Elise Stefanik: FBI ‘Willfully Covering Up’ Iranian Election Interference

The FBI is “willfully covering up” Iranian interference in the 2024 presidential election, House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) warned Monday.

The FBI, which has been long criticized for the weaponization of justice dating back to 2016 and 2020, now appears to be playing politics with the 2024 election.

The bureau is “doubling down on its politicization and corruption” by “willfully covering up — about Iranian influence in the 2024 presidential election,” Stefanik wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed as a senior Intelligence Committee member.

In recent months, Iran targeted Trump by hacking, sending hacked information to Democrat media allies, and trying to carry out assassination plots. Those acts against American democracy deserve transparency, argued Stefanik, who provided 13 questions that the FBI has refused to answer.

Stefanik wrote:

I’ve been in enough high-profile oversight hearings to know that when witnesses squirm and refuse to answer questions, it usually means I’ve uncovered something concerning. At that briefing last month, after a long, panicked pause, the FBI promised to follow up with answers. The bureau obviously wanted my questions to go away and be forgotten. After the briefing, I wrote Director Christopher Wray requiring responses by Oct. 7.

The avoidance games continued. First, the bureau said it would deliver answers at an in-person briefing as demanded. Then it promised written answers, which it failed to provide. The FBI has now gone silent, ignoring the congressional questions. I believe it is because top FBI officials know the answers will be bombshells.

…

On this issue of critical importance to the presidential election, the Intelligence Committee knows little more than the public does. We know Iranian hackers stole sensitive information from the Trump campaign and sent it to at least three people affiliated with Joe Biden’s campaign in June. We know Iranians also sent the stolen information to Politico, the Washington Post and the New York Times. We know Iran is plotting to assassinate Mr. Trump. We know the threat against his life is active and unresolved, despite the July arrest of a Pakistani national with ties to Iran in connection with that plot. We don’t know when or how the FBI became aware, or what and when its communication was with the Biden and Harris campaigns or the Biden administration.

WATCH — Trump: Israel Should Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program:

Stefanik’s allegation is serious, but the allegation mirrors concerns that some Republicans raised in 2016 and 2020.

Former FBI Director James Comey failed to inform Congress in 2016 about his decision to open a counterintelligence investigation, called Crossfire Hurricane, into then-candidate Trump for allegedly colluding with the Russians. The allegation bled well into Trump’s term but was ultimately debunked as a hoax pushed by Democrat operatives.

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.