Grassley Vindicated On Alleged Scheme To Hinder Biden Probe

Kash Patel confirmed Tuesday the Round River classification banner placed atop documents related to the supposed investigation into Biden-family corruption was “fake” — just as Senate Chuck Grassley suggested in an August letter to the FBI director. In that same letter, the Iowa senator noted serious concerns over FBI agents in D.C. downgrading allegations of criminality relating to the Biden family.

Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a wide-range of topics, including everything from the Bureau’s zeroing out of the backlog of nearly two million DNA samples last month, to agents’ continuing disruption of domestic terrorism plots. Under questioning from Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, Patel also confirmed something the Iowa senator hinted at in an August 17, 2026 letter to the Attorney General Todd Blanche and the FBI director — that members of Round River misclassified documents to conceal evidence of Biden family corruption.

As Grassley explained during the hearing, Round River was the name of the investigation run out of FBI headquarters, in conjunction with the Foreign Influence Task Force (“FITF”), with whistleblowers claiming Round River sought to “improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.”

Grassley’s letter from last month noted that “some Round River documents include banner markings to identify classified information; however, the banner markings include ‘Round River’ as a classification code.” As The Federalist previously reported, the FBI’s coding system methodically details the proper banner format, with documents required to first be classified as Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, or Unclassified, and with the names of investigations then incorporated for “Special Access Program.” That reality tracks with Grassley’s statement in his August letter that “it appears the Wray FBI treated Round River as a Special Access Program when all accounts provided to us so far show no indication that it was in fact such a program.”

At Tuesday’s hearing, Grassley reiterated his “concerns about how Round River Records were stored, managed, and classified,” reminding the country that “Round River was the operation that shut down certain government sources regarding the Biden family with apparently no justification.”

“For example,” the Iowa senator continued, “some records included banner markings with Round River as a classification code. That is highly unusual if not outrightly improper.” “What steps have you taken to investigate any improper classification of Round River records,” Senator Grassley then asked Patel.

“Thanks to your referral, Mr. Chairman, and shedding light on this, we looked at the classification processes surrounding this ‘creation’ of a [classification] called Round River,” Patel responded, continuing:

We discovered that there was no FBI policy to substantiate such a classification, and that it was basically made up. So now, working with you and your staff, we are committed to continue to produce [records], on top of the nearly 2,000 pages of documents on Round River that we’ve already produced… We are conducting an internal investigation through the Inspection Division on the individuals who launched and codified this false and fake [classification].

It was not merely the fake Round River classification, however, that concerned Grassley; rather, the Iowa senator also raised his “concerns about FBI files being hidden in Prohibited Access and Restricted Access cases.”

In response to the Chair’s request for an update, Patel first confirmed that “prohibitive cases,” as Grassley noted, “were created just for that purpose – to evade transparency [and] to evade promulgation of FBI records that should be made available under FOIA and constitutional oversight.”

“I eliminated prohibited cases,” the FBI director then confirmed, adding that “we will work with your committee to continue producing records for what used to be called prohibitive cases.”

The use of the false Round River classification and the burying of documents in the prohibited-access functionality of the FBI’s Sentinel case management system has implications beyond FBI Headquarters: The alleged efforts by the Round River investigative team to “improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” did not happen in a vacuum. Rather, in the run-up to the 2020 election, when, according to whistleblowers, FBI agents in D.C. sought to bury reporting related to potential Biden family corruption, then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady was busy vetting evidence related to the Bidens and Ukraine, as directed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr.

But when asked about Round River, Brady told The Federalist he did not know of the existence of the Round River investigation. The former U.S. Attorney added that given his tasking by General Barr, he would have expected the FBI to provide his team anything related to the Bidens and Ukraine. When asked whether he thought FBI Headquarters had sabotaged his screening of the material related to the Biden family, Brady replied: “The most generous reading is that the FBI in D.C. ‘slow walked’ my investigation,” but it could also be viewed as FBI Headquarters “actively interfering with my ability to investigate Burisma,” according to the former federal prosecutor.

The Federalist also spoke with former Attorney General Bill Barr, asking him first about last month’s release of a spreadsheet that identified him as a potential conduit for Russian disinformation. Barr told The Federalist he was not concerned about that revelation, with him noting the DOJ sent material to the FBI for vetting, assuming some might be disinformation — which is why it had to be vetted. In fact, that was precisely why he directed Brady to vet information related to the Bidens and Ukraine in the run-up to the 2020 election. His goal, Barr explained, was to ensure Brady’s team saw everything, conducted a methodical assessment of the material, and determine its reliability.

“If there were people short-stopping the evidence from Scott Brady’s operation, that would have been antithetical to my tasking,” former attorney general Barr told The Federalist, calling it “sabotage.”

What remains to be seen, then, is what precisely the Round River team secreted in prohibited access files — or behind the invented Round River classification — and whether those materials were improperly withheld from Brady. For now, Grassley is clear that he is “not drawing a conclusion on all the records provided so far,” concerning whether the “FBI fully investigation all allegations or simply swept them under the rug for political purposes.” But on much he has already been vindicated.

And the Bureau now investigating those behind the fraudulent use of the Round River classification, and with Director Patel working to provide Grassley access to the documents previously hidden in prohibited access, the whistleblowers who called out the FITF for shutting down sources and marginalized information provided by sources on the false assertion of Russian disinformation, may soon be vindicated too.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.