House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has revived a request for access to an FBI form that allegedly details a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden after the agency failed to comply with a subpoena that was issued earlier this month.
In a letter sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, Comer accused the agency of interfering with the committee’s investigation by failing to produce key documents and information related to Biden’s conduct during the Obama administration. The letter comes after Wray failed to comply with Comer’s subpoena to hand over the materials by May 10.
SENATE ADJOURNS FOR RECESS AS BIDEN-MCCARTHY DEBT LIMIT ROW HITS CRITICAL IMPASSE
“The FBI’s delay in producing a single, unclassified record is unacceptable,” Comer said in a statement. “The information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national. The FBI must provide this record to Congress without further delay. The American people demand the truth and accountability for any wrongdoing. That starts with getting this record.”
Comer issued the subpoena in conjunction with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on May 3, demanding access to an FBI-generated FD-1023 form they say details an exchange of money between Biden and a foreign national that may have influenced U.S. policy decisions. The two Republicans were tipped off about the document’s existence by a whistleblower, although it remains unclear what wrongdoing Biden is being accused of conducting.
The FBI responded to the subpoena by sending the committee a letter describing background information and “programmatic issues related to confidential human source reporting,” according to Comer. However, the agency failed to provide access to the FD-1023 form.
FBI officials offered to meet with committee members to discuss how they could allow staff members to view the form without posing national security risks. The agency met with Oversight members on Monday, but FBI officials did not produce the form during that meeting, Comer said.
“Most troubling, the FBI staff stated they were not authorized to disclose whether the FD-1023 form exists,” Comer wrote in his letter to Wray. “In lieu of producing the subpoenaed document, FBI staff proposed a second meeting with different FBI employees to provide a briefing regarding confidential human source reporting. Committee counsel agreed to the second meeting but called into question whether the FBI was acting in good faith given its refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the FD-1023 form at issue.”
The FBI is scheduled to meet with the committee again on Monday.
The subpoena is the latest development in House Republicans’ investigations into the president’s family and their business dealings, which became a focal point of their agenda after taking control of the lower chamber earlier this year. Many of these investigations have focused specifically on the president’s son Hunter.
The matter first took prominence during the 2020 election as the GOP sought to determine whether then-candidate Joe Biden benefited financially from his son’s transactions, pointing to national security concerns.
The Oversight Committee has made that a high priority in recent months, with Comer leading investigations into the Bidens’ business dealings “to determine if the Biden family has been targeted by foreign actors, if President Biden is compromised, and if there is a national security threat,” he wrote.
The panel has obtained thousands of documents detailing the family’s financial records and business transactions, including one report that showed the Bidens’ received more than $1 million from a Chinese company through a third party from 2015 to 2017.
Grassley has also raised concerns about political bias affecting high-level investigations at the FBI, especially after the release of the Durham report last week.
The Durham report detailed the FBI’s investigation into alleged links between the Russian government and then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. The report ultimately concluded the investigation was inherently flawed as there was no proper basis to conduct it in the first place, and it also found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign played an outsize role in pushing collusion claims to the media and to the FBI.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The FBI’s well-documented failures in politically sensitive investigations have eroded public confidence over the past few years,” Grassley said. “Just a few days ago, the Durham Report found that the FBI relied on unverified and inaccurate information as the foundation of its debunked Russia collusion probe.”
“The FBI needs to take steps to restore public confidence,” he added. “Flouting a legitimate congressional subpoena and dodging oversight is no way to rebuild the public trust. The FBI’s credibility is on the line, and their continued failure to cooperate will have long-lasting consequences.”