House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is leading the charge to file a contempt of court proceeding against FBI Director Christopher Wray, a landmark motion that would limit his efforts to compel the agency to hand over a document detailing an unverified tip. .
Comer claims the document contains allegations that then-Vice President Biden accepted a bribe, a claim the White House strongly denies.
The battle over the document has boiled over a GOP frustration with the FBI, leaving Wray al center of the struggle and subject to a contempt hearing slated for Thursday morning.
An hour-and-a-half briefing Monday that gave lawmakers a chance to review the document did little to slow Comer’s push for contempt, as he and ranking member Jamie Raskin (D- Md.) they left with remarkably different conclusions on the importance of form.
Comer said Wednesday night during an appearance on Fox News that he would go ahead with the hearing, although the FBI offered to let the full committee review the document. Earlier Wednesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said such a bid would undermine the need for contempt.
This is what we know.
What is in the underlying document and who transmitted the tip?
According to Comer, the document contains information related to “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and an alien related to the exchange of money for political decisions.”
Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) first became aware of the tip’s existence after an interview with a witness who approached the Iowa senator. That prompted Comer to issue a May subpoena for any FD-1023 forms (records of interactions with confidential sources) from June 2020 that contain the word “Biden.”
Comer offered more details in an interview Tuesday with NewsMax.
“This particular document with the FBI is about Ukraine,” Comer said, adding later that “Joe Biden played a very active role during the end of the Obama administration in the distribution of foreign aid.” .
Both Comer and Raskin said the tip came from a credible informant the FBI has worked with for years. But the tip relayed information the source heard from someone else.
“There is a confidential human source that the FBI works with who has proven to be very credible, who reported a conversation with someone else. That confidential human source said he had no way of knowing the underlying truth of things what they were telling him,” Raskin said Monday after leaving the briefing.
“That’s why we’re talking about hearsay here.”
What did the FBI do with the information?
The tip, made in 2020, was brought to the attention of then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who appointed Scott Brady, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh at the time, to lead a team to investigate the claim.
Comer and Raskin offered competing insights on next steps, as heard at Monday’s briefing.
Comer said the tip is being used in conjunction with an ongoing probe, though he did not say which one.
“This is just the beginning. This investigation appears to be part of an ongoing investigation, which I assume is in Delaware,” he said.
Raskin appeared surprised by Comer’s claim, saying that whistleblowers said the Justice Department determined the matter did not warrant further investigation after trying to run the tip.
In an additional statement Wednesday, Raskin said the information comes from allegations by former Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said Biden tried to improperly help Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company where his son Hunter Biden served as a member of the council.
“This investigation, which was formally identified as an ‘assessment’ by the FBI, took numerous investigative steps, including reviewing reports of suspicious activity, meeting with Mr. Giuliani, and interviewing Mr. at least one confidential human source. This confidential human source relayed information that he heard from individuals in Ukraine who were memorialized in the FD-1023 format,” Raskin said.
“In August 2020, this evaluation was closed after it was determined that no further investigative steps should be taken and that the evidence collected did not meet the FBI’s standard for opening a preliminary or major investigation scale, meaning that the assessment had not been developed. an articulable factual basis to reasonably indicate that a crime has occurred.”
Raskin’s account aligns with public reports on the matter.
CNN i NBC both reported that Justice Department officials were unable to substantiate the allegations.
The White House has called the investigation a smear campaign.
“This is yet another fact-free stunt by President Comer not to conduct legitimate oversight, but to spread thin innuendo in an attempt to politically damage the president and gain media attention,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for oversight and White House investigations. he said in a statement Monday, referring to a recent media hit for Grassley.
“As Senator Grassley admitted, they don’t care whether the allegations are true or not, which seems even more true now that it has been publicly reported that the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice looked into this claim three years ago. years and found nothing credible.”
How did the FBI respond to the subpoena?
The FBI has been reluctant to physically hand over the document to the panel out of concern for protecting the source’s identity, a case Wray made in a phone call last Wednesday when he spoke with Comer.
The FBI met twice with the committee or its staff before the contempt threat, including a May 22 meeting in which the agency expressed concern about the “chilling effect” it could have of sharing confidential reports and broke FBI policy limiting the sharing of such reports. material
“Confidential sources are critical to the FBI’s ability to build cases, including violent gangs, drug cartels and terrorists,” the agency wrote in a subsequent May 30 letter.
The agency’s fears about releasing the document are not unfounded, as Comer said last week that he would consider sharing the document publicly.
“I think it would help all of you,” Comer said of the media, referring to another investigation that looked into the bank records of Biden’s family business but showed no foreign money flowing directly to Joe Biden.
“We produced bank records and a lot of the media questioned the validity or credibility of our investigation, we actually had the record, so I feel like showing the media the actual 1023 would help with everyone’s quest to write about the proof”. added.
Monday’s briefing, which took place in a secure House facility, was an event where Raskin provided Comer “90 or 95 percent of what was requested, which was the document and all kinds of of answers to questions about the document. Now, it seems the poles have shifted a bit.”
But Comer said he would continue with his contempt plans because “at the briefing, the FBI again refused to release the unclassified record into the custody of the House Oversight Committee.”
“Americans have lost confidence in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law, and partially,” he added.
The FBI stressed Monday that it had worked to accommodate the committee.
“The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to accommodate the committee’s request, even producing the document in a reading room in the U.S. Capitol. This common-sense safeguard is often used in response to requests of Congress and in court proceedings to protect important concerns, such as the physical security of sources and the integrity of investigations,” the agency said in a statement.
“Escalation to a contempt vote in these circumstances is not justified.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the FBI also made an offer for the full committee to review FD-1023, a deal McCarthy suggested Comer should take.
“He needs to show that to every Republican and Democrat on the committee. If he’s willing to do that, he shouldn’t be held in contempt. But if he doesn’t follow through with it, then he should be held in contempt,” McCarthy said.
If the court approves the contempt measure, it will go to the full House for a vote.
The gesture is largely symbolic; Contempt votes serve as a referral to the Justice Department, which is free to act on – or ignore – the suggestion as it sees fit.
