House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Monday called for testimony from an FBI contractor who created a questionnaire asking bureau employees to reveal if their colleagues supported former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Jordan sent a letter to the unidentified contractor just days after the Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on the FBI’s retaliation against whistleblowers and bureau workers with conservative political or religious views.
“Since May 2020, you have worked as a contractor performing security clearance investigations for the FBI’s Security Division (SecD),” Mr. Jordan wrote. “We recently learned that while conducting these security clearance investigations, you played a role in creating and using a politically motivated questionnaire that posed inappropriate questions about FBI employees’ political views.”
He added, “Accordingly, we believe that you possess unique information that will advance our oversight and inform potential legislative reforms and we write to request your cooperation with our inquiry.”
Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, called for the contractor to schedule a transcribed interview with the committee by Oct. 14.
The committee wants to know what prompted the contractor to create the questionnaire since top FBI leadership previously claimed they knew nothing about it.
During another hearing Wednesday, Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz called the material in the questionnaire “highly inappropriate.”
The Washington Times reached out to the FBI for comment about Mr. Jordan’s request to interview the contractor.
“We have learned that you created or helped to create this questionnaire and that you used it in the course of your official actions,” Mr. Jordan wrote. “The Committee and Select Subcommittee are examining the development, approval, and use of this questionnaire as part of our investigation into the FBI’s misuse of the security clearance suspension and revocation process.”
The questionnaire was revealed in a whistleblower disclosure sent in June to the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General. The whistleblower said Security Division officials were investigating an FBI employee’s co-workers about the employees’ political and personal beliefs.
The questionnaires asked if the employee under investigation had vocalized support for Mr. Trump, vocalized objection to COVID-19 vaccination or vocalized intent to attend the pro-Trump demonstration at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The disclosure was part of a flood of whistleblower complaints that prompted congressional scrutiny of the FBI’s top brass for unfair treatment of agents and other bureau employees. This time, the whistleblower is an unnamed, now-retired FBI worker who served the bureau for 12 years.
“The questionnaire warned these colleagues that if they ‘refuse[d] to answer or fail[ed] to reply fully and truthfully,’ they would face potential disciplinary action and loss of their own security clearance,” Mr. Jordan noted in his letter.
When FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was confronted about the questionnaire during a July hearing by Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin Republican, Mr. Wray said he had just learned of it at that time.
“The document you’re asking about is an interview outline that we only recently learned about and, in my view, is completely inappropriate,” he told the Judiciary Committee. “I asked my team to get to the bottom of what happened and to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I’ve learned it’s not an FBI form.”
He called the use of the form “isolated,” and he said it was “created not by an FBI employee but by an outside contractor, and that individual is no longer affiliated with the FBI.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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