Washington, D.C. (July 17, 2023)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued the following statement after the Committee concluded a transcribed interview with a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent from the FBI’s Wilmington office:

“Once again, Chairman Comer has cherry-picked and distorted statements of a witness to advance Republicans’ false narrative about political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation.  Just last week, Chairman Comer secretly subpoenaed a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the Hunter Biden investigation who voluntarily appeared before Committee staff today.  Here are the facts that Chairman Comer has glaringly omitted in a rush to get his extravagant distortions onto Fox News this evening.

“Contrary to Congressional Republicans assertions of political foul play in the Hunter Biden investigation, the former FBI supervisory agent testified that over his decade of experience with the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI agent never knew the Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the office or U.S. Attorney Weiss to allow any political considerations to influence their prosecutorial decisions in any case.  As U.S. Attorney Weiss has reiterated multiple times to Congress, he has been granted ultimate authority over the character, direction, and prosecution of the Hunter Biden investigation.

“As the former FBI agent also acknowledged, it is routine for FBI agents and Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors to disagree about investigative steps and charging decisions, and in his 20-year career, he witnessed this happen frequently.

“The FBI agent expressed his understanding that, in determining whether to seek a warrant, it is proper for prosecutors to consider additional considerations, beyond whether probable cause exists, such as whether to apply for warrants that would raise election year sensitivities—per DOJ policy.

“The supervisory special agent further pointed out that, in his experience, investigation targets who are attorneys, like Hunter Biden, rarely accept being interviewed by federal agents.  Further, although Republicans have tried to cast in harsh light the decision by FBI headquarters to alert the Secret Service of its intent to interview Hunter Biden, the FBI agent explained it was necessary to do so given Hunter Biden’s status as a protectee.  The witness also provided that, while he was told a ‘transition team’ was also notified by FBI headquarters, he was not provided any actual details as to what transition team this referred to, and he did not know anything about whether they were actually notified.  The witness also indicated he did not suspect any political purpose or improper motivation behind FBI headquarters’ putative decision in December 2020 to notify a ‘transition team’ and U.S. Secret Service headquarters prior to Hunter Biden’s interview. 

“I urge Chairman Comer to release the transcript of today’s transcribed interview in full so that the American people can read for themselves the full statements of this former FBI Supervisory Special Agent at the FBI’s Wilmington office.  We should not have to rely on the GOP’s Fox News spin and propaganda when Americans should be able to judge witness statements for themselves.”

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