{"id":1577690,"date":"2022-07-29T08:59:50","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T12:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1577690"},"modified":"2022-07-29T08:59:56","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T12:59:56","slug":"doj-may-have-obstructed-important-biden-corruption-investigations-out-of-pittsburgh-and-delaware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-may-have-obstructed-important-biden-corruption-investigations-out-of-pittsburgh-and-delaware\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ May Have Obstructed Important Biden Corruption Investigations Out Of Pittsburgh And Delaware"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdoj-may-have-obstructed-important-biden-corruption-investigations-out-of-pittsburgh-and-delaware%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1577690&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The recent charge <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/26\/fbi-jeopardized-national-security-by-calling-verified-hunter-biden-evidence-disinformation-whistleblowers-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leveled<\/a> by multiple whistleblowers that FBI headquarters falsely labeled verifiable evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden \u201cdisinformation\u201d raises the specter that agents also impeded the separate investigations run by the Pittsburgh and Delaware U.S. attorneys\u2019 offices.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced that \u201cmultiple FBI whistleblowers, including those in senior positions\u201d had accused Washington Field Office assistant special agent in charge Timothy Thibault and other FBI officials of \u201cfalsely portray[ing] as disinformation evidence acquired from multiple sources that provided the FBI derogatory information related to Hunter Biden\u2019s financial and foreign business activities, even though some of that information had already been or could be verified.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The whistleblowers, Grassley explained, had further claimed that \u201cin August of 2020, FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment, which was used by a team of agents at FBI headquarters to improperly discredit and falsely claim that derogatory information about Biden\u2019s activities was disinformation, causing investigative activity and sourcing to be shut down.\u201d \u201cThe FBI headquarters team allegedly placed their assessment findings in a restricted access subfolder, effectively flagging sources and derogatory evidence related to Hunter Biden as disinformation while shielding the justification for such findings from scrutiny,\u201d according to Grassley.<\/p>\n<h2>Conflicting Stories<\/h2>\n<p>This explosive revelation conflicts with the storyline leaked by law enforcement officials to the New York Times shortly after Joe Biden\u2019s election \u2014 just as news of the investigation into the financial dealings of his son reached a fever pitch.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after Hunter Biden disclosed that the Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s office was investigating him and had served multiple subpoenas on him and his business associates, the Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/11\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-justice-department-pittsburgh.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">published<\/a> a story discussing the separate investigation run out of the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs federal investigators in Delaware were examining the finances of Hunter Biden during his father\u2019s campaign for president, a similar inquiry ramped up this year in Pittsburgh, fueled by materials delivered by President Trump\u2019s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani,\u201d the Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/11\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-justice-department-pittsburgh.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">article<\/a> opened. \u201cAttorney General William P. Barr had asked the top federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, Scott W. Brady, to accept and vet any information that Mr. Giuliani had on the Biden family, including Hunter Biden,\u201d the December 14, 2020, article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/11\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-justice-department-pittsburgh.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">continued<\/a>, claiming that \u201cBrady hosted Mr. Giuliani for a nearly four-hour meeting in late January to discuss his materials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Times article then proceeded to paint the then-Pittsburgh U.S. attorney as a partisan hack and, relying on unnamed sources, claimed that Barr\u2019s decision to direct Brady to oversee an \u201cintake process for information about Ukraine to \u2018assess its provenance and its credibility,\u2019\u201d was \u201chighly unusual because prosecutors in Delaware had already been scrutinizing Hunter Biden for more than a year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Barr made clear at the time, however, that investigators had to be careful about any information originating from Ukraine because \u201cthere are a lot of agendas in the Ukraine, a lot of crosscurrents.\u201d \u201cWe can\u2019t take anything we received from Ukraine at face value,\u201d Barr stressed. And the Times \u2014 while spinning the narrative that there was something nefarious about Barr\u2019s decision to task Brady with oversight of information provided by Giuliani, claiming \u201cthe arrangement immediately raised alarms within the F.B.I. and the Justice Department\u201d \u2014 even acknowledged in its article that Barr \u201chas farmed out other politically sensitive investigations to trusted U.S. attorneys outside Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, relying \u201con interviews with five current and former law enforcement officials and others with knowledge of F.B.I. interactions with the Justice Department,\u201d the Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/11\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-justice-department-pittsburgh.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> that Brady sought \u201cto take aggressive steps,\u201d including having the FBI interview a list of potential witnesses, which supposedly \u201cprompted a tense confrontation with F.B.I. officials at the bureau\u2019s headquarters in Washington.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Significantly, the Times reported that \u201cthe F.B.I. viewed the investigative steps into Mr. Biden that Mr. Brady sought as unwarranted because the Delaware inquiry involving money laundering had fizzled out and because they were skeptical of Mr. Giuliani\u2019s material. For example, they had already examined a laptop owned by Mr. Biden and an external hard drive that had been abandoned at a computer store in Wilmington and found nothing to advance the inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Times had previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/09\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-tax-investigation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> that \u201cas part of the F.B.I.