Another Biden Defense Rep. Raskin peddles a dubious claim. By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-biden-defense-5914ec5e?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
Just like everyone else, President Joe Biden deserves the presumption of innocence when it comes to the latest allegations related to his family’s prolific collection of cash from foreign oligarchs. But given the highly consequential falsehoods he and his allies have told about lucrative Biden family engagements for which the family appeared manifestly unqualified, healthy skepticism is in order. And now there’s another highly dubious claim coming from Mr. Biden’s defenders.
As for the latest twist in the story of the Bidens and overseas oligarchs, the Journal’s William McGurn wrote last week:
“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed a Federal Bureau of Investigation form he says outlines details of a $5 million bribe allegedly paid to Joe Biden while he was vice president. Until last week, the FBI wouldn’t even concede the document existed… But after Mr. Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley told [FBI Director Christopher Wray] in a phone call last Wednesday that they’d already seen the document, pretending it doesn’t exist was no longer an option. Now that the FBI says there’s an investigation, there is a campaign to discredit the charges before the public can see them.
The first salvo came from CNN last Wednesday. Quoting “people briefed on the matter,” the network said the document had its “origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020.” This is what Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, is relying on to say the charges have been looked into and there’s nothing there.
Remember when the New York Post on Oct. 14, 2020, first published some of the incriminating emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop? The paper’s reporting was not only ignored but also suppressed—with the active assistance of the FBI. In its original story, the Post reported that “Hunter Biden’s lawyer refused to comment on the specifics but instead attacked Giuliani.” Some things never change.”
They sure don’t. Mr. McGurn had more on the allegations contained in an FBI form called an FD-1023, used to record information from a confidential human source:
After Monday’s meeting with the FBI, Mr. Raskin emerged to say that Trump-appointed officials including Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney Scott Brady assessed the allegations against Mr. Biden and agreed not to take the investigation any further. But he didn’t say precisely which allegations were assessed—and especially if they were based on the specific information on that FD-1023 from that trusted source. Mr. Comer said the FBI told him the information in the FD-1023 is being used in an ongoing investigation and hasn’t been disproved.
Then last week Margot Cleveland of the Federalist reported:
“It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” William Barr told The Federalist on Tuesday in response to Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin’s claim that the former attorney general and his “handpicked prosecutor” had ended an investigation into a confidential human source’s allegation that Joe Biden had agreed to a $5 million bribe. “On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”
Mr. Raskin is the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee and he is peddling a story that is directly contradicted by the key figure in the story. Put another way, Mr. Raskin decided to mount his defense of Mr. Biden by appealing to the authority of Mr. Barr, who has in turn pronounced Mr. Raskin to be full of it.
As for the president’s defense of himself, Steven Nelson and Josh Christenson of the New York Post reported last week:
Congressional Republicans who read an FBI informant file accusing President Biden of a role in a $5 million bribery scheme said Thursday that it involved the Ukrainian company Burisma — but Biden tauntingly retorted, “Where’s the money?”
“It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Biden told a Post reporter when asked about the bribery claim hours after FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed to let rank-and-file House Oversight Committee members read a June 2020 document in a bid to avoid being held in contempt.
Mr. Biden dismissed previous stories about his family’s overseas enrichment schemes that turned out to be true. This is a more serious allegation and is only an allegation. Mr. Biden deserves the presumption of innocence but he’s also earned a lot more scrutiny than he’s received.
The man who quit his first presidential campaign after the exposure of plagiarized speeches and is now prosecuting his likely opponent in his final presidential campaign will probably not be remembered as a model of political integrity.
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