FBI Director Christopher Wray must stand firm and insist that the bureau will not be used for political purposes, including against former President Donald Trump, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Saturday.
"You've got plenty of lawyers who can go use affidavits, who can go use processes that the Department of Justice would choose to do. But to use the FBI to make Donald Trump public enemy No. 1 is a huge mistake for the bureau," Sessions told "Saturday Report."
Sessions' comments come as Trump said Friday on his Truth Social page he is planning to file a "major motion pertaining to the Fourth Amendment" in response to the raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
"Every time we hear a story, it's very disturbing about the Department of Justice what I think was unnecessary means to achieve their political goals," Sessions said Saturday. "This could have been negotiated far differently. It could have been done far differently. When they showed up with some 20 different agents ... that's the indication that they intended to search the whole house."
The only items that should have been taken were what was included on the warrant and nothing more, he added.
"This is how simple cases [in] the country are thrown out, when law enforcement takes evidence that was not part of their search warrant," said Sessions. "This is a Fourth Amendment search issue. It says very clearly that a judge has to sign off specifically what a person or what law enforcement was after: papers, articles and the things that might be necessary. I think the Department of Justice went well beyond that."
Meanwhile, Sessions said he believes the FBI is being used for political bias, and it must understand that it has to fight for its reputation.
"They have to understand that their reputation, not [Attorney General] Merrick Garland's is on the line," said Sessions. "People's confidence in an attorney general sometimes wanes back and forth, but the bureau needs to have a stellar record."
The FBI also has whistleblowers who have provided credible information questioning the bureau's actions, said Sessions.
He noted that he and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, are in an "active dialogue" concerning voter integrity.
"Voter integrity is a mission that the FBI should be a part of," said Sessions. "We have heard nothing back from the FBI and the things that we have said."
Sessions added that he thinks Wray is a "fine man" and he has confidence in him, but he thinks he needs to stand up against the agency being used "as a tool for political purposes."
"That means he needs to do like my father did, even though it got him fired from the FBI by Bill Clinton," said Sessions, who is the son of late former FBI Director Bill Sessions, whom then-President Clinton fired in 1993.
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