\u2019s closely held money-laundering investigation into [Hunter] Biden, agents working with federal prosecutors in Delaware authorized a federal grand jury subpoena and obtained the laptop and an external hard drive.\u201d In seizing the laptop and external hard drive from the Delaware repair store, the FBI\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/10\/22\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-laptop.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">receipt<\/a> confirming the seizure \u201cincluded an F.B.I. code, 272D, the bureau\u2019s internal classification for money laundering investigations, and \u2018BA\u2019 for its Baltimore field office.\u201d (The FBI\u2019s Baltimore field office supports the Delaware\u2019s U.S. Attorney\u2019s office.) But, according to the Times\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/09\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-tax-investigation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sources<\/a>, \u201cthe F.B.I. examined the laptop but that its contents did not advance the money-laundering investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>An FBI Leak<\/h2>\n<p>But now, some two years later, we know that the Times reporting is factually incorrect, which even the New York legacy outlet\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/16\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">coverage<\/a> earlier this year confirms, in two respects. First, the \u201cmoney laundering\u201d aspect of the Delaware inquiry into Hunter Biden had not \u201cfizzled out,\u201d but according to their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/16\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sources<\/a> remains a part of the Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s grand jury investigation. And second, the laptop contained <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/05\/10\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-kevin-morris-lawyer.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">evidence<\/a> supportive of the money-laundering probe and potentially other crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Yet in 2020, five officials told the Times a different story, and some further claimed that in response to the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney\u2019s investigation, FBI agents \u201cfound ways to ostensibly satisfy Mr. Brady,\u201d raising questions of how precisely they thwarted his investigation.<\/p>\n<p>When coupled with what the multiple whistleblowers, including some in senior positions, told Grassley, it appears the FBI headquarters either improperly withheld information or presented inaccurate information to the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Pittsburgh and possibly also Delaware.<\/p>\n<p>And what better way to hide that fact than for FBI headquarters to leak to the New York Times that the laptop held nothing nefarious and to portray any investigative findings coming from the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney\u2019s office as politically suspect? With that narrative in place, other FBI agents, including those supporting the Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s office investigation, would have no reason to question FBI headquarters\u2019 claims that evidence was \u201cdisinformation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What other purpose would the leaks to the Times serve? With a Biden election, a new slate of U.S. attorneys would soon be on the job, so the political hit on Brady made no sense at that late date. Similarly, many of the complaints aired in the December 2020 piece by the Times\u2019 sources concerned fears that Brady or his team would influence the November 2020 election by leaking details of the investigation, but with the election over and without any leaks, that criticism rang hollow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But if the five unnamed officials knew they had withheld information from the Pittsburgh and Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s offices related to the investigation into the Biden family and\/or had improperly closed down sources and evidentiary trails as alleged by the whistleblowers, then creating the public perception that there is \u201cno there, there\u201d would help hide this reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So as Grassley proceeds with his investigation into the whistleblowers\u2019 allegations, he should also assess whether FBI headquarters withheld or provided inaccurate information to the two U.S. attorney\u2019s offices that had been charged with investigating Hunter Biden and his family business dealings. More significantly, with the Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s office still investigating Biden, it is imperative that prosecutors there \u2014 or better yet, a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/27\/doj-insiders-say-delaware-us-attorneys-office-too-inadequate-to-investigate-biden-family-corruption\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">special counsel<\/a> \u2014 review all evidence gathered by the Pittsburgh office and any files touched by FBI headquarters to ensure the integrity of the investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady and Delaware U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss both declined to comment in response to inquiries by The Federalist. Grassley\u2019s office, however, confirmed to The Federalist that the senator has not spoken with either the Pittsburgh or the Delaware U.S. attorney\u2019s offices about the whistleblowers\u2019 allegations.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent charge leveled by multiple whistleblowers that FBI headquarters falsely labeled verifiable evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden \u201cdisinformation\u201d raises the specter that agents also impeded the separate investigations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":1897830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_finder_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/28\/doj-may-have-obstructed-important-biden-corruption-investigations-out-of-pittsburgh-and-delaware\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=doj-may-have-obstructed-important-biden-corruption-investigations-out-of-pittsburgh-and-delaware","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1577690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1577690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1577690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1577690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}