Republicans should tread lightly with the latest FD-1023 revelations concerning Joe Biden, finding corroboration for the bombshell allegations contained inside and obtaining verification of the claims.
Seeking Corroboration on Joe Biden
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, noted earlier this week that the document contained an allegation that President Joe Biden had taken a $5 million bribe from the corrupt Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. He also stated that a Burisma executive had 17 recordings of the Bidens’ dealings with the firm, including two with Joe Biden.
“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden.”
Grassley continued: “The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden … The Justice Department and FBI must show their work … They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
Congress only obtained the document after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.
Not All Informants Are Reliable
Recent experience with the Russiagate investigation shows that a trusted informant is not always reliable.
The Durham Report noted that Igor Danchenko was a trusted informant who was later acquitted on four counts of lying to the FBI. Danchenko’s tips about former President Donald Trump proved to be bogus. That is not to say that all information from Confidential Human Sources (CHS) is unreliable.
Other reports showed that mobster-turned-informant Whitey Bulger, the uncle of Hunter Biden’s business partner and Biden family associate James Bulger, had grown so close to his FBI handler that the handler tipped the mobster off before his arrest. This sparked a review of the FBI informant program by the attorney general.
Corroboration of Allegation Needed
A solid investigation requires doing the hard work of finding sources that independently corroborate sensational accusations. Failing to do so with President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden risks the credibility of the entire investigation as a partisan fishing expedition of the sort that Trump has been subjected to.
The FBI noted in its letter opposing the release of the document that the information contained in the document had not been verified.
“The FBI has a long history of rebuffing, delaying, and refusing congressional requests for information,” Mike German, a former FBI special agent, and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and national security program, told The Intercept. “Obviously, there are some good reasons to withhold information regarding active investigations, investigations not resulting in an indictment, grand jury investigations, and source identification, but they have long abused this privilege to withhold information that’s merely embarrassing to the bureau.”
Democrats have expressed skepticism that the Trump administration had actionable information about Biden during the 2020 election and question why it is being brought out now, The Intercept reports.
German noted that the FBI had also rebuffed requests from Democratic members to get answers; consequently, the effort had more of an institutional effort by the bureau to evade congressional oversight.
More Subpoenas Likely
The FD-1023 references two additional 1023 forms; consequently, further subpoenas are likely as Congress looks to get to the bottom of the case.
Comer vowed Monday that he would gain access to those documents.
“I read [the 1023] again and realized that there were two footnotes in there that referenced other 1023, so I think this is going to turn out a lot like the suspicious activity reports that the Treasury … had on the Bidens. There’s a lot more of these than the federal government wants to admit,” Comer told Trey Gowdy on Fox News. “The question is why hasn’t the federal government done anything about it.
He continued: “We know … that the Biden family had more than 20 shell companies that the sole purpose was to launder money through six different banks, and the banks called it money laundering.”
John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
From 19FortyFive
Donald Trump Is Starting to Scare Everyone
