In September, Sen. Ossoff launched an inquiry into the FBI’s work to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is continuing his work to protect children in Georgia from abuse.
In a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing this week, Sen. Ossoff pressed FBI Director Christopher Wray to protect children from sexual abuse and strengthen the Bureau’s ability to respond and bring perpetrators to justice.
In September, Sens. Ossoff and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) launched an inquiry with Attorney General Merrick Garland about the FBI’s capacity to investigate and respond to crimes involving child sexual abuse and exploitation.
In a June 2023 report to Congress, the DOJ cited an international threat assessment demonstrating that “the growth in online child sexual exploitation is outpacing our ability to respond.”
“In September, Senator Blackburn and I launched a bipartisan inquiry to understand how FBI’s capacity to investigate child sexual abuse can be augmented, particularly given the alarming and disturbing growth in online child sexual exploitation, concern that the scope of the threat may be outpacing the Bureau’s ability to respond,” Sen. Ossoff said to Director Wray,“and we have not yet received a response to the September 13 letter that we sent to the FBI. Will you please commit to get that back to me in short order?”
FBI Director Wray committed to responding to the inquiry and noted the FBI’s ongoing work to protect children from abuse.
In June, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed Sens. Ossoff and Blackburn’s bipartisan bill to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation.
Earlier this year, Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to strengthen Federal protections against the sexual abuse of children, including online exploitation, passed the U.S. Senate.
Click here to watch Sen. Ossoff’s line of questioning.
Please find a transcript below:
SEN. OSSOFF: “Thank you, Director Wray. In September, Senator Blackburn and I launched a bipartisan inquiry to understand how FBI’s capacity to investigate child sexual abuse can be augmented, particularly given the alarming and disturbing growth in online child sexual exploitation, concern that the scope of the threat may be outpacing the Bureau’s ability to respond. And we have not yet received a response to the September 13 letter that we sent to the FBI. Will you please commit to get that back to me in short order?”
DIRECTOR WRAY: “We’ll certainly get that. I’m not sure the exact timeline, but we’ll of course get you a response to your letter as quickly as we can.
“Certainly, this is an area that’s of great importance, and we, for example, had something called Operation Cross Country, which was a two-week operation that we did all across the country that located you know, something like just in that two-week period 59 child victims of sex trafficking, 59 additional actively missing kids arrested hundreds of predators.
“If you look at the year overall, we’re rescuing thousands of kids from exploitation and rounding up thousands of predators and I am very concerned that if some of the current budget proposals that are swirling around up here were to go into effect, you’d have fewer predators arrested, and fewer kids rescued.”
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