Washington, D.C. (June 7, 2023)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued the following statement confirming the facts communicated on June 5, 2023, when the FBI made the form FD-1023 subpoenaed by Committee Republicans available for review and provided a briefing on how the Trump Justice Department, under former Attorney General William Barr, interviewed a confidential human source and investigated his second-hand tip as part of its probe into Mr. Giuliani’s corruption allegations that was closed after it failed to develop sufficient evidence to justify further inquiry:

“I stand 100% by my statements that we were told by the FBI team that visited us on Monday, June 5, 2023, that the Department of Justice team of prosecutors and FBI agents under U.S. Attorney Scott Brady determined that there were no grounds to escalate their probe from an initial assessment of the allegations surfaced by Rudy Giuliani to a preliminary or full-blown investigation and that it was therefore closed down.  If William Barr has a problem with this characterization, his problem is not with me but with the FBI, Mr. Brady, and other high-level officials reporting to him in his own Justice Department who signed off on closing down Mr. Brady’s probe.

“On Monday, in an hour-long briefing, the FBI made these points clear:  First, in January 2020, after Mr. Giuliani alleged that President Biden and his son were involved in a corruption scheme involving the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, Attorney General Barr personally selected U.S. Attorney Scott Brady in Pittsburgh to lead a team of prosecutors and FBI agents to evaluate these allegations and the materials Mr. Giuliani had gathered in Ukraine. 

“Second, that probe, which was formally identified as an ‘assessment’ by the FBI, conducted numerous investigative steps, including reviewing suspicious activity reports, meeting with Mr. Giuliani and interviewing at least one confidential human source.  That confidential human source relayed information he heard from individuals in Ukraine that were memorialized in the form FD-1023.  The FBI confirmed that much of this information was the same as information Mr. Giuliani had previously provided. 

“Third, in August 2020, that assessment was closed after a determination was made that there were no more investigative steps to be taken and the evidence collected did not meet FBI’s standard for opening a preliminary or full-scale investigation—namely that the assessment had not developed an articulable factual basis to reasonably indicate a crime may have occurred.  The FBI read an excerpt from the memorandum closing this assessment, which was signed off on by Mr. Brady and high-ranking officials in the Trump Justice Department.

“Recent reports suggest that the form FD-1023 has been shared with other investigations.  It is not uncommon for Justice Department investigations to share information with each other for various purposes.  However, the key fact shared by the FBI in its briefing was that the assessment opened in January 2020 to evaluate Mr. Giuliani’s allegations against President Biden and his son was closed in August 2020.  This decision was made after considering the information provided in the interview of the confidential human source, which was conducted as part of this assessment and memorialized in the form FD-1023.  The obvious conclusion from these facts is that the Trump Justice Department investigated Mr. Giuliani’s corruption allegations for months and came to the conclusion it had found no sufficient evidence to justify further inquiry.  This is what we were repeatedly told by the FBI.”

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