Raw Story has previously reported that Comer and Grassley are seeking any information the FBI has containing the words "Biden" and "$5 million." They insist that there are documents, though the FBI has been reluctant to hand over anything over.
CBS News reported Thursday that Comer said in a statement: "FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national."
The FBI generally doesn't turn over raw intelligence like this. An FD-1023 is nothing more than a form that an FBI agent uses when they're taking a statement from someone giving them information. It suggests the source with information about Biden called someone at the DOJ or FBI, someone wrote down the report, and it would be filed as something to investigate.
According to the CNN report, that interview "has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020, people briefed on the matter said."
Writing his autobiography, former Attorney General Bill Barr had blamed Giuliani, saying he was the "man who helped President Trump get himself impeached—not once but, as it turned out, twice."
"I’d worried that Giuliani was an unguided missile, and Ukraine, a morass of misinformation," Barr also wrote. "I was determined to steer the department clear of them as best I could and, if we had to deal with them at all, do so with the utmost caution."
Barr later wrote that during the first Trump impeachment, "Giuliani embarked on yet another round of grandstanding. He went about claiming he had compiled significant evidence relating to the Bidens that he wanted to present to the Justice Department. While anyone is free to present evidence to the DOJ, the fact Giuliani was making such a public display obviously made his motives suspect."
He said that Giuliani tried a tactic of "giving just enough evidence to law enforcement to have some allegation investigated, then claiming one’s adversary was 'being investigated.'"
According to the FBI, the only information that appears to be available is the FD-1023. So, Comer and Grassley could obtain the document and use it to say the FBI had allegations they were investigating into a Biden bribery claim. The FBI has been reluctant to play ball.
TIME Magazine reported in June 2021 that Russian foreign agents called Giuliani "useful" to undermine the 2020 election.
Andriy Derkach, who was indicted in Dec. 2022 as an active Russian agent, confessed that in the fall of 2019, "he gained access to Trump's inner circle through Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal lawyer. He then provided Giuliani with documents purporting to show that Joe Biden and his family were involved in corruption.
"After their first meeting, Derkach even posted a photo of himself with Giuliani on Facebook, mugging for the camera as they exchanged a stack of documents. In the months before Election Day, he released a series of secret recordings of Biden pressuring top Ukrainian officials to fight corruption. The source of those tapes remains a mystery to this day."
The report also noted that Grassley, along with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)," used some of Giuliani's material in their investigation of the Biden family." The report never made it clear whether the information was given to them by Giuliani or directly from Derkach, but a congressional watchdog group requested information on the matter the year after.
Christopher Dunham, acting assistant director for the Bureau's Office of Congressional Affairs, penned a letter May 10 that the FBI avoids "revealing information — including unverified or incomplete information — that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public. Often, even confirming the fact of the existence (or nonexistence) of an investigation or a particular piece of investigative information can risk these serious harms."
