FBI director to meet with House Oversight chair in coming days about internal document
By Alayna Treene and Annie Grayer, CNN
(CNN) — FBI Director Christopher Wray and House Oversight Chairman James Comer are scheduled to meet in the coming days as the Kentucky Republican continues to escalate his investigation into President Joe Biden’s business dealings, a spokesperson for the FBI told CNN.
The meeting comes after Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress if the agency refuses to comply with a subpoena for an internal document that an unnamed whistleblower alleges shows then-Vice President Biden was involved in a criminal scheme with a foreign national, according to a letter Comer sent Wray on Wednesday.
“I received word that the FBI director is committed to meet with me next week in Washington and we can discuss this,” Comer said on Fox News Wednesday night. “But, nothing’s going to change with respect to holding him in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t turn over the document.”
The White House has previously slammed the unverified claim against Biden, calling it another one of Republicans’ “unfounded politically-motivated attacks.”
The ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, described the allegations as “recycling unsubstantiated claims floated by Senate Republicans.”
“Given Chair Comer’s commitment to ‘dismantle’ the FBI, it’s no surprise that he would rely on these unverified tips to attack President Biden in one more baseless partisan stunt,” Raskin said.
Comer said that Wray has denied multiple requests from him and Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, whom the whistleblower first told of their allegations, to speak on the phone. However, an FBI spokesperson told CNN the meeting between Wray and Comer had already been scheduled by the time FBI received Comer’s Wednesday letter.
In the letter, Comer outlined his frustrations over previous meetings his staff has held with the FBI and offered more specifics about the form he is looking for to help the agency accommodate the subpoena.
Comer specified the form, an FD-1023, dated June 30, 2020, said the foreign national allegedly paid $5 million to receive the desired policy outcome, based on unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures.
The form in question, an FD-1023, is a document the FBI uses to memorialize meetings or information gathered from confidential sources. The document typically would include allegations from the source, including information not verified by the FBI.
A spokesperson for the FBI told CNN that “the FBI’s mission is to protect the American people. Releasing confidential source information could potentially jeopardize investigations and put lives at risk. The FBI remains committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests on this matter and others as we always have.”
The-CNN-Wire
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