The FBI refused to hand over a bureau form allegedly describing a “criminal scheme” involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and an unnamed “foreign national” after Rep. James Comer (R-KY) issued a subpoena with a Wednesday noon deadline.
Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, described the reasoning behind the subpoena in a letter sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland last week. The letter, written jointly with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), sought FBI information on a confidential informant who alleged an unspecified pay-to-play scheme by the now-president.
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“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 told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. 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.”
The FBI sent Comer a six-page letter on Wednesday afternoon, arguing that “as is clear from the name itself, confidentiality is definitional to the FBI’s Confidential Human Source program” and that “significant harm to investigative work — and to the program as a whole — could result from dissemination of FD-1023s or other similar documents.” An FD-1023 form is a document the FBI uses to record interviews with confidential human sources.
The bureau added that “often, even confirming the fact of the existence (or nonexistence) of an investigation or a particular piece of investigative information can risk these serious harms” and called it “standard practice for law enforcement agencies to decline to confirm or deny” the existence of the requested document.
“We have received legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures,” Comer and Grassley told Wray and Garland last week. “Based on those disclosures, it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation 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. It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.”
Comer’s subpoena to Wray specifically asked the FBI director to hand over “all FD-1023 forms, including within any open, closed, or restricted case files, created or modified in June 2020, containing the term ‘Biden,’ including all accompanying attachments and documents to those FD-1023 forms” by noon on Wednesday.
“I believe we submitted a lengthy letter earlier today,” Wray told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday afternoon after being asked about the subpoena compliance or lack thereof by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), who then pressed Wray on whether the requested document had been turned over.
“I can’t speak to the specific document,” Wray replied. “We are committed to working collaboratively with both committees. But we also have to balance sources and methods and ongoing investigations, and we will continue to work through the accommodation process as has happened many times in the past.”
Hagerty asked if the FBI has a plan ever to turn over the subpoenaed record, and Wray replied, “I would refer to the letter, which I think is quite detailed and kind of goes through a fair amount of discussion about our proposed approach.”
When asked for confirmation at least that the document exists, Wray replied, “I really can’t get into the specifics here. I will tell you that we understand completely the importance of congressional oversight — that’s important to me. I also understand very much the importance of protecting sources and methods and ongoing investigations.”
Comer discussed the subpoena during a Wednesday morning press conference in which he revealed new details on business dealings by Hunter Biden and Biden family associates in China and Romania.
“We hope the FBI will be transparent and forthcoming and provide the Oversight Committee with the 1023 form we have subpoenaed,” Comer said, adding that the tip came from a trusted whistleblower and that “when Sen. Grassley approached me with the information the whistleblower provided, it was because of the information we’ve learned through this committee’s own investigation that indicated to me that the whistleblower’s allegations are consistent with our independent findings.”
Grassley had sent an October letter to Wray and others that the FBI is in possession of “significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence” of “potential criminal conduct” by Hunter Biden related to his overseas business dealings with China and Ukraine.
The whistleblower allegations released late last year related to Hunter Biden as well as James Biden, the president’s brother, regarding the duo’s dealings with the Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. They also related to the younger Biden’s work for Ukrainian gas giant Burisma Holdings. Grassley said his staff “reviewed the unclassified records” supporting the whistleblower claims.
Grassley said Wednesday that Wray’s response raises additional questions and that the public is entitled to answers.
“While the FBI has failed to produce the specific document by the subpoena deadline, their offer to provide an accommodation process in response to our legitimate request indicates the document is real,” Grassley said in a statement. “So the question remains, what did the FBI do to investigate very serious allegations from an apparent trusted FBI source implicating then-Vice President Biden?”
Last year, on the China front, Grassley cited Tony Bobulinski, a Navy veteran and former business associate of Hunter Biden, who went to the FBI in October 2020 to detail the Biden family’s efforts to do business in China. Grassley said at the time it was unclear whether the FBI opened up an investigation based on the information.
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CEFC is a now-defunct multibillion-dollar Chinese company founded by Ye Jianming, a business tycoon who has since disappeared in China but with whom Hunter and James Biden had attempted to work out numerous deals and resulting in the duo receiving millions of dollars.
On Ukraine, Grassley said last year that he had been provided potential evidence of criminality tied to Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma, which reportedly paid Hunter Biden $50,000 a month to serve on its board for a period when his father was vice president.
