In an effort to avoid a contempt vote, the FBI agreed to permit members of the House Oversight Committee to review an unclassified informant file that allegedly links President Joe Biden to a $5 million bribery scheme. This happened just eleven hours before the House Oversight Committee would assemble to vote on holding FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress.
As a result, on Wednesday evening James Comer, Oversight and Accountability Committee canceled the scheduled Thursday morning vote, to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt. The FBI, In exchange, finally agreed to allow the members to review the document.
This was a demand on which Comer insisted, from nearly the beginning of the over month-long negotiations. The committee stated in a press release-
“After weeks of refusing to even admit the FD-1023 record exists,”… “the FBI has caved and is now allowing all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to review this unclassified record that memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden.” …and…
“Allowing all Oversight Committee members to review this record is an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people,”
-House Oversight and Accountability Committee Statement
After reviewing an FBI FD-1023 form that documented an informant’s allegations of an alleged bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) determined to gain access to the document for the whole committee to review. Allegedly, the document claims that, an exchange of money for policy decisions occurred between now-President Joe Biden and a foreign national back when Biden was Vice-President.
According to the New York Times, On Wednesday-
“House Republicans late Wednesday canceled plans to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, after the agency agreed to make available to all members of the Oversight Committee a document containing a years-old unsubstantiated allegation of bribery against President Biden.”
“The decision was a rare dialing back of a concerted effort by House Republicans to target the federal law enforcement agency as they seek to push accusations of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden.”
“Mr. Wray’s team allowed Representative James Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the Oversight Committee, and Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat, to view a redacted copy of the document in a secure area of the Capitol on Monday and briefed them on it for more than an hour.”
“But the F.B.I. declined to allow lawmakers to take copies of the document out of the secure facility or to show them an unredacted version that reveals the name of a longtime bureau informant, arguing such an action could compromise its source and scare other informants from cooperating with the bureau’s investigations.”
-The New York Times
The FBI file, FD-1023 originated from an interview the bureau had conducted with an informant, who is reportedly a “highly credible” FBI source. The informant is said to have a history dating back to the Barack Obama administration. Allegedly, the FBI’s informant file links the then Vice-President Joe Biden, to the family’s business deals in Ukraine. This was revealed on Tuesday, according to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R) KY.
Further, on Tuesday, former Attorney General Bill Barr dispelled the White House and House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin’s (D) MD claim, that the Justice Department had ended the bribery probe. Raskin argued that the Trump administration resolved the informant’s claims, saying the claims “went nowhere”. However in an interview by CNN, Raskin seemed actually rather uninformed regarding the matter. His statements appeared to have been assumptions that were made if the situation.
To address this error, the committee wrote-
“Let’s be clear: the allegations contained within this record are not closed as the White House and Democrats would have the American people believe”… “Former Attorney General Barr confirmed this information was sent to the U.S. Attorney in Delaware for further investigation and the FBI has confirmed it is being used in an ongoing investigation.”
-House Oversight and Accountability Committee Statement
“The truth does not require a majority to prevail, ladies and gentlemen. The truth is its own power. The truth will out. Never forget that”.
-Rush Limbaugh