Former Attorney General Bill Barr rejected claims made by Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) that an investigation into allegations of bribery involving Joe Biden was closed down under Barr’s jurisdiction.
Raskin claimed that the investigation into allegations that Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a foreign national was concluded after no grounds were found for escalation. According to Raskin, this decision was reached by a team of prosecutors appointed by Barr and led by Scott Brady, U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania.
Barr, however, refuted these statements, insisting that the investigation was not halted but transferred to Delaware for further examination. He also contradicted Raskin’s assertion that the allegations were tied to information regarding Biden family corruption in Ukraine discovered by Rudy Giuliani.
An individual familiar with the investigation confirmed that the allegations were unrelated to Giuliani’s information and were based on an FD-1023 form from the FBI’s confidential human source (CHS), independent of Giuliani’s contributions. The controversy surrounding this FD-1023 form forms the basis for two significant scandals.
The first scandal is the purported failure of the FBI to properly investigate the allegations, with accusations that the FBI deliberately discredited the information to halt investigative activity. This suppression of information was compounded by the FBI’s decision to limit access to this information to only specific agents who uncovered the CHS’s claims.
The second scandal implicates FBI Director Christopher Wray in a potential cover-up. While it is not clear whether Wray was aware of the FBI’s mislabeling of the FD-1023 information, the attempt to frame the information as deriving from Giuliani, and the misrepresentation of the status of the investigation, suggest a coordinated effort to obfuscate the truth.
These revelations have resulted in increasing demands for transparency from the FBI. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) insisted on the need for the FBI to demonstrate their work to restore their credibility, while House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) warned of potential action against Director Wray for contempt of Congress if the FBI failed to produce the record to the House Oversight Committee. Wray eventually folded in the face of congressional pressure, and has stated his intention to provide the relevant documents to the full committee for review.
