FBI Biden Document At Heart of Comer Flap Called ‘Second-Hand Hearsay’
Republican's effort to push contempt against Director Wray part of MAGA "lawlessness and disorder," top Democrat says
Unsatisfied with the the FBI's closed briefing Monday, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee plans to move ahead to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress over an FBI document which the top Democrat on Oversight called “second-hand hearsay.”
The controversy is over a so-called “FD-1023,” an FBI document which Republicans claim is evidence of a bribe paid to then-Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for certain policy decisions.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky) and the top Democrat on the panel, Rep Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, were offered a closed opportunity to review the document.
The form does not contain any verified information or confirm any wrongdoing. It simply details a conversation with an informant.
Despite the briefing, Comer said the “FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody” of the committee. “And we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.”
Raskin dismissed the document, and the import Republicans are trying to attach to it.
“The FBI complied with the Oversight majority's demand for us to see this document. We saw the document and the FBI team actually went way beyond showing us the document to explain the historical, prosecutorial, and legal context of the document,” said Raskin, a law professor before getting elected to Congress. “And from that, what I learned was... after Rudy Giuliani surfaced these allegations... the FBI and Department of Justice team under William Barr and Scott Brady in the Western District of Pennsylvania terminated the investigation... said there were no grounds for further investigative steps.
“If there is a complaint, the complaint is with Attorney General William Barr, the Trump Justice Department, and the team the Trump administration appointed to look into it,” Raskin added.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) criticized Republicans for going after Wray, who began his tenure heading up the FBI when Donald Trump was president.
“Well, I think what we have seen is that individuals who pretend to be a party of law and order are really just a party of lawlessness and disorder,” Jeffries said. “… These are people who supported a violent insurrection, where there was an assault not just on the Capitol, but on Capitol Police officers, and they refuse to recognize their service, their bravery, their valor.
“So this is just part of that lawlessness and disorder that I think we have seen coming from far too many extreme MAGA Republicans on the other side of the aisle,” he added. “They want to defund the FBI. They want to investigate FBI agents. Now they want to hold the FBI director in contempt — by the way, an FBI director that was appointed, nominated by Donald Trump.”
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