GOP allies of former President Trump are digging for dirt on President Biden and other Democrats amid the former president\u2019s indictment, this week turning to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is pushing claims about an influence peddling operation, drawing fierce denials from the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unverified claims involving Biden and his son Hunter Biden are murky, but are being aired by the 89-year-old Iowa Republican, who was invited to give a presentation Wednesday to the Senate Republican Steering Committee about the claims made by an unnamed foreign national.
Grassley doesn\u2019t have much to go on, other than an FD-1023 form from the FBI stating that the unnamed foreign national claimed to have two recorded phone conversations with then-Vice President Biden and 15 recorded phone conversations with Hunter Biden, revealing what the Iowa senator described as an \u201calleged bribery scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s allies say Grassley is trying to recycle the unsubstantiated and debunked claims that former President Trump made before the 2020 election accusing Biden of doing political favors as vice president to help Hunter Biden\u2019s business dealings connected to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRepublicans are once again reminding Americans they are doing Donald Trump\u2019s political dirty work, and that tells you everything you need to know about the seriousness of these political stunts,\u201d said Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCongressional Republicans are openly admitting they\u2019re peddling debunked conspiracy theories in an embarrassing attempt to improve their political prospects heading into 2024,\u201d the spokesperson said.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump and his supporters spread the claim that Biden pushed for the firing of Ukraine\u2019s top prosecutor in order to halt an investigation of his son, who received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for sitting on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Associated Press at the time described the allegation as \u201ca widely discredited theory.\u201d
Grassley doesn\u2019t know if the phone recordings exist or if the FBI was able to track them down. But he says the FBI has been extremely reluctant to talk about the information contained in the document, despite it being unclassified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grassley, a senior member of Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, are the only two Republicans on Capitol Hill who have read the unredacted version of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other GOP lawmakers have read a redacted version that blotted out reference to the claim by the unnamed foreign national.
\u201cThey asked me to make a presentation to the caucus,\u201d Grassley said of his briefing. \u201cI\u2019ve read the unredacted version [of the FD-1023 form], so I know more than the members of the House Oversight Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only judgment we\u2019re trying to make is if the FBI is doing its work,\u201d he said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t communicated with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grassley also discussed the issue in detail during a speech on the Senate floor Monday.
\u201cAs I\u2019ve repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023: What, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?\u201d he said.
The veteran lawmaker said he\u2019s trying to get the FBI to share the FD-1023 form, a standard document that outlines a source\u2019s allegations, more widely with the public and the media. According to the society of former special agents of the FBI, the FD-1023 is the form special agents use to record raw, unverified reporting from confidential human sources<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, this month said that the FBI and Justice Department under the leadership of then-Attorney General Bill Barr reviewed the allegations made by the unnamed foreign national and found they did not merit further investigation.
Raskin said the FD-1023 form that Grassley and Comer reviewed contained an allegation from the unnamed foreign national that relayed a conversation with another person and that the source could not corroborate the information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raskin dismissed the claim as \u201csecondhand hearsay\u201d and argued the \u201cconfidential human source said that he had no way of knowing about the underlying veracity of the things that he was being told,\u201d according to a New York Times report.
NBC News, citing a senior law enforcement official, reported this month that the FBI and Scott Brady, then the U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, reviewed the allegation in 2020 and found the bribery allegation wasn\u2019t substantiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republican senators say if any evidence emerges that Biden was involved in improper activity benefiting Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that paid Hunter Biden lavishly to sit on its board, it could shake up the political landscape ahead of the 2024 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some GOP senators are skeptical of the FBI\u2019s and the Department of Justice\u2019s handling of the allegations against the Bidens, even though it was the Trump Justice Department made the initial assessment that they did not warrant deeper investigation.
\u201cI think the FBI is the premier law enforcement agency in all of human history, but some Americans \u2014 many Americans \u2014 have a lost a lot of confidence in them,\u201d said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who cited the controversial decision of then FBI Director James Comey to investigate both Hillary Clinton and Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
Republicans in the House and Senate who are aligned with Trump have dug into the argument that the FBI and Justice Department have been weaponized for political reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kennedy called on Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee \u201cand tell us what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf they say, \u2018We\u2019ve got the 1023, we\u2019re investigating,\u2019 I think you\u2019ll see most people back off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), another Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said GOP lawmakers want to know more about why Brady, the U.S. attorney, decided not to investigate the allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy on earth, if you really think there\u2019s no \u2018there\u2019 there, wouldn\u2019t you answer the simple question about, how do you arrive at that decision?\u201d Tillis said, summarizing a discussion among fellow Republicans on the Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning.
\u201cIf there\u2019s an active investigation, we stand back, let the investigation go,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not unprecedented to say, \u2018Let\u2019s just get the facts that allowed a U.S. attorney to not pursue it.\u201d
Tillis said Republicans are \u201csuspicious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaybe there is an active investigation [and] they don\u2019t want that known,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t they resolve the issue by telling us the facts that led them to not move on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, even some Republican senators are skeptical of an anonymous claim that Biden was involved in a bribery scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have known President Biden probably for 25 years. I like him, I respect him, I disagree with him more times than not, but if you ask me, \u2018Is Joe Biden the type of guy who would take a $5 million bribe,\u2019 my answer is, based on my experience, no,\u201d Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said at a Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday.
Graham is the ranking member of the committee and has endorsed Trump\u2019s 2024 presidential bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up until now, GOP senators have largely been content to leave the Biden investigation to Comer and other Republican members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the slow progress, combined with mounting concerns over Trump\u2019s legal problems, have spurred GOP senators look for ways to get more involved in pressing for the FBI to scrutinize Biden\u2019s business dealings before winning the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Republican senator familiar with internal conversations said Republican senators have barely talked among themselves about the 37-count indictment that Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith unveiled against Trump last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, they\u2019re focusing on trying to level the political playing field by finding a \u201cgame changer\u201d they hope will put scrutiny on Biden instead, the senator said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n