United States Attorney General William Barr confirmed on Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has established an intake process to review information on 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, regarding their dealings in Ukraine.
“General Barr, Senator Graham says that Rudy Giuliani will be providing the Department information related to the Ukraine and the Bidens,” a reporter said to Barr during a news conference. “What is the process for receiving this information? Who will evaluate it? And is this something that you feel you need to recuse yourself from?”
“As I’ve previously said, the DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant, but as I did say to Senator Graham, we have to be very careful with respect to any information coming from Ukraine,” Barr responded. “There are a lot of agendas in Ukraine, there are a lot of cross currents, and we can’t take anything we receive from Ukraine at face value.”
Barr added, “And for that reason, we had established an intake process in the field so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could asses its provenance and its credibility and that is true for all information that comes to the department relating to Ukraine, including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide.”
WATCH:
Attorney General Bill Barr confirms to @PierreTABC that the Justice Department is reviewing documents about Joe Biden provided by Rudy Giuliani from Ukraine, but offers a note of caution about the origin of the materials: "We have to be very careful." https://t.co/UYkHEiZq8F pic.twitter.com/iYHSDwnaM7
— ABC News (@ABC) February 10, 2020
The reporter’s question was based on remarks that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made on Sunday during an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan.
“Has the Department of Justice been ordered to investigate the Bidens?” Brennan asked.
“No,” Graham responded. “The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy. … He told me that they’ve created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified. Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man. He’s a crime fighter. He’s loyal to the president. He’s a good lawyer.”
“But what I’m trying to say — to the president and anybody else, that the Russians are still up to it,” Graham continued. “Deterrence is not working. So, let’s look at Hunter Biden’s conflict. Let’s look at Joe Biden. Vice President Biden, what did you do when they told you your son was on Burisma’s board? It undercuts your ability to fight corruption. Did you take it seriously? Obviously he didn’t.”
The news comes after Yahoo News reported last week that the U.S. Senate has received “highly sensitive” financial records on Hunter Biden from the U.S. Treasury Department.
“Sens. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee; Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have focused their efforts in Washington, seeking to extract politically useful information from agencies of the U.S. government,” Yahoo News reported. “They’ve issued letters requesting records from Cabinet departments and agencies, including the State Department, the Treasury, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Archives and the Secret Service.”
“Grassley and Johnson have sought to obtain some of the most sensitive and closely held documents in all of federal law enforcement — highly confidential suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by financial institutions with FinCEN, an agency of the Treasury that helps to police money laundering,” Yahoo News added. “A source familiar with the matter said the Treasury began turning over materials less than two months after Grassley and Johnson wrote to FinCEN on Nov. 15, 2019, requesting any SARs and related documents filed by financial institutions regarding Hunter Biden, his associates, their businesses and clients.”