Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) helped to incite the terrorist attack on the Capitol and appeared nervous about the FBI using cellphone data to track the attackers.
Video:
Josh Hawley really doesn’t want the FBI using cellphone data to track the terrorist attack on the Capitol that he helped to incite. pic.twitter.com/KQJ7iC9Yg8
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 2, 2021
Hawley was very curious about the legal authority and the tools that the FBI is using to collect the cellphone data as part of its investigation into the Capitol attack.
Sen. Hawley asked FBI Director Wray, “When you say you’re not familiar, are you saying you don’t know whether or not the bureau has scooped up geolocation data, metadata from cell phone towers? Are you saying you don’t know if they did that? Tell me what you know about this.”
Hawley also wanted to know what the FBI was doing with data from cellphone towers during the attack, “Here’s what I’m trying to get at, and I think it’s what senator Lee was trying to get at. How are we going to know what you’re doing with it, and how do we evaluate the bureau’s conduct if we don’t know what authorities you’re invoking, what precisely you’re doing, what you’re retaining? You said to him repeatedly you weren’t familiar with the specifics. You’ve now said it to me. I’m not sure how this committee is supposed to evaluate anything that the bureau is doing. You’re basically saying, just trust us. How do we know? Do we have to wait until the end of the investigation to find out what you’ve done?”
Sen. Hawley seemed to have multiple purposes with his line of questioning. He appeared to be laying the groundwork to discredit the FBI investigation as a “deep state” conspiracy, and he also did not seem to want the FBI to be focusing on metadata that could show any potential coordination between the terrorists and Republican members of Congress.
The FBI is using the cellphone data also to investigate members of Congress who may have provided aid or assistance to the terrorists, and it looks like this fact has Josh Hawley nervous.
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Mr. Easley is the founder/managing editor, who is White House Press Pool, and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
