'Dereliction of duty': GOP slammed for ignoring warnings about credibility of FBI informant

24 February 2024

Republicans knew ahead of time that the source of the 1023 report they used as the basis for their investigations into President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter was dubious, yet they charged ahead anyway. Both Democrats and even some Republicans are now railing against the GOP's rush to accept the credibility of the now-debunked report.

According to the New York Times, the FBI warned Republicans that the confidential source's claims in the 1023 report could not be verified and should be taken with a grain of salt. Chief among those claims was that the Bidens each supposedly solicited a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian energy company Burisma during Biden's time as vice president. However, the indictment of that source, Alexander Smirnov, alleges that he fabricated that charge — possibly with the help of Russian intelligence agencies he was in contact with.

"The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it," FBI acting assistant director Christopher Dunham wrote in a May 2023 letter to Republicans in Congress. "Indeed, the FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime or even terrorists."

Despite those warnings, numerous senior Republican elected officials insisted that the 1023 report was rock-solid proof of corruption. As the Times noted, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, even chided reporters who called the claims in the 1023 form "unverified," countering that the source was "highly credible." House Republican Conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) called Smirnov's disproven allegations "the biggest political corruption scandal, not only in my lifetime, but I would say the past 100 years."

"You have multiple members of the Biden family profiting illegally from foreign governments," Stefanik said in a Fox News interview. "You also have the bombshell reporting, including potential tapes that exist, of while Joe Biden was vice president taking a bribe from Burisma." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) not only endorsed Smirnov's claims, but suggested the FBI may have tried to "sweep it under the rug to protect the candidate Biden."

But Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado), who himself is a former prosecutor, said his fellow Republicans should have known better, adding that it was "premature to go out and tout how significant this was without knowing the reliability of the testimony." And Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York), also a former federal prosecutor, said that the FBI should share in some of the blame for how they handled the release of the 1023 report to Congress.

"It is really a dereliction of duty as an investigator to do what they did, and that is also another reason why this investigation should be terminated immediately," Goldman said.

Click here to read the Times' report in its entirety (subscription required).

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