The Trump administration Justice Department under Attorney General Bill Barr reviewed the whistleblower claim in the unclassified document sought by the House Oversight Committee and the DOJ or FBI decided against acting on it.
Now Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is determined to find out why.
"We have an FBI document that the FBI has been sitting on for seven years and, in my opinion, [is] uninvestigated," Comer told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Tuesday. "Now we want that document because we're going to do on the House Oversight Committee what the FBI should have done seven years ago."
While Comer said Monday during a news conference the FBI was refusing to turn over the unclassified document under subpoena, using the guise of an "ongoing investigation," Comer's remarks to Newsmax appear to confirm the claims made Monday by House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
"There was no escalation of the FBI's investigation," Raskin told reporters outside the secured information-viewing facility in the U.S. Capitol. "They all signed off on ending the investigation."
Comer sought to be handed the document Monday, but the FBI refused, he told Newsmax on Tuesday.
"This is not a classified document," he said. "They have sat on this document for years and years and years. It's dated June of 2020, but it actually has footnotes that go back to 2017. So for seven years the FBI sat on this document. You've already run into statute of limitation issues.
"And one reason they said they wouldn't hand me the document is 'Well, there's an ongoing investigation.'
"Well, look, how long is it going to take to investigate this in seven years? I think the House Oversight Committee's produced more information in four months than the FBI has in seven years.
"We need the document. We're going to do the work at the FBI should have done. And they just simply need to comply with our subpoena."
The confidential informant's FBI tip reportedly alleged a $5 million bribery and money laundering scheme with then-Vice President Joe Biden and his family.
The tip came through the FBI's field office in Pittsburgh, sources told The Washington Post.
That's where Barr set up the FBI's Ukraine allegations operation, which included findings from former President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, sources told the Post.
Comer claimed Monday the allegations in the "unclassified, FBI-generated record has not been disproven," while Raskin claimed the FBI dropped an investigation "having found no evidence."
Facing the contempt of Congress proceedings Thursday against FBI Director Christopher Wray by Comer and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the FBI called the subpoena under the threat of contempt "unwarranted."
"The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to accommodate the committee's request, including by producing the document in a reading room at the U.S. Capitol," the FBI wrote in a statement to the Post. "This commonsense safeguard is often employed in response to congressional requests and in court proceedings to protect important concerns, such as the physical safety of sources and the integrity of investigations. The escalation to a contempt vote under these circumstances is unwarranted."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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