L AW E N F O R C E M E N T
Hunter Biden Probe
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, on the South Lawn of the White House on April 18.
FBI nixed Hunter Biden probe in 2020 over Dem lawmakers’ ‘disinformation’ claim, Grassley alleges By Petr Svab
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News Analysis
26 I N S I G H T August 5–11, 2022
letter, “the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity.” Hunter Biden’s activities were, at the same time, probed by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who at the time headed the Senate Finance and Homeland Security committees, respectively. In July 2020, a group of Democratic lawmakers that included Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as well as Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked the FBI to give all Congress members a “defensive counterintelligence briefing” because of what they called an appearance of “a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November.” Based on leaks to The Washington Post, the supposed disinformation pertained to materials provided to Rudy Giuliani, then-lawyer for President Donald Trump, by a former Ukrainian official with historical ties to Russian intelligence. Shortly after, Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrats on the Finance and Homeland Security committees at the time, asked Grassley and Johnson to get a briefing for the committees from the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force, citing their concerns over the information from The Washington Post’s article.
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n the heat of the 2020 presidential campaign, a group of Democratic lawmakers raised the allegation that foreign actors were spreading disinformation in order to sway Congress and the election. The FBI ran with that allegation and used it to shut down a legitimate investigation of alleged crimes committed by Hunter Biden, son of then-candidate Joe Biden, according to a letter recently sent by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to the heads of the Justice Department (DOJ) and the FBI. Grassley relies on information provided by multiple “highly credible” FBI whistleblowers, the July 25 letter said. “The allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation,” it says, noting that “the volume and consistency of these allegations substantiate their credibility.” The allegations indicate “systemic and existential problems” within the FBI and the DOJ, Grassley said. “If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are—and have been—institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law.” Based on the timeline sketched out by the
