Republican lawmakers are pressing for access to classified documents that they allege could reveal an FBI effort to obscure information concerning potential wrongdoing by the Biden family. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Ron Johnson have sent a letter to the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking these files.
The correspondence, addressed to Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, specifically targets former FBI Director Christopher Wray. The senators claim that Wray's tenure saw the establishment of "additional obstacles" that made obtaining information about the former president's family and their business dealings more difficult.
"It appears that the Wray FBI intentionally misclassified information a certain way which would result in more obstacles to obtaining access, whether it be Congress or the American people who sought it," the Republican senators wrote in their letter, which was first reported by the New York Post. They contend that after obtaining classified files from the Trump administration, they uncovered information that raises "legitimate questions about whether federal record laws and retention policies were followed."
At the heart of the senators' inquiry is the FBI's handling of information related to alleged Biden family business dealings, particularly Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine during his father's vice presidency. The available records, according to Grassley and Johnson, raise "serious concerns about how federal law enforcement and the Intelligence Community used its resources to downgrade allegations of criminality relating to the Biden family apparently without sufficient investigation."
Some of the files in question include email correspondence from 2019 between senior FBI officials discussing "classification caveats" and directives from the FBI's Office of the General Counsel to classify their work in a particular manner. The senators noted that certain files were designated with "Round River" as a classification code.
According to the senators, "Round River" was an operation initiated in December 2019 by the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force-Russia. Its purpose was to compile intelligence on the Biden family's dealings in Ukraine. Grassley claims that dozens of sources provided the FBI with "criminal information" on the Bidens, which was subsequently dismissed as "foreign disinformation."
Grassley, who has been investigating the "Round River" operation since 2022, asserts in his letter that Wray may have "intentionally withheld responsive records" from his previous inquiries. The senators allege that the responsive information was "parked away in a hidden classified compartment."
Grassley and Johnson are specifically requesting that the Trump administration declassify the full contents of a 2019 FBI email they recently obtained, along with additional files pertaining to the "Round River" operation. They argue that the alleged over-classification of this probe into Joe and Hunter Biden potentially created barriers for Congress and the public to access more information about the investigation.
The senators' letter highlights long-standing speculation surrounding Hunter Biden's 2014 appointment to the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, an appointment that occurred despite his lack of prior experience in the sector. Reports indicate that Hunter Biden profited from this role while his father, then Vice President, was involved in the Obama administration's diplomatic relations with Ukraine.