Grassley alleges 40 sources gave FBI criminal information about Biden family

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is seeking information from the Department of Justice and FBI about whether they properly vetted what he says were dozens of confidential human sources who allegedly provided federal investigators with criminal information about the Biden family.

The Iowa Republican asked the DOJ and FBI in a letter published Wednesday to provide him with a wide range of records about how they vetted the alleged information from the sources.

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Citing anonymous whistleblower disclosures, Grassley said he had been made aware that the agencies had at one point maintained more than 40 sources who had criminal information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter and brother James.

“An essential question that must be answered is this: did the FBI investigate the information or shut it down? Indeed, if those sources were improperly shut down, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the FBI,” Grassley wrote.

The Republican senator’s requests come as House Republicans pursue an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over allegations he abused his authority when he was vice president to personally profit off of his family’s many foreign business dealings. Part of the GOP’s inquiry involves examining how the DOJ has handled its own parallel investigation into Hunter Biden after whistleblowers alleged that the investigation had been “slow-walked” by government officials to protect the Bidens.

Grassley, a longtime advocate for whistleblowers, has for years also been vetting allegations about the DOJ’s investigation into Hunter Biden and demanding responses from the department about them.

The Iowa lawmaker, who currently serves as the Senate Budget Committee ranking member and as a Judiciary Committee member, accused the department of stonewalling him on the issue since 2019.

The DOJ, at least this year, has appeared to prioritize extensive requests, such as this latest one from Grassley, from those helming congressional committees. The DOJ bolstered its legislative staff this year, for example, to meet investigative requests from House Republicans, who enjoy majority authorities such as subpoena power and have been sending a barrage of Biden-related demands to the department all year.

Grassley’s letter on Thursday came after he released in July the most damning accusation against Joe and Hunter Biden yet in the form of an FD-1023, an investigative form the FBI uses to record information it gets from confidential human sources.

The form alleged that Joe and Hunter Biden accepted $5 million each in bribes so that Joe Biden, who was at the time vice president, would use his authority to protect a Ukrainian energy company from scrutiny while his son held a lucrative board position with the company.

Grassley said in Thursday’s letter that certain FBI personnel allegedly attempted “to sweep [the form] under the rug” in part by falsely attributing it to foreign disinformation.

“It should be emphasized that the basis for trying to shut down the Biden family 1023 has been described to my office as highly suspect and is contradicted by other documents my office has been told exist within the Foreign Influence Task Force, FBI Seattle Field Office, FBI Baltimore Field Office, and FBI HQ holdings,” Grassley wrote.

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He noted that the information on the FD-1023 had come from a “long-standing, high-paid” FBI source “who’s been used in other investigative matters” and whose travel schedule corroborated travel mentioned on the form.

The FBI confirmed it had received Grassley’s letter but said it had no other comment. The DOJ declined to comment.