FBI director Christopher Wray testified he found it “deeply troubling” when he read recent whistleblower allegations that bureau agents had falsely labeled accurate information about Hunter Biden as disinformation during the FBI’s investigation in 2020.
Whistleblower allegations emerged last month that FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened an assessment in August 2020, which was used by FBI headquarters to label accurate information about President Joe Biden’s son as false, according to disclosures made public by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), while a whistleblower said Timothy Thibault, the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time.
2020 FBI BRIEFING BACK IN SPOTLIGHT FOLLOWING HUNTER BIDEN WHISTLEBLOWER ALLEGATIONS
“I want to be very careful not to interfere with ongoing personnel matters,” Wray said when asked about whether this was true by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. “I should say that when I read the letter that describes the kinds of things that you’re talking about, I found it deeply troubling.”
Auten “opened an assessment, which was used by a FBI Headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation,” according to Grassley. “In at least one instance, verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.” A whistleblower also said Thibault “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting,” according to Grassley, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.”
Thibault, who investigated public corruption in the nation’s capital, may have violated the Hatch Act over his social media posts criticizing then-President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2020, according to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz last month.
“The investigation that you’re referring to … is being run out of our Baltimore office working with the Delaware U.S. attorney,” Wray said when asked if Thibault was or is working on the Hunter Biden investigation.
Wray added: “I will tell you that what you’re describing is not representative of the FBI that I see up close every day in this country, where I see patriots working their tails off with tremendous integrity and objectivity.”
Kennedy pressed Wray on his awareness of a number of anti-Trump and anti-Barr social media posts by Thibault.
“I have seen descriptions to that effect,” Wray said in response to one post, and “I can’t sit here and quote chapter and verse on an individual’s social media posts” in response to another. The FBI chief said that “I’m trying to be very careful not to get in the way of ongoing personnel matters.”
The whistleblower disclosures “appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation,” Grassley said last month.
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Auten was involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, interviewing Igor Danchenko, the alleged main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, in 2017. Auten had been referred by Wray for potential disciplinary action following the release of Horowitz’s 2019 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse report, though Wray said those proceedings were slowed down to cooperate with special counsel John Durham’s criminal investigation.
The whistleblower claims came as the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden, who has denied any wrongdoing.
