Republicans celebrate their successful deception of voters (WP)

An honest man visited the House of lies this week. He did not like what he found there.

“Insane.” “Absurd.” “Ludicrous.” Those are the actual words FBI Director Christopher Wray used to describe House Republicans’ crackpot conspiracy theories.

“The American people fully understand,” Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) informed Wray at Wednesday’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, “… that you have personally worked to weaponize the FBI against conservatives.”

Right. Hageman, the election denier who ousted Liz Cheney in a primary, would have you believe that Wray — senior political appointee in the George W. Bush Justice Department, clerk to a noted conservative judge, contributor to the Federalist Society,
Donald Trump-appointed head of the FBI — is part of a conspiracy to persecute conservatives. “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” he replied.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), told Wray that his FBI “suppressed conservative-leaning free speech” on topics such as the unconfirmed theory that covid-19 resulted from a lab leak in China.

“The idea that the FBI would somehow be involved in suppressing references to the lab-leak theory is somewhat absurd,” Wray answered, pointing a finger, “when you consider the fact that the FBI was the only — the only — agency in the entire
intelligence community to reach the assessment that it was more likely than not that that was the explanation for the pandemic.”

And several Republicans on the panel floated the slander that the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection was an inside job perpetrated by the FBI.

“This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous,” Wray responded, “and is a disservice to our brave, hard-working, dedicated men and women.”

Good for him. But here’s what’s especially insane, absurd and ludicrous: No matter how many refutations Wray and others provide, Republicans are persuading people to believe their lies — and they are proud of the deception.

Johnson, the leadoff questioner at Wednesday’s hearing, told Wray about a recent NBC News poll, in which “only 37 percent of registered voters now view the FBI positively,” down from 52 percent in 2018. “That’s a serious decline in the people’
s faith, and it’s on your watch,” he told Wray.

Several other Republicans joined Johnson in gloating about the FBI’s poor standing in public opinion. “We’re seeing the polling numbers,” said Rep. Barry Moore (Ala.). “The FBI is tanking.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) taunted: “People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place.”

Reps. Wesley Hunt and Nathaniel Moran, both from Texas, also needled Wray about the FBI’s popularity. “You’re not aware of those numbers?” Moran jeered.

The Republicans are well aware of “those numbers” — because they are the ones who assassinated the reputation of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. Support for the FBI isn’t low among all Americans; it’s at rock bottom among
Republicans — only 17 percent of whom had a positive view of the FBI in the NBC poll, compared with 58 percent of Democrats.

Now why would that have happened? Well, maybe it’s because they’ve been fed an endless diet of lies and conspiracy theories about the FBI by elected Republicans and their Murdoch mouthpieces. These lies — and similar ones told about the Justice
Department, public health agencies, the IRS and even the military — serve Republicans’ short-term interest of discrediting the Biden administration. But the lies are also destroying the right’s support for the most basic functions of government
that even conservatives long supported, such as law and order and national defense. Maybe that’s the goal.

Now, the arsonists are admiring the ashes.

When Wray walked into the House Judiciary hearing room this week, he entered a parallel universe. Awaiting him in the audience were three women wearing T-shirts saying “Ashli Babbitt, Murdered by Capitol Police.” A few seats down, next to the woman
with the “Biden’s Laptop Matters” phone cover, Ivan Raiklin, a self-styled “Deep State Marauder,” rose to heckle Wray: “Sir, can you stop violating our First, Fourth and Fifth amendments?” Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) ordered a recitation
of the Pledge of Allegiance, which ended in the women in the Ashli Babbitt T-shirts shouting, “Justice for all!”

Jordan opened with an ode to paranoia: “American speech is censored. Parents are called terrorists. Catholics are called radicals. And I haven’t even talked about the spying that took place of a presidential campaign or the raiding of a former
president’s home.”

Gaetz accused Wray of “protecting the Bidens,” of being “blissfully ignorant as to the Biden shakedown regime,” of “whitewashing the conduct of corrupt people” and of operating a “creepy personal snoop machine” at the FBI.

“Amen!” called out one of the Ashli Babbitt women when Gaetz finished.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) accused Wray of a passel of crimes: “unlawful surveillance of American citizens, intimidation of American citizens … potential coverups of convenient political figures and potential setups of inconvenient political
figures.”

They invoked the “Russian collusion hoax” and the Steele dossier. Most sinister were the attempts to pin the Jan. 6 insurrection on the FBI.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) invoked the conspiracy theory, popular on the far right, that a man named Ray Epps was an undercover FBI agent who instigated the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to discredit Trump. (Epps filed a defamation lawsuit on
Wednesday against Fox News for promoting the “fantastical story.”)

“Shame on you!” Nehls said to Wray. Nehls called the Jan. 6 investigation a “political witch hunt against the greatest president in my lifetime.” Coming to the defense of people convicted for their actions during the insurrection, he claimed the
FBI “is more concerned about searching for and arresting grandma and grandpa for entering the Capitol building that day than pursuing the sick individuals in our society who prey on our children.”

Before the hearing, the Associated Press’s Farnoush Amiri reported that Republicans planned to screen a video showing the “FBI planting the pipe bombs outside the DNC on Jan. 6.” Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) did screen the video, but he stopped short of
fingering the FBI, suggesting only that there was some unspecified conspiracy involving law enforcement. (Massie, no legal scholar, at one point told Wray his behavior “may be lawful, but it’s not constitutional.”)

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced that he was “going to make the assumption” that there were “more than 10” FBI informants in the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021. Wray had said no such thing.

Full Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/14/fbi-conspiracy-theories-house-gop-wray-hearing/

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