GOP’s Chuck Grassley admits Biden corruption allegation may be ‘false’

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Sen. Chuck Grassley again expressed uncertainty about the allegations he and fellow Republican Rep. James Comer have made against President Joe Biden.

The two lawmakers released a joint statement on Wednesday alleging “a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national,” in turn asking the FBI to comply with the production of an unclassified record that , according to them, could provide insight into any alleged illegality.

Comer, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has pledged to investigate the Biden family since Republicans took control of the House last January. This included allegations that the Biden children and their businesses received more than $1.3 million through a family associate.

In a new interview with Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren, Grassley seemed to imply that the evidence behind the claims made about Biden’s past and any communication with foreign nationals is still lacking.

Senator Chuck Grassley attends a committee business meeting February 17, 2022 in Washington, DC Grassley and GOP Rep. James Comer alleged a ‘criminal scheme’ involving Joe Biden and a foreign national based on his days as a vice-president. Win McNamee/Getty

“The letter is electrifying because it talks about exchanging money for political decisions,” Van Susteren told Grassley. “This is a very serious allegation against the then vice president.”

The senator replied, “That’s a very serious allegation. I wish I could say I knew it was true or false.”

Part of the interview was tweeted out by Ian Sams, a White House spokesman for Oversight and Investigations, who previously told Newsweek the new allegations come on the heels of five years of attacks unsubstantiated, unproven and politically motivated against the President. and his family without providing evidence to support their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests. »

“It’s because they prefer to float anonymous innuendo, amplified through the bullhorn of their allies in the right-wing media, to grab attention and try to distract from their own unpopular ideas and the lack of solutions to the issues that really concern the American people,” Sams said.

He added that Biden “has provided an unprecedented level of transparency” over the past 25 years, citing his annual tax returns.

Grassley had made similar comments about the uncertainty of the allegations after they became public. He reportedly told Chad Pergram, a senior congressional correspondent for Fox News, that he could not verify “if this is really criminal activity.”

The senator added that he has confidence in whistleblowers that the document requested by the FBI known as FD-1023 exists and that he and Comer “have a rough idea” of its contents.

“Given the specific nature of the information provided by departmental whistleblowers with a high degree of credibility, we are confident that the FBI has had these important allegations for some time now,” said Taylor Foy, director of communications. of Grassley, to Newsweek on Friday.

“The question is what did the FBI do with this information. That’s what Senator Grassley would like to shed some light on.”

Newsweek has reached out to Comer via email for comment.

Patricia Crouse, a political scientist-in-residence at the University of New Haven, told Newsweek that the allegations at this point lack “substantiated.” She’s also surprised that, if they ultimately turn out to be true, they weren’t uncovered by Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

“It’s possible that evidence has just been uncovered, but campaigns spend a lot of resources just to uncover things like this,” Crouse said. “To me, it looks like Republicans are starting to despair of finding anything to use against Biden at this point, especially with the mounting lawsuits against Trump and most polls, at least at this point, showing that Biden is leading Trump.”

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has presented several unsuccessful articles of impeachment against Biden that never reached the House of Representatives, says the whistleblower has uncovered “highly credible” information that allegedly links the president to ” foreign nationals in an alleged pay-for-gambling scheme to influence political decisions.”

She called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to release the currently unclassified document, which claims to include only Biden and no one else, to the oversight committee.

“Now in the oversight committee, because we have real subpoena powers, we have the power to investigate and we have the power to do what we’re doing now,” she told Steve Bannon on his War Room: Battleground podcast.

But Republican Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has reduced impeachment threats against the president. Instead, he focused on officials in the Biden administration.

“You think about [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas, he certainly warrants impeachment, but that’s a decision we have to make as a conference… And in relation to the president, of course, that’s a decision that will be made by the entire Republican Conference and the president, and nobody’s really focused on that now,” Jordan recently told Punchbowl News.

Update 05/05/23, 12 PM ET: This story has been updated with comments from Grassley’s office.

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