A top Republican senator is pressing FBI Director Christopher Wray on the “deeply rooted political infection” within the bureau, demanding answers about allegations that the FBI wrongly labeled evidence about Hunter Biden as “disinformation” in 2020.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Wray in a letter that since the end of May, he has written him three letters “regarding political bias that has infected the FBI’s Washington Field Office.” He said two of the letters “provided specific and credible allegations based on numerous whistleblowers that have approached my office with information that one can only conclude is indicative of a deeply rooted political infection that has spread to investigative activity into former President Trump and Hunter Biden.”
Whistleblower allegations emerged last month that FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened an assessment in Aug. 2020 which was used by FBI headquarters to wrongly label accurate information about President Joe Biden’s son as false, according to disclosures made public by Grassley.
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“The FBI has not refuted these serious allegations,” Grassley told Wray. “Thus far, the FBI has failed to address the concerns that I’ve raised and failed to produce the requested records.”
Because of the FBI’s “failure to respond to my legitimate oversight requests,” the senator said he wanted Wray to provide him with a “comprehensive organization chart” for the Washington Field Office so that the senator could better understand staffing and leadership at the field office. He asked the FBI director to hand the chart over by the end of the month.
The federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden is being handled by Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
Grassley pointed to Wray’s early August testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which the senator had asked him if it is standard practice for the FBI to share potential criminal information with the relevant U.S. attorney’s office.
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“My expectation is that when a particular office has the lead, both the U.S. attorney’s office and the relevant FBI field office, that if other offices come across that information — information that’s relevant to that — we want to make sure those tips and leads are passed to the responsible office,” Wray replied.
Grassley called this “just one example of how this political bias impacts investigations” in his new letter.
“How can verified and verifiable information relating to Hunter Biden’s potential criminality be shared with U.S. Attorney Weiss if it is shut down?” Grassley asked Wray. “How can the Hunter Biden criminal investigation be full and complete if the FBI improperly shut down verified and verifiable information and sourcing relating to potential criminal activity? How can Congress and the American people trust the results?”
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Wray told the Senate this month that he “found it deeply troubling” when he read Grassley’s letter about the whistleblower allegations.
Other senior members of the Republican Party have also said they believe a double standard was on display with the DOJ’s handling of its investigation into Hunter Biden compared to the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
