After being threatened with a “contempt of Congress” vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray has finally caved and agreed to hand over a subpoenaed informant file alleging that Joe Biden engaged in a $5 million bribery scheme while he was vice president.
As Just The News reports, Congressman James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, announced on Friday that the long sought-after memo will be available for all lawmakers to study on Monday. The FD-1023 in question, filed by an FBI informant in June of 2020, claims that Biden actively tried to change U.S. foreign policy in exchange for a $5 million payment to his family’s business by an unknown foreign country or entity.
After the document’s existed was first revealed by a whistleblower’s congressional testimony, Chairman Comer used the power of the subpoena to demand that the FBI hand it over. But the bureau repeatedly refused to hand it over, citing security and privacy concerns. Only after Comer threatened to arrange a “contempt of Congress” vote for Wray did the FBI director finally relent, after weeks of stonewalling.
“Chairman Comer will receive a briefing from the FBI and review the document on Monday,” the Oversight Committee said in a statement. “Chairman Comer has been clear that anything short of producing the FD-1023 form to the House Oversight Committee is not compliance with his subpoena. This unclassified record contains pages of details that need to be investigated further by the House Oversight Committee.”
Meanwhile, the FBI released its own statement on the matter, claiming that it had always sought cooperation with Congress: “Director Wray offered to provide the Committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member an opportunity to review information responsive to the subpoena in a secure manner to accommodate the committee, while protecting the confidentiality and safety of sources and important investigative sensitivities.”
“The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to working with the Committee to accommodate its request, from scheduling briefings and calls to now allowing the Chair to review information in person,” the statement continued. “The FBI remains committed to cooperating with the Committee in good faith.”
But nevertheless, the bureau continued to insist that the document did not necessarily prove the allegations made within, claiming that such FD-1023 forms are “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting by a confidential human source. Documenting the information does not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information verified by the FBI.”