the hearing when the DHS secretary refused to say how many, if any, of the estimated 100,000 children smuggled into the United States for sex and labor trafficking have been rescued by the federal government.
Mr. Mayorkas also pointedly refused to respond directly to Mr. Hawley’s repeated demand to know if he agreed with a DHS whistleblower who has told the Missouri Republican senator that more than 600 federal agents working on child trafficking cases have been transferred to the Southern border to “escort to the showers” and “make sandwiches” for illegal immigrants being allowed to enter the country.
