Washington, D.C. (June 7, 2023)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued the following statement after Chairman Comer accepted the FBI’s accommodation to allow all Oversight Committee Members to review the subpoenaed Form FD-1023 in camera:

“In the spirit of good faith, the FBI has offered Chairman Comer yet further accommodations in response to his subpoena, including to allow all Oversight Committee Members to review in camera the second-hand allegations by Ukrainian individuals reported in the tip sheet.  Chairman Comer’s acceptance of these further accommodations comes after he has spent weeks attacking the FBI despite its extraordinary efforts to provide Committee Republicans the information they claim to seek. 

“As part of the FBI’s ongoing efforts to accommodate the Committee, it confirmed several key facts that Committee Republicans are attempting to distort.  Namely, that the assessment conducted by a team of prosecutors and FBI agents from the Trump Department of Justice—under the supervision of then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady—was opened in January 2020 to evaluate claims made by Rudy Giuliani that information he collected in Ukraine showed President Biden and his son were involved in a corruption scheme.  In August 2020, the FBI, Mr. Brady, and other high-level Justice Department officials signed off on shutting down the assessment.  This decision was made after considering information collected and reviewed by Mr. Brady’s team, including suspicious activity reports and second-hand allegations described by a confidential human source and memorialized in the Form FD-1023.  These are the facts.

“These facts lead us to an obvious conclusion:  that after months of investigating Mr. Giuliani’s allegations, the Trump Justice Department concluded that the evidence failed to justify further inquiry.  Despite repeated confirmation by the FBI, Committee Republicans prefer to ignore the facts that undermine their false narratives.

“Holding someone in contempt of Congress is among the most serious actions our Committee can take and it should not be weaponized to undermine the FBI.  As Republicans’ investigation into President Biden has uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing, they continue to attempt to discredit and dismantle the FBI to help prop up Donald Trump’s poll numbers.”

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