Questions over FBI Director Christopher Wray's use of a government plane for a personal vacation are "just the beginning of a new era of oversight of the FBI," Rep. James Comer told Newsmax on Tuesday.
"We're very frustrated with a lot of things within the FBI right now, the Kentucky Republican commented on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "We're just starting to go down line by line on the Oversight Committee with their expenses, and this is the first thing that popped out."
Comer, along with Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Mike Turner, R-Ohio, wrote a letter Monday to Wray, demanding answers about his use of the government plane after a recent report from The New York Post indicated that he left a Senate hearing early to fly on an FBI aircraft for a personal vacation.
"We have questions about whether you are properly reimbursing federal taxpayers for your personal travel aboard government aircraft," the lawmakers said in their letter.
"You can imagine the expense incurred in taking a private jet to anywhere in America," Comer said Tuesday. "We see no indication of where he's ever reimbursed the government for similar trips. I would assume that considering the cost of reimbursing the government for that flight would be the equivalent of 10 to 15% of his salary for the entire year. I would assume that he didn't plan on ever reimbursing the government."
Comer added that if Republicans retake the House in November, they'll continue to examine the FBI's activities and spending.
"We're seeing with the raid on former President [Donald] Trump they don't communicate with Congress, and it's very frustrating," Comer said. "When people say they want to hold a government agency or a government bureaucrat accountable and ask how to do that, one way is to go at their appropriations and try to make them transparent."
Comer added that the House lawmakers have requested a great deal of information from the FBI and the intelligence community "on a host of topics" but have "received nothing."
The Trump raid is just the latest criticism Republicans have about the FBI and its treatment of the former president, said Comer.
"A lot of the information that we received in Congress from the FBI has been inaccurate," he said. "You look at all the turmoil that was created over the first two years of the Trump presidency with respect to the Steele dossier, and then we learned that Steele dossier was completely fake. It was bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. How did the FBI not recognize this?"
And then there is the Hunter Biden scandal, said Comer.
"This family has been influence peddling for over a decade, and yet the FBI does nothing," said Comer. "One day after the FBI raids former President Trump for taking some documents with him. We see Hunter Biden flying to Kiawah Island on Air Force One. It's very disappointing."
Comer also on Tuesday discussed the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul, and said there are still concerns about the people who were left behind in Afghanistan, but also about whether those who came to the United States were vetted.
"I think the State Department made a huge mistake from day one," said Comer. "Not only did we leave Americans behind, not only did we leave the Afghanis behind that we promised to take to America, I believe we brought a lot of Afghanis to America that should have never come to America. So we have a lot of questions about what went wrong in Afghanistan, and unfortunately, this administration has provided zero answers."
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