House Republicans late Wednesday canceled plans to begin contempt of Congress against FBI director Christopher A. Wray after the agency agreed to make available to all members of the Oversight Committee a document containing in it a years-old baseless allegation of bribery against President Biden.
The decision was a rare reversal of a concerted effort by House Republicans to target the federal law enforcement agency as they seek to advance allegations of wrongdoing by Mr Biden.
Mr. Wray’s team allowed Rep. James Comer, Republican of Kentucky and Chairman of the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the leading Democrat, to view a redacted copy of the document in a secure area of the Capitol on Monday and informed them about it for over an hour.
But the FBI refused to allow lawmakers to remove copies of the document from its secure facility or show them an unredacted version that reveals the name of a longtime desk informant, arguing that such action would expose the source. endanger and deter other informants from cooperating. the bureau’s investigations.
That angered Mr. Comer, who scheduled a vote in his committee on Thursday on a resolution to despise Mr. Wray before Congress.
“The FBI has conceded,” said Mr. Comer in a statement Wednesday night, “and now allows all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to view this unclassified document that commemorates a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreigner who allegedly bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden.”
Mr Raskin described the allegations following this week’s briefing as “hearsay”.
“In the spirit of good faith, FBI Chairman Comer has offered further adjustments in response to his subpoena, including to allow all members of the oversight committee to review, behind closed doors, the second-hand allegations of Ukrainian individuals identified on the tip sheet. are listed,” said Mr Raskin. said, adding, “Despising someone in front of Congress is one of the most serious actions our committee can take and it should not be used as a weapon to undermine the FBI”
A person familiar with the internal workings of the agency said Wednesday that the FBI had offered to provide a similar briefing to the full oversight committee as a way of complying with a request from Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who said Wednesday that he hoped that a settlement could be worked out. .
“He has to show it to every Republican and every Democrat on the committee,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Wray. “If he’s willing to do that, then there’s no reason to be contemptuous.”
Since taking over the House, Republicans have vowed to use their subpoena powers to investigate Biden’s son Hunter and brother James, hoping to tie their international business dealings to the president. To date, they have been unable to prove that the elder Mr. Biden has taken payments from foreign companies or that he has engaged in any form of corrupt action.
Their attempts to target the FBI and Justice Department came after those agencies launched an investigation into the conduct of former President Donald J. Trump, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination and has been told he has is the target of a federal investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
Republicans have long argued that Hunter Biden used his seat on the board of directors of Ukrainian energy company Burisma — for which he received significant amounts of money — to influence his father. A State Department official in 2015 expressed concern about the situation to a senior White House official.
Attention to Hunter Biden from the right peaked in 2020, after Mr Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani began distributing material about the younger Mr Biden, including photos and documents about drug use and prostitution from a laptop he used. left at a repair shop in Delaware.
In 2020, Attorney General William P. Barr asked the top federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, Scott W. Brady, to investigate any information Mr. Giuliani had about the Biden family and send to them anything that might be useful to other prosecutors .
A person familiar with the material who insisted on anonymity to discuss it said some of the materials Mr Brady discussed were rubbish and outright not believable. The bribery charge against Mr Biden, which dates back to 2020, has never been elevated to a preliminary investigation, according to people familiar with the investigation, but Mr Brady did forward some information from his work to other prosecutors.
The Delaware U.S. attorney has conducted an extensive investigation into Hunter Biden and his business dealings, but that investigation has narrowed significantly and now focuses on possible tax and gun violations.
Mr Comer has argued that his committee, which hired James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor with experience investigating foreign corruption, needs the document on the elder Biden so that congressional investigators can “perhaps subpoena relevant bank accounts, subpoena relevant witnesses interview and confirm” the informant’s allegations.
Mr. Comer said that as part of the agreement, the FBI is making two additional documents related to the allegations available to Mr. Comer and Mr. Raskin for review.
Michael S. Schmidt reporting contributed.