Ranking Member Meng Remarks at Fiscal Year 2026 Federal Bureau of Investigation Budget Hearing

WASHINGTON — CongresswomanGrace Meng (D-NY-06), Ranking Member of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the subcommittee’s fiscal year 2026 budget hearing for the Federal Bureau of Investigation:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity for our subcommittee to examine the work and the budget of one of the subcommittee’s largest agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Director Patel, thank you for being here today and for your testimony. As you know, the work of the FBI is of utmost importance to the safety and security of our local communities and the nation as a whole. The FBI’s dedicated agents, analysts, and other professional staff perform invaluable work at the FBI’s headquarters, field offices, resident agencies, overseas offices, and other critical facilities. 

They protect the American people not just from violent crime in their local communities but from cyberattacks and other threats coming from adversaries outside of the United States. That is why I was very disappointed to see that the fiscal year 2026 budget framework released Friday by the Trump Administration appears to propose cutting the FBI’s operating budget by more than half a billion dollars.

The FBI has in the recent past come under harsh, and I believe, highly unfair, criticism by far too many politicians and political campaign operatives. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration demanded that the FBI provide the Justice Department with a list of all current and former FBI employees who, at any time worked on January 6th-related investigations. The list was demanded to, quote, “determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.” Unquote. These FBI employees are career public servants who were simply doing their jobs.

The Administration has also fired or forced out dozens of experienced career federal prosecutors as well as numerous senior career FBI leaders, including James Dennehy, the highly respected head of the FBI’s New York field office. 

It also isn’t helpful to the FBI, or to federal law enforcement more generally, that other recent actions of the Trump Administration have shown strong disrespect for the law. 

For example, the Administration, including Elon Musk and OMB Director Russ Vought, have made up the existence of an inherent presidential power to impound federal funds—which the Government Accountability Office, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and the Supreme Court of the United States have all rejected. According to calculations by the Appropriations Committee Minority, the Trump Administration is currently freezing at least $430 billion in federal funding that Congress had promised for communities all across America.

This includes 365 DOJ grants recently terminated by the Trump Administration, covering activities across 34 states and two U.S. Territories. These grants were specifically for violence prevention and intervention efforts, services for victims of crime, responses to hate crimes, individuals struggling with substance use disorders, and much more.

In addition, the Administration has initiated a process to restore the gun possession rights of convicted felons and domestic abusers. It has attempted to intimidate law firms through executive orders, and has gutted the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, which has long worked to protect the American people against corruption.

And just this past Sunday, when asked in an interview whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens living in our country deserve due process rights as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, the President answered, quote “I don’t know…I’m not a lawyer.” Unquote.

This is unacceptable. The President and his Administration must always lead by example by obeying and enforcing the United States Constitution and federal laws.

With an annual operating budget of more than $10 billion, it is entirely appropriate that this subcommittee, which provides the FBI with its funding every year, exercises strong oversight over the Bureau, its leadership, and its work. Director Patel, I look forward to your testimony today and to your answers to our questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

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