George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley issued a warning about the FBI, making the argument that the bureau is fixated on protecting the Biden family.
The legal expert appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and reacted to a clip of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower Joseph Ziegler saying that he had not seen the recently-disclosed FD-1023 form outlining allegations of bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, while working as lead IRS case agent in the criminal case against the First Son.
“It increasingly seems like the FBI is the place where evidence goes to die,” Turley said, adding that any evidence with the Biden name “dies a very rapid death.”
His comments underscore a feeling of trepidation among conservatives who have warned of politicization in the FBI, a fear driven by various controversies in recent years, including the use of the so-called “Steele dossier” in the Trump-Russia investigation.
.@JonathanTurley on the FBI evidence Grassley released showing Biden corruption: “It increasingly seems like the @FBI is the place where evidence goes to die.” pic.twitter.com/FB9ir6WDJw
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 23, 2023
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a lightly redacted copy of the FD-1023 form last week, a day after Ziegler and his supervisor and fellow whistleblower Gary Shapley testified to lawmakers with allegations that the criminal inquiry into Hunter Biden had been slow-walked in a way that may have shielded the First Son from more serious charges than the tax and gun counts that are subject to a potential plea deal.
The document contains notes from 2020 about a confidential human source’s claims to the FBI regarding an alleged bribery scheme worth millions of dollars involving Joe Biden at a time when he was vice president and a Ukrainian business executive at Burisma Holdings, the gas company where Hunter Biden served on the board for several years.
Both Ziegler and Shapley have attested that they were not provided the notes before they were removed from the Biden probe. Former Attorney General William Barr has said he sent that information to be vetted by a prosecutor in Pennsylvania, and after it was determined that there was “no basis to believe this was disinformation,” the claims were relayed to Delaware, where U.S. Attorney David Weiss has been leading the Hunter Biden inquiry.
GOP lawmakers, including Grassley, have raised questions about what, if anything, was done to corroborate or dismiss the informant’s claims. Weiss, in a recent statement that sought to push back on the idea that he had ever been denied the authority to bring charges in the Hunter Biden matter, said he could not respond to questions about allegations regarding a bribery scheme contained in the FBI FD-1023 form because they related to “an ongoing investigation.”
Turley said the “key” takeaway from the FD-1023 form was that it “mirrors perfectly” the trove of financial records being scrutinized by GOP congressional investigators concerned about a pattern of millions of dollars flowing to Biden and his relatives from foreign nationals under suspicious circumstances.
Democrats in Congress have dismissed the inquiries into the Biden as politically motivated while President Biden has called allegations of corruption “a bunch of malarkey.” The FBI released a statement lamenting how its efforts to “protect the physical safety of confidential human sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations” were squandered by the FD-1023 form’s release.