Two U.S. senators have denounced the FBI for allegedly asserting back in 2020 that any investigation into Hunter Biden would only serve the interests of the Kremlin and promote Russian disinformation.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) went on Fox News Digital on Thursday and accused the FBI of using a 2020 briefing before the Senate to run interference for the Biden family after the two senators opened an investigation into Hunter Biden’s involvement on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma. Grassley characterized the briefing as “totally unnecessary” and claimed it was a “clear effort to discredit … oversight.”
The two senators’ accusations follow a number of scandals over the last few years, which observers have claimed suggests the nation’s top law enforcement agency has become increasingly politicized, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
“Was there a broader effort by federal law enforcement to improperly silence or sideline anything critical of the Biden family in the run-up to the 2020 election?” Grassley asked during the Fox segment.
The FBI ostensibly gave the briefing on behalf of the broader intelligence community, reported Fox News. But the real reason, according to Sens. Grassley and Johnson, was due to Democratic pressure to discredit their investigation.
When the briefing took place, there was already an ongoing Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden. Therefore, the FBI knew that the contents on the laptop were “not manipulated” and were “reliable” as evidence, the senators reasoned.
Just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the FBI obtained a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, the contents of which also made it into the hands of the New York Post. Some of the materials in the laptop included emails that were the subject of the investigation into Hunter Biden.
Grassley and Johnson sent a letter in August 2022 to the FBI accusing the agency of deliberately using the briefing to publicly promote the idea that the senate investigation was advancing Russian disinformation.
“Simply put, the unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation,” the letter reads.
Since then, Johnson has been so troubled by the alleged machinations at the FBI that he thinks it portends a more significant problem than even the alleged corruption of the Biden family.
“As troubling as Biden family corruption is — and the extent to which it comprises American foreign policy — there is a much larger story of corruption to be uncovered,” Johnson said, according to Fox News.
