(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Former Attorney General Bill Barr pushed back this week against Rep. Jamie Raskin, R-Md., regarding claims made by Raskin that the Justice Department, under the Trump administration, ended a criminal investigation into an alleged criminal bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and a foreign national.
In statements to The Federalist, Barr slammed Raskin’s attempts to downplay the serious allegations against Biden when he was vice president, stating, “It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down.” Barr further clarified that the investigation was actually sent to Delaware for “further investigation.”
Raskin, known as a Biden talking head, promptly took to the media to claim that he had learned that the Trump DOJ had evaluated the allegations and chose not to pursue further investigation. Raskin’s comments came after the House Oversight Committee met privately with the FBI to review an information file, known as an FD-1023, which allegedly details the $5-million bribery scheme.
In response to Barr’s rebuttal, Raskin stood by his initial defense of Biden. He explained, “[T]he Department of Justice team of prosecutors and FBI agents under U.S. Attorney Scott Brady determined that there were no grounds to escalate their probe from an initial assessment of the allegations surfaced by Rudy Giuliani to a preliminary or full-blown investigation and that it was therefore closed down.”
The Maryland Democrat also claimed that Barr should direct his concerns to the FBI and the DOJ officials who allegedly “signed off on closing down” the initial probe. The Democrat lawmaker’s response echoed similar remarks made on June 5, after the private meeting with the FBI.
This meeting took place after a weeks-long battle between FBI Director Christopher Wray and House Oversight Committee James Comer, R-Ky., regarding the release of the file. The Republican-led Oversight Committee is currently pursuing charges of contempt of Congress against Wray due to his refusal to disclose the file, which Comer had subpoenaed.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a member of the Oversight Committee, sparked controversy on Twitter by disclosing that the FBI expressed grave concerns over the safety of the information who initiated the FD-1023 file as revealing the identity of the informant could put his life at risk.
As reported by Headline USA, the informant cited in the file is a highly credible human source who has been used by the DOJ, including the Obama-era FBI, in numerous criminal investigations spanning several years.
The whistleblower who initially brought the FD-1023 to the attention of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Comer last month expressed concerns that the FBI was not taking appropriate action to investigate the alleged criminal activities described in the file.
