More more than 40 confidential sources provided “criminal information” in connection with Biden family at the FBI – which the Justice Department tried to discredit as “foreign disinformation,” according to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.
The confidential human sources, managed by several FBI field offices, provided the bureau with details about potential crimes committed by Hunter Biden, James Biden and Joe Biden dating back to his time as vice president, according to a letter obtained by The Post, which was sent Tuesday by the Iowa Republican to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“This letter is based on years of investigation, including the provision of information, records and allegations from multiple Department of Justice whistleblowers that indicate there is – and there has been – an effort by some Justice Department and FBI officials to unjustifiably delay and stop conducting full investigative activity on the Biden family,” Grassley wrote.
“A key question to answer is: Did the FBI investigate the information or shut it down? Indeed, if these sources were inappropriately closed, it would not be unusual for the FBI,” he added.
“Based on information provided to my office over the years by several credible whistleblowers, there appears to be an effort within the Department of Justice and the FBI to end investigative activities relating to the family Biden,” Grassley continued. “Such decisions demonstrate significant political bias that infects the decision-making process of not only the Attorney General and the FBI Director, but also operational agents and prosecutors. »
The senator notes that the whistleblowers’ allegations claimed that the office received information about the “criminal and related financial activities” of his first son, Hunter Biden, in 2020, but that he “ultimately shut it down on the basis of false claims that he was subject to foreign disinformation.”
The Misinformation Rating was created by Brian Auten, FBI surveillance intelligence analystaccording to Grassley, who explains that the report was used by “a team at FBI headquarters to unduly discredit Hunter Biden’s negative information as misinformation and caused investigative activities to be shut down.”
“The precise basis on which the FBI Headquarters team selected the specific information to include in the evaluation of Auten is unknown, but the FBI Headquarters team’s focus involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley also cited a whistleblower’s claims that FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault — the bureau’s head “point man” on Hunter Biden’s business partner Tony Bobulinski — ordered another 2020 investigation into the first son’s alleged “criminal and related financial activities” to be closed after pressure from “an element of FBI headquarters and FBI of Baltimore.
The senator further revealed that in December 2019, the FBI’s Washington Field Office filed a “205B” kleptocracy case against Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings – at the same time, Hunter Biden’s seat on the Burisma board was under scrutiny due to the impeachment of former President Donald Trump following his infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s role in the firing of former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
The investigation into Zlochevsky had been ongoing since January 2016, according to Grassley, and was being investigated by a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act team based at the FBI’s Washington field office.
An FBI informant alleged in June 2020 that Zlochevsky outlined $10 million bribery allegation against Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, who was memorialized on an FBI Form FD-1023.
The tipster recalled that Zlochevsky claimed in a 2016 meeting that “it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden and 5 (million) to another Biden,” according to the redacted Form FD-1023.
After the kleptocracy case against Zlochevsky was closed, Grassley says, a “guardian” evaluation was opened by the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office to analyze information about the Biden family provided by Rudy Giuliani, during which the DOJ and FBI officials located an FD-1023 from March. 2017 linked to closed Zlochevsky probe.
The 2017 document contained a reference to Hunter Biden’s presence on Burisma’s board of directors, which “the processing agent deemed at the time to be irrelevant information to the ongoing criminal financial matter,” according to Grassley.
“When this FD-1023 was discovered, Department of Justice and FBI officials requested the handler of the confidential human source to re-interview this CHS,” Grassley writes, noting that the re-interview led to the creation of the FD-1023. 1023 of June 2020. containing the corruption allegations against the Bidens.
During the guardian evaluation, conducted by the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, investigators were “limited in their investigative abilities,” according to Grassley, because it was only an “assessment.”
The Iowan claims Auten and the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force worked to ‘falsely discredit’ corruption allegations in August 2020 as ‘foreign disinformation’ and ‘attempted to stop’ further stages of investigation.
“It should be emphasized that the reasons for the Biden family’s attempted shutdown of 1023 have been described to my office as highly suspect and are contradicted by other documents that my office learned existed within the task force on Foreign Influence, from the FBI Seattle Field Office. FBI Baltimore Field Office and FBI Headquarters Assets,” notes Grassley.
The Pittsburgh assessment was closed in September 2020 and its findings were sent to the Department of Justice by Scott Brady, then the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Brady’s report recommended that “additional investigative activities be conducted” into Biden’s corruption allegations.
“Notably, my office has been informed that regarding CHS in the Biden 1023 family, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania has coordinated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in 2020 and found no answers. to known sources of Russian disinformation,” Grassley wrote, adding that the information was passed to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss – the prosecutor overseeing the DOJ’s five-year criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, which is ongoing .
Grassley demanded a response to his letter from the FBI and DOJ by November 17.
