FBI complains search terms in House subpoena for Biden doc too broad, Comer narrows it down: ‘$5 million’

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) issued a subpoena to the FBI on May 3 to obtain an unclassified FD-1023 which allegedly details a bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national. As I reported on Tuesday, the FBI refused to hand over the document by the original compliance date and continues to obstruct Comer’s efforts.

Comer fired off a new letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday that contains two new incriminating – and amusing – little surprises.

According to the subpoena, Comer asked for “All FD-1023 forms, including within any open, closed, or restricted access case files, created or modified in June 2020, containing the term ‘Biden,’ including all accompanying attachments and documents to those FD-1023 forms.”

Apparently, FBI agents informed committee members they had conducted a search for the document based on Comer’s original terms and it had turned up too many results. This obviously begs the question of how many confidential human sources had reported information about Biden in June 2020.

The other perhaps more damning surprise was Comer’s addition of two new terms to narrow the scope of the search: “Five million” and “June 30, 2020.”

In his letter to Wray, Comer wrote:

…to narrow the breadth of the subpoena, we are providing additional terms based on unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures that may be referenced in the FD-1023 form: “June 30, 2020” and “five million.”6 These terms relate to the date on the FD-1023 form and its reference to the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome.

Despite the Committee’s subpoena being narrowly tailored to June 2020, FBI staff indicated that the search terms were broad because there were many responsive documents containing the term “Biden” in its CHS database for that month.

The letter specifies a new compliance deadline of May 30.

Comer posted a copy of his letter to Wray on Twitter. He wrote: “FBI Director Wray is defying a congressional subpoena for an unclassified record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-VP Joe Biden and a foreign national. If Director Wray refuses to hand over this record, @GOPoversight will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.”

In other words, this is not going away.

Evidently, the letter captured Wray’s attention. On Wednesday night, a spokesperson for the FBI told CNN that Wray and Comer were scheduled to meet in the coming days.

Also on Wednesday night, Comer told Fox News, “I received word that the FBI director is committed to meet with me next week in Washington and we can discuss this. But, nothing’s going to change with respect to holding him in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t turn over the document.”

Stay tuned!

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