The Biden White House is urging reporters to hold the GOP accountable for “claims that have been debunked for years” after U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Thursday afternoon published a years-old FBI form, essentially notes from an interview with an unnamed source relaying second-hand, even older allegations against President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
That form, known as an FD-1023, “is the form our special agents use to record raw, unverified reporting from confidential human sources (CHSs),” the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI said in a statement when interest in the existence of the form grew earlier this year. “FD-1023s merely document that information; they do not reflect the conclusions of investigators based on a fuller context or understanding. Recording this information does not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI in our investigations.”
On June 1, Senator Grassley, who has teamed up with House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer, came under fire for admitting he does not care whether or not the accusations against President Biden are true or not, he wants to pursue them regardless. Eight weeks later to the day, on Thursday, Grassley published what is believed to be the debunked document.
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Politico describes the form as “an uncorroborated FBI record that documents a conversation the bureau had with a confidential source who is at the center of a Biden bribery allegation.”
The FD-1023 “has been at the heart of an investigation” by Chairman Comer, “into President Joe Biden and the business deals of his family members,” Politico adds. “In the conversation, Burisma executive Mykola Zlochevsky alleges that he paid a bribe to the Bidens. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden took a bribe, though Republicans are searching for a smoking gun to link the president to the business agreements of his son, Hunter Biden, and other family members.”
Last month, FBI Acting Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs, Christopher Dunham, in a letter reportedly criticized House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer for ignoring “security restrictions” and allowing details from the form to be made public, despite agreeing he and his members would not. Based on that promise, FBI Director Wray had authorized the form to be shown to committee members but only inside a SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility), and with no recording devices allowed.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, appeared to have violated that agreement when she very publicly announced what she claimed were details from the form, and bragged she had immediately taken notes from memory after viewing the form.
“It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,'” said lan Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations.
Sams essentially noted that even Donald Trump’s most loyal Attorney General, Bill Barr, who had the FD-1023, did not find it sufficiently credible to pursue.
“These claims have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility. It’s clear that congressional Republicans are dead-set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way.”
“It is well past time for news organizations to hold them to basic levels of factual accountability for their repeated and increasingly desperate efforts to mislead both the public and the press.”