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On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports,” NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian stated that FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas ducked testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee — which, according to Committee Chairman Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), is the first time the Director and Secretary have avoided testifying in over 15 years — because “these congressional hearings are very unpleasant for them. They get grilled by members of both parties on all sorts of issues. They even get death threats, in some cases, after these hearings.”

Dilanian said, “It is fairly shocking, Ana, in part because this hearing had been planned for weeks, and it was only on Monday that these two top officials decided that they weren’t going to testify in public. And they did so both on the House version of this hearing and the Senate version. And it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. These two men are not expected to continue for very much longer in their jobs, and these congressional hearings are very unpleasant for them. They get grilled by members of both parties on all sorts of issues. They even get death threats, in some cases, after these hearings. And so, they are choosing not to appear in public.”

He continued, “Now, the FBI is saying in a statement to us that they have provided lots of information in public settings over the last year about all kinds of threats, and that’s true. But this was a chance for the taxpayers to hear from these people who work for them about significant threats facing the nation, and they’re not going to get that chance.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett