FBI Tried to Prevent Former Agent From Answering House Oversight Committee Questions on Hunter Probe
As we reported earlier, a former FBI supervisory special agent has now “confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony” during the agent’s interview with the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday.
According to the Committee,
[B]oth Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were TIPPED OFF about the planned Hunter Biden interview.
In fact, on the day of the Hunter Biden interview, FEDERAL AGENTS WERE TOLD TO STAND BY AND TO NOT APPROACH HUNTER BIDEN— they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation.
That was certainly bad enough, given how much of a wrench that might have been thrown into the case.
But now there’s more concerning information. The FBI also warned the former agent in a letter just before he was to have his interview with the Oversight Committee that he was supposed to “decline to respond” about the “ongoing case” against Hunter Biden.
FBI general counsel Jason Jones sent the letter Sunday afternoon, just hours before the agent was set to testify — even though a source tells The Post that the FBI knew of a scheduled Monday deposition for several days.
“[T]he Department expects that you will decline to respond to questions seeking non-public information likely covered by one or more components of executive privilege or other significant confidentiality interests, in particular information about deliberations or ongoing investigative activity in law enforcement matters,” Jones wrote.
“You should instead refer such questions to the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs,” the FBI lawyer went on.
“Consistent with longstanding practice, this will afford the Department the full opportunity to consider particular questions and possible accommodations that may fulfill the Committee’s legitimate need for information while protecting Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”
Hunter Biden’s legal team has said that they don’t think he faces any more legal exposure. But beyond that, the Committee has oversight over the matter. If there was anything that pertained to something that was somehow ongoing, the former agent could fall back on that if asked. But what this sounds like is an effort to cut off the former agent from confirming just what the agent did — that there were big problems and seeming bias in the probe.
When they were grilled by the NY Post on the question of the letter, an FBI spokesperson said there was nothing wrong with the letter, that it was “standard practice.” But a “source” then explained that wasn’t quite the case and that the way this was phrased was “more uncommon,” particularly given the timing and the expansiveness of the prohibition in the letter.
Add one more thing to the concerning behavior of the FBI and the Department of Justice in this case. They should be doing all they can to show they are unbiased (if they can), but instead, they pull moves like this. This just raises again the big red flags of bias in the case when they don’t want information to come out. It’s a good thing that the former agent testified honestly to the Committee and was not cowed by this letter.
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