FBI agents accused of misleading Senators about Hunter Biden case

 Washington Examiner:

Two top Senate Republicans want to interview the FBI officials behind a controversial summer 2020 FBI briefing on Russia.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to the two FBI employees on Thursday, alleging the August 2020 briefing was "unnecessary and was only done because of pressure from our Democratic colleagues, including Democratic Leadership, to falsely attack our Biden investigation as advancing Russian disinformation."

The senators named Nikki Floris, the intelligence analyst in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s intelligence division, and Bradley Benavides, the deputy assistant director of the FBI Washington Field Office’s counterintelligence division, as being the officials who provided the Russia-related briefing on Aug. 6, 2020. The senators want the duo to appear for a transcribed interview in September.

“Simply put, the unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. “Although you stated that the FBI didn’t intend to ‘interfere’ in our investigation, the practical effect of such an unnecessary briefing and the subsequent leaks relating to it created interference, which frustrated and obstructed congressional oversight efforts.”

The senators said they had repeatedly raised the issue with FBI Director Christopher Wray. The request comes after whistleblower disclosures claimed the bureau improperly labeled evidence on Hunter Biden “disinformation” around the same time as the briefing.

The two Republicans said the briefing itself “consisted primarily of information that we already knew and information unconnected to our Biden investigation” and that “we made clear to you at the briefing that it was not relevant to the substance of our work.” The senators quoted the FBI as saying at the time that it was not attempting to “quash, curtail, or interfere” in their Biden family investigation.

“We also made clear our concern that the briefing would be subject to a leak that would shed a false light on the focus of our investigation,” Grassley and Johnson said, pointing to a Washington Post story that they said “did exactly that.”

Grassley and Johnson said Thursday that they have repeatedly requested “relevant records relating to what happened at the briefing, including the 302 or similar summary, the intelligence basis for the briefing and the personnel involved in making the decision to brief us,” but that the FBI has “consistently failed to respond in full to each request and failed to provide those critical records which casts further doubt on the true purpose for the briefing.”

“Whistleblowers have recently alleged that in August 2020, the same month you provided the briefing to us, FBI officials initiated a scheme to downplay derogatory information on Hunter Biden for the purpose of shutting down investigative activity relating to his potential criminal exposure by labeling it disinformation,” the senators told the FBI officials.
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“Whistleblowers have also alleged that local FBI leadership instructed employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop immediately after the FBI had obtained it,” the senators said Thursday.

Johnson said this week that whistleblowers told him that local FBI leadership told bureau employees that “you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop” and that the FBI is “not going to change the outcome of the election again.” Johnson said the new whistleblower claims “allege that the FBI did not begin to examine the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop until after the 2020 presidential election — potentially a year after the FBI obtained the laptop in Dec. 2019.”
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Their claim that they did not want to influence the election rigs hollow since their suppression of the information had the effect of influencing the election and getting Biden elected.  I think there needs to be a hearing to find out all those who were responsible for this bad decision.