The FBI has reportedly declined to provide Congress with a file containing allegations that then Vice President Biden accepted bribes, according to reports, setting up a potential battle for access to the information. The FBI was supposed to hand over the file by Wednesday afternoon but missed the deadline.
After the deadline passed, James Comer, R-Kentucky, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, accused the FBI of "refusing" to provide the documents to his committee.
Protecting Biden
Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Comer reported this week that a whistleblower has made startling accusations that the FBI has a file outlining an alleged paid-for-access "criminal scheme" involving Joe Biden and an unknown foreign individual when he was vice president.
According to the Republicans, an 'agreement' between Biden and the unknown foreigner for the exchange of money for making policy decisions is detailed on the internal FD-1023 form.
Comer demanded that the FBI return the file by Wednesday noon in response to a legally enforceable subpoena he issued last week. However, the FBI responded with a six-page letter outlining a number of problems.
"Information from confidential human sources is unverified and, by definition, incomplete," wrote Christopher Dunham, acting assistant director for congressional affairs at the FBI. He added that informant reports must also be kept confidential in order to safeguard sources, the New York Post reported.
"As is clear from the name itself, confidentiality is definitional to the FBI's Confidential Human Source program," Dunham wrote. "Confidential human sources often provide information to the FBI at great risk to themselves and their loved ones. The information they provide also can create significant risks to others who may be referenced in their reporting."
"We ... hope this helps you understand that keeping this kind of source information free from the perception or reality of improper influence — and preventing the redirection of this information for non-law enforcement or non-intelligence uses — is necessary for the FBI's effective execution of our law enforcement and national security responsibilities," the letter concluded.
Comer criticized the FBI's obstructionism but did not immediately announce further plans to obtain the material. Congress has the authority to put financial pressure on government entities, use the legal system to compel compliance with its directives, and hold officials in contempt of court.
"It's clear from the FBI's response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the Committee," Comer said.
"We've asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations," he added. "The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI's position is 'trust, but you aren't allowed to verify.' That is unacceptable. We plan to follow up with the FBI and expect compliance with the subpoena."
Hiding Vital Information
The FBI acknowledged to DailyMail.com that it responded to the Republicans on Wednesday, but it disagreed with Grassley's claims that it establishes the existence of the particular document that the Whistleblower said existed.
"An FD-1023 form is used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting by a confidential human source. Documenting the information does not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information verified by the FBI," the rep said.
"Revealing unverified or possibly incomplete information could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputations, create misimpressions in the public, or potentially identify individuals who provide information to law enforcement, placing their physical safety at risk. Information from confidential human sources and members of the public is critical to the work of the FBI and we are also committed to protecting the confidentiality of anyone who comes forward."
Grassley, who informed Comer of the document after receiving a tip from a whistleblower, was the first to report that the FBI had disregarded the court order.
"They didn't give us the unclassified document. They sent us a five or six-page letter that I haven't studied thoroughly yet," Grassley told The New York Post at the Capitol.
"They didn't dispute that it exists — that the document exists or that it is unclassified ... why they haven't given it, I don't know."
The document that the Oversight Committee has subpoenaed is an FD-1023 informant report that was "produced or changed in June 2020′′—months before Biden won the presidency, the outlet reported.
Comer and Grassley stated last week in a letter to the attorney general Merrick Garland and the director of the FBI Christopher Wray, "We have received legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures."
"Based on those disclosures," the Republicans wrote, "it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions."
The FBI refused to hand over the document just hours after Comer held a news conference where he named nine Biden family members who allegedly received foreign income under dubious circumstances including little to no actual work, the New York Post reported.
The Oversight Committee recently obtained bank records from members of the Biden family and examined more than 150 Suspicious Activity Reports submitted by banks to the Treasury Department investigating alleged criminal conduct by the first family and their allies.
According to reports, the federal government has been looking into his son Hunter Biden's foreign income since 2018. On April 26, his lawyers met with Justice Department officials, an indication that a decision on whether to press charges may be forthcoming shortly.
An IRS whistleblower who has been overseeing the tax-fraud investigation against Hunter Biden since early 2020 alerted Congress last month that he wanted to provide information concerning a coverup in the case after making revelations to the inspectors general of the Treasury and Justice Departments.
The long-serving IRS employee can "contradict sworn testimony to Congress" by Attorney General Merrick Garland and demonstrate "examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions," according to a letter from his lawyer Mark Lytle.
Garland stated last week that he still stands by his testimony to Congress on David Weiss, the US Attorney for Delaware, having the authority to charge Hunter on his own even if the offenses took place outside of the First State.
Weiss is a veteran of the Trump administration who was nominated for his position by Delaware's two Democratic senators in 2017.
Uncertainty exists around whether authorities are still considering charging Hunter with money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Hunter admitted he was under investigation for tax fraud shortly after his father won the 2020 election, and he reportedly borrowed about $2 million last year to pay off back taxes — though doing so doesn't legally absolve him of the original non-payment.
Detractors claim Hunter violated FARA registration standards in part because of his work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which paid him up to $1 million per year.
