The FBI and Justice Department under then-Attorney General William P. Barr reviewed allegations from a confidential informant about Joe Biden and his family, and they determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other people familiar with the investigation.
After the two lawmakers reviewed the document in a secure area on Capitol Hill on Monday, Comer announced that House Republicans would still pursue holding FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in contempt of Congress.
“Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand answers, transparency and accountability,” Comer told reporters.
According to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive information, the allegation in the document came to the FBI through the Pittsburgh field office, where Barr had created a channel for allegations involving Ukraine. That included materials Rudy Giuliani — who was then President Donald Trump’s personal attorney — had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about Biden and his family.
The allegation contained in the document was reviewed by the FBI at the time and was found to not be supported by facts, and the investigation was subsequently dropped with the Trump Justice Department’s sign-off, according to the people familiar with the investigation.
Comer and Raskin offered disparate accounts of their meeting with the FBI. Comer in a written statement said FBI officials told the lawmakers “that the unclassified, FBI-generated record has not been disproven.” Raskin said in a statement that DOJ officials signed off on closing the assessment of the information, “having found no evidence” to corroborate the allegations.
The FBI did not confirm Comer’s account of the meeting, but called his pursuit of a contempt vote “unwarranted.”
“The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to accommodate the committee’s request, including by producing the document in a reading room at the U.S. Capitol,” the FBI said in a statement. “This commonsense safeguard is often employed in response to congressional requests and in court proceedings to protect important concerns, such as the physical safety of sources and the integrity of investigations. The escalation to a contempt vote under these circumstances is unwarranted.”
Comer, who is leading the House Republicans’ probe into the Biden family’s finances, has raised questions about business dealings between foreign entities and Hunter Biden when his father was vice president, but he has yet to unearth evidence of illegal activity or any that directly implicates the elder Biden. He initially sought contempt proceedings because Wray resisted turning the document in question over to Congress in response to a subpoena. Comer said he plans to pursue a contempt vote after the FBI made the document available, because the FBI would not give the committee the document even though it is not classified.
