More than 40 confidential sources provided “criminal information” related to the Biden family to the FBI — which the Justice Department tried to discredit as “foreign disinformation,” according to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.
The confidential human sources, managed by several different FBI field offices, supplied the bureau with details of potential crimes by Hunter Biden, James Biden and Joe Biden dating back to his time as vice president, according to a letter, obtained by The Post, that was sent by the Iowa Republican to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday.
“This letter is based on years of investigation, including the provision of information, records, and allegations from multiple Justice Department whistleblowers that indicate there is – and has been – an effort among certain Justice Department and FBI officials to improperly delay and stop full and complete investigative activity into the Biden family,” Grassley wrote.
“An essential question that must be answered is this: did the FBI investigate the information or shut it down? Indeed, if those sources were improperly shut down, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the FBI,” he added.
“Based on the information provided to my office over a period of years by multiple credible whistleblowers, there appears to be an effort within the Justice Department and FBI to shut down investigative activity relating to the Biden family,” Grassley continued. “Such decisions point to significant political bias infecting the decision-making of not only the Attorney General and FBI Director, but also line agents and prosecutors.”
The senator notes whistleblower allegations claimed that the bureau received information about first son Hunter Biden’s “criminal financial and related activity” in 2020, but “ultimately shut it down based on false assertions that it was subject to foreign disinformation.”
The disinformation assessment was created by FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, according to Grassley, who explains that the report was used by ”an FBI HQ team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.”
“The precise basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley also citeed whistleblower claims that FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault – the bureau’s “point man” on Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski – ordered that another 2020 probe into the first son’s alleged “criminal financial and related activity” be closed after pressure from “an FBI HQ and FBI Baltimore element.”
The senator further revealed that in December 2019, the FBI Washington Field Office closed a “205B” kleptocracy case into Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings – at the same time Hunter Biden’s seat on Burisma’s board of directors was under heavy scrutiny as a result of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment over his infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump had asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s role in the firing of former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
The probe into Zlochevsky had been ongoing since January 2016, according to Grassley, and was being investigated by a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act squad based out of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
An FBI informant alleged in June 2020 that Zlochevsky described a $10 million bribery allegation against Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, which was memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 form.
The informant recalled Zlochevsky claiming during a 2016 meeting that “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden,” according to the redacted FD-1023 form.
After the kleptocracy case into Zlochevsky was closed, Grassley says, a “guardian” assessment was opened by the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office to analyze information about the Biden family provided by Rudy Giuliani, during which DOJ and FBI officials located an FD-1023 from March 2017 related to the closed Zlochevsky probe.
The 2017 document contained a reference to Hunter Biden being on the board of Burisma, which “the handling agent deemed at the time non-relevant information to the ongoing criminal financial case,” according to Grassley.
“When that FD-1023 was discovered, Justice Department and FBI officials asked the handler for the Confidential Human Source to re-interview that CHS,” Grassley writes, noting that the re-interview led to the creation of the June 2020 FD-1023 containing the bribery allegations against the Bidens.
During the guardian assessment, run out of the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office, investigators were “limited in their investigative abilities,” according to Grassley, because it was only an “assessment.”
The Iowan claims that Auten and the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force worked to “falsely discredit” the bribery allegations in August 2020 as “foreign disinformation” and “attempted to shut down” further investigative steps.
“It should be emphasized that the basis for trying to shut down the Biden family 1023 has been described to my office as highly suspect and is contradicted by other documents my office has been told exist within the Foreign Influence Task Force, FBI Seattle Field Office, FBI Baltimore Field Office, and FBI HQ holdings,” Grassley notes.
The Pittsburgh assessment was closed in September 2020 with its findings sent to the Justice Department by Scott Brady, then the US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Brady’s report recommended that “additional investigative activity be done” on Biden bribery allegations.
“Notably, my office has been informed that, with respect to the CHS in the Biden family 1023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania coordinated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in 2020 and found no hits to known sources of Russian disinformation,” Grassley wrote, adding that the information was transmitted to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss – the prosecutor overseeing the DOJ’s five-year-long criminal probe into Hunter Biden, which is ongoing.
Grassley demanded a response to his letter from the FBI and DOJ by Nov. 17.
