The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, led by GOP Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), has now scrapped plans to convene a vote to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.
Comer had been after an unclassified FD-1023 form that the FBI generated, which contained allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden took a bribe from a foreign national. The committee had issued a subpoena in early May, with a deadline of May 31, requesting all FD-1023 forms containing the name “Biden.”
The FD-1023 forms are used by FBI agents to collect unverified reports from various confidential human sources. The information on the form represents what was told to an FBI agent.
Comer and other House Republicans had threatened to hold Wray in contempt if he did not produce the documents. Earlier on Wednesday, the committee introduced a 17-page resolution (pdf) doing just that. A business meeting to have the full committee consider the resolution was scheduled for Thursday at 9 a.m. (EST).
But by late Wednesday, the committee announced that the FBI has decided to produce some documents— including the FD-1023 form Comer had been after—and that the committee’s business meeting on Thursday to vote on holding Wray in contempt was now scrapped.
“After weeks of refusing to even admit the FD-1023 record exists, the FBI has caved and is now allowing all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to review this unclassified record that memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden,” Comer said in a statement.
“Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand answers, transparency, and accountability. Allowing all Oversight Committee members to review this record is an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people.”
Ongoing Investigation
Comer said that the allegations contained within the unclassified record “are not closed as the White House and Democrats would have the American people believe.”
