‘Serious Blow To Trust In Our Government’: Lawmakers Torch Wray, Mayorkas For Skipping Out On Hearing

Senate Republican and Democratic lawmakers joined together in a display of bipartisan condemnation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray after the two declined to testify on Thursday before the Senate on global threats facing the U.S. homeland.

Mayorkas and Wray requested to move the annually-scheduled Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) hearing to a classified setting, which would have broken with 15 years of precedence according to Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, Chairman of the HSGAC.

“In a shocking departure from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s longstanding tradition of transparency and oversight of the threats facing our nation, for the first time in more than 15 years, the Homeland Security Secretary and the FBI Director have refused to appear before the Committee to provide public testimony at our annual hearing on Threats to the Homeland,” Peters wrote in a statement published on X.

“Secretary Mayorkas and Director Wray’s refusal to speak publicly about their department’s work will only increase the concerns that many Americans have about our nation’s security at a challenging time, flout the Committee’s efforts to conduct responsible oversight, and will deal a serious blow to to trust in our government,” Peters added.

“It is unacceptable that the FBI Director and DHS Secretary are refusing to testify publicly at our annual hearing on threats to the homeland,” Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, ranking member of the HSGAC, wrote on X. “The American people deserve to hold these officials accountable for their actions under the Biden Administration.”