‘Identify Patriotic Americans As Suspects’: Sen. Ted Cruz Confronts Wray On Project Veritas Leak

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz confronted FBI Director Christopher Wray about a leak of alleged FBI material by the conservative activist group, Project Veritas, at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday.

Cruz tried to make the case that the FBI has a repeated pattern of targeting conservatives and “patriotic Americans.” He pointed to a copy of FBI training material obtained by Project Veritas that allegedly listed the Betsy Ross, Gadsden and Gonzales Battle flags as themes “indicative of militia violent extremism.”

“Director Wray, what are you all doing?” Cruz asked. “This makes no sense. Do you agree with this FBI guidance that the Betsy Ross flag and the Gadsden flag and the Gonzales Battle flag are signs of militia violent extremism?”

“Senator, I am not familiar with the document behind you and I’m not in the practice of trying to comment on a document that I haven’t recognized. But, I will tell you that when we put out intelligence products, including ones that reference symbols which we do across a wide variety of context, we usually make great pains to put caveats and warnings in the document that make clear that a symbol alone is not considered evidence of violent extremism.”