‘Pushed the FBI to do their job’

Sen. Chuck Grassley took to the Senate floor Tuesday night to defend his decision last summer to release a report detailing bribery allegations against President Biden and his son Hunter — days after the informant who passed along the information was indicted on charges of making false statements to investigators.

The 90-year-old Grassley (R-Iowa) insisted that he never represented that the informant report, known in FBI parlance as a FD-1023, contained the truth — but rather argued he had made the document public “to force the FBI to do what the taxpayers pay the FBI to do, and that is investigate, in this case, the information contained in that document.”

“I didn’t promote or vouch for the allegations in 1023 as the truth like some confused Democrats and the partisan media have falsely said,” Grassley added. “I have pushed the FBI to do their job.”

The allegation put forward by FBI informant Alexander Smirnov stated that Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky claimed to have paid $5 million apiece to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for their help in removing Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin from office while the elder Biden was vice president.

There is no record or evidence of either of the Bidens receiving any transfers in that amount and President Biden himself has vehemently denied the claim.

Smirnov, 43, was arrested in Las Vegas on Feb. 14 after a Los Angeles grand jury indicted him on two felony counts of making a false statement to the FBI as well as creating a false and fictitious record.

Grassley stressed that until Smirnov was arrested, “I did not know his name.”

The senator, along with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released the FD-1023 form July 20 after the FBI initially refused to hand it over to Congress before Director Christopher Wray agreed to let House Oversight members read the document in private.

Grassley later obtained a redacted version of the file from a whistleblower.

FBI officials stressed at the time that the report contained “raw, unverified reporting” from a confidential human source, who Grassley noted had been paid “six figures” for his information.

“The FBI consistently and publicly vouched for their source,” Grassley said Tuesday, adding that the bureau was “supposed to be investigating this matter three years ago.”

Democrats quickly seized on Smirnov’s indictment, accusing Grassley and Comer of unduly elevating the allegation and calling for an end to the impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

In the indictment against Smirnov, prosecutors alleged that he sent his handler “a series of messages expressing bias” against Joe Biden. 

Prosecutors also claimed that Smirnov pushed a provably false story — thought to have derived from Russian intelligence — that a hotel in Kyiv held damaging recordings of the first son.

That story was provably false because Hunter Biden “has never traveled to Ukraine,” according to prosecutors.

Smirnov is currently being held without bail. He faces up to 25 years behind bars.

Comer, meanwhile, took aim at the bureau and voiced skepticism about the timing of Smirnov’s arrest.

“Everything that I’ve had to do with the FBI is suspicious. The trust level that I have with the FBI is zero,” the Kentuckian told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” Tuesday.

“They had successfully used this informant to prosecute criminals in the past,” Comer added, noting that Smirnov had “been with the bureau over a decade.”