Over the years, we’ve seen Republicans talk a good game about pursuing investigations into Democratic wrongdoing. They often say good things, but then the problem is they don’t hold them to account. We may be seeing something different with this new crop of Republicans, at least when it comes to House Oversight Chair James Comer and the Biden ‘bribery’ from controversy.
As we have reported, Comer has been trying to get the FD-1023 form from the FBI. An FBI whistleblower told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) about the form which allegedly details an exchange of money for policy actions by then Vice President Joe Biden. So Comer subpoenaed the form and any information on what action they had done to investigate the allegations on it.
But the FBI blew off the first deadline of May 10 and gave a response indicating they thought this was just the start of discussions. Then they blew off a May 30 adjusted deadline. Comer then said he would be filing contempt charges against FBI Director Christopher Wray.
On Wednesday, Wray, Comer, and Grassley had a phone call where Wray offered to have them come to FBI headquarters to view the document. But at this point, Comer wasn’t accepting anything but fully complying with his subpoena. He said unless they turned the document over to Congress they weren’t in compliance with his subpoena, so he would be proceeding with the contempt proceedings anyway.
That appears now to have prompted Wray to completely cave on the issue. Wray is now agreeing to turn over the document on Monday to Congress, officials said.
“Chairman Comer will receive a briefing from the FBI and review the document on Monday,” his committee told Just the News 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.”
The FBI confirmed that they would be complying, although they spun their failure to respond and tried to downplay any implications of the form.
“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 bureau said. “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 FBI remains committed to cooperating with the Committee in good faith.”
The bureau also cautioned that 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.
“Revealing unverified or possibly incomplete information could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputations, create misimpressions in the public, or potentially identify individuals who provide information to law enforcement, placing their physical safety at risk,” it added.
So break out the popcorn, we’re about to see the form.
Now if it’s as alleged, it could be a smoking gun.
Given all the stalling they did about turning it over, plus all the spinning about the nature of the form, that further makes it sounds like it’s going to be big. They want to claim that these allegations might not be true. But then, also the big question is what did they do to investigate it? If they didn’t do anything, that’s going to wave the red flag of bias and they have no standing to be talking about whether it’s true or not if they didn’t even bother to investigate it.
So bring it on. It’s about to get interesting.
