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It’s an outrage! A scandal! Makes Watergate look like a church picnic! And once Republicans figure out what “it” is, they’re going to impeach President Joe Biden right out of office.
Senator Chuck Grassley and House Oversight Chair James Comer dropped a new subpoena on AG Garland and FBI Director Wray. They’re after a document that may or may not even exist alleging that a foreign national bribed then-Vice President Biden.
We have received legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures. Based on those disclosures, it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.
An FD-1023 is an FBI form documenting an interview with a confidential informant. So, if we have understood this handwaving exercise, someone of indeterminate credibility came to the FBI with a tip of unknown accuracy, and Comer and Grassley have no idea what was done to follow up on it so … IMPEACH.
To be clear, Grassley and Comer have zero basis for thinking that the FBI did anything wrong. They just think the FBI might have failed to follow up on some random tip, which might have been true, according to some unnamed whistleblower. So they are stepping in to demand accountability!
The significant public interest in assessing the FBI’s response to this information, as well as growing concern about the DOJ and the FBI’s track record of allowing political bias to infect their decision-making process, necessitate exacting congressional oversight. The DOJ and the FBI appear to have valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people. Therefore, Congress will proceed to conduct an independent and objective review of this matter, free from those agencies’ influence.
“The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight,” Senator Grassley bleated.
It should be noted that the last whistleblower Grassley touted was an FBI agent who claimed to be a conscientious objector because he refused to participate in the arrest of any January 6 defendants, including a member of the Three Percenters Militia who breached the Capitol carrying a GoPro and maced someone in the face.
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan tried to recycle Friend, even hiding his work from the Committee’s Democrats, only to get spanked when the Dems put out a 316-page report entitled GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the State of the Republican Investigations, debunking the majority’s claims in advance. There were also a million hilarious leaks to outlets like Rolling Stone, with Republican sources calling it “amateur hour” and admitting that airing this “stuff on live television would make us look like morons.”
But surely this time Senator Peepaw Corntweets has the goods! Or maybe they’ve got nothing again and are simply trying to beat Democrats to the punch by hyping their supposed whistleblower before anyone can poke holes in him. Guess we’ll know which if Dark Brandon resigns and hands the reins to VP Kamala Harris before Monday.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.
