House Republicans attack Biden and his family after viewing FBI document

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday doubled down on their attacks on President Joe Biden and his family after viewing a closed-door document that remains secret.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee emerged from a secure room on Capitol Hill, known as SCIF, after viewing Form FD-1023 brought by the FBI, and continued to accuse Biden and members of his family of bribes and corruption.

As part of the investigation, however, Republican lawmakers repeatedly released financial documents that failed to prove any of these charges.

The FBI and a prosecutor looked into the allegation when it was made in 2020, a senior law enforcement official said last week. The bribery allegation, however, was not substantiated, the official said.

Previous descriptions of the document by Republicans said it allegedly contained an unverified allegation from a human source that Biden, when he was vice president, was involved in a bribery scheme involving a foreign national. House Republicans on Thursday called the allegation “credible” and “legitimate.” Representatives Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, claimed the human source had been a paid FBI informant for several years.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Said Biden was “100% guilty” of corruption.

Democratic members of the committee also viewed the document on Thursday, but none chose to make public statements afterward.

In a statement Wednesday, Raskin said the FBI team that briefed him and Comer on Monday said “the team of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents under the direction of U.S. Attorney Scott Brady determined that there was no reason to escalate their investigation from an initial assessment of the allegations raised by Rudy Giuliani to a preliminary or full investigation and was therefore dismissed.

A memo on Wednesday from Ian Sams, special assistant to the president and White House oversight, said he didn’t fall for Comer’s “stunts” and said he and his committee “spent six months wasting taxpayers’ resources staging politically motivated stunts in disguise”. as “surveys”.

For the next step in their investigation, Republicans on the Oversight Committee said they plan to subpoena the records of two banks. They said they also plan to request additional documents and ask the FBI to release the document they viewed.

Originally, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., planned to file contempt of Congress proceedings Thursday against FBI Director Christopher Wray over the group’s efforts to acquire the form FBI FD-1023. He canceled that plan on Wednesday, however, after the FBI offered members the chance to see a redacted version of the document on Thursday.

Two Republicans, Biggs and Luna, said after viewing the form Thursday that contempt is still on the table for Wray. “The FBI director wanted to play games and he was trying to taunt us saying he was not going to allow members of House Oversight to see this document. So we’re not taking contempt of Congress off the table, to be clear. If they do that, he will be dealt with accordingly,” Luna said.

Comer subpoenaed the FBI last month over the document, which he and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, alleged ‘describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national regarding the exchange money for political decisions. Comer said the scheme involved a $5 million payment of a foreign national in exchange for a political result.

The FBI declined to provide the document, saying it is bound by Justice Department policy, which “strictly limits when and how confidential human source information may be provided outside of the FBI.”

Democrats on the committee rejected the GOP’s attacks on Biden. Earlier this week, ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said: “Comer’s actions prove that his interest in issuing this subpoena was never to seek the truth, but always to weaponize the powers of this committee.”

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com

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