FBI Director Christopher Wray called the federal government shutdown “mind-boggling” and “short-sighted” in a video message to FBI employees — a majority of whom are working without pay.
Wray, who was confirmed as FBI director in 2017, often avoids getting involved in political disputes. But Friday marked the second missed paycheck for the more than 800,000 federal workers affected by the stalemate — 35,000 of whom are FBI employees — and Wray said he was “angry” Friday.
“Making some people stay home when they don’t want to and making others show up without pay — it’s mind-boggling, it’s short-sighted, and it’s unfair,” Wray said, adding, “It takes a lot to get me angry, but I’m about as angry as I’ve been in a long, long time.
Wray revealed that the FBI was working on a way to obtain a one-time payment for many of its employees “as a way to bridge the gap until the government reopens,” but “we ran into some unforeseen obstacles, and we couldn’t make it happen, at least for this week.”
“You know better than most that we’ve been thrust into the political spotlight more than we would have liked over the past few years,” Wray said. “And the last thing this organization needs now is its leadership to wade into the middle of a full-on political dispute.”
He continued: “But let me also be very clear: We’re actively advocating for you left and right, at every level. We’re having conversations day and night with people who can have the most impact, to show them how much this is affecting all of you and your families, and how it could affect the work we need to do for the American people. We’re just not doing it in the press.”
Wray did not take political sides or advocate for a solution.
“In this polarized environment, even seemingly straightforward statements can be hijacked by one side or the other,” he said.
A group representing FBI agents said the shutdown has delayed criminal, counterterrorism, and counterintelligence operations, and it has also intruded on investigations related to child trafficking.
“It is truly sad that we must resort to this because we are being let down by our elected officials,” Thomas O’Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, told reporters in Washington Tuesday.
O’Connor’s group released a report that explained some of the hardships that agents are going through because of the shutdown, which as of Friday, was in its 35th day. It included anonymous quotes from FBI workers who explained the agency’s limitations in the face of having 5,000 support personnel furloughed, and the realities of having 13,000 active-duty agents work without a paycheck.
