Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says the FBI follows the politics instead of the evidence because of pervasive political bias within the agency.
Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, made his feelings known in a Wednesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
He noted in the letter that the continued lack of response “continues to erode trust in the FBI.”
“Starting on May 31, 2022, I’ve written three letters to you regarding political bias that has infected the FBI’s Washington Field Office,” the senator wrote.
In two letters, Grassley said, he contrasted the bureau’s approach to investigations of former President Donald Trump and Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
He said those letters “provided specific and credible allegations based on numerous whistleblowers that have approached my office with information that one can only conclude is indicative of a deeply rooted political infection that has spread to investigative activity into former President Trump and Hunter Biden.”
“As I’ve noted both in my public letters and public statements, the FBI approved investigative activity into Trump based in substantial part on liberal news articles and information derived from a liberal non-profit yet shut down investigative activity and sources, which included verified and verifiable information, relating to Hunter Biden,” the senator wrote.
Grassley noted that despite telling Congress that the FBI would share all information it can find in investigations, it has not done so.
“How can the Hunter Biden criminal investigation be full and complete if the FBI improperly shut down verified and verifiable information and sourcing relating to potential criminal activity? How can Congress and the American people trust the results? These are critical questions for you to answer,” he wrote.
Have you lost confidence in the FBI?
“The FBI answers to Congress and the American people,” the senator reminded Wray.
A Fox News report Thursday cited a former Department of Justice official as saying Senate Republicans want to call for deep changes in the FBI’s structure and Grassley’s request is part of that effort.
In a July 25 letter to Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Iowa senator expressed his “concerns about the FBI’s receipt and use of derogatory information relating to Hunter Biden, and the FBI’s false portrayal of acquired evidence as disinformation.”
Grassley said the FBI’s actions to not investigate information about Huner Biden “put a finer point on concerns that I have raised for many years about political considerations infecting the decision-making process at the Justice Department and FBI.”
“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,” he wrote.
Grassley told Wray and Garland that “based on the allegations that I’ve received from numerous whistleblowers, you have systemic and existential problems within your agencies. You have an obligation to the country to take these allegations seriously, immediately investigate and take steps to institute fixes to these and other matters before you.”
On Monday, in the wake of the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the senator wrote in a letter to Garland it was high time the FBI protected the American people instead of playing politics.
“Unfortunately, DOJ has not made combatting violent crime its top priority,” he said. “Instead, the Department has prioritized issues which provide the opportunity to disparage political enemies and reward allies, a concern that is only amplified by the Department’s unprecedented move to search the home of a former president.”
