The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee threatened to hold FBI director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for withholding information about the bureau’s interactions with social media companies about Hunter Biden.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) has pressed Wray for the identities of FBI officials who took part in more than 30 meetings with Twitter and Facebook in the run-up to the 2020 election. According to Jordan, the officials warned social media executives that Russia may release derogatory information about the Biden family before the election. The Republican says those warnings "prompted the companies to erroneously suppress" an accurate New York Post story in October 2020 about Biden’s laptop, which contains details about his foreign business dealings.
According to Jordan, the FBI made an "institutional decision" after the Post story to "refuse to answer direct questions" from the companies about the authenticity of the Biden laptop. They did so despite learning in November 2019 that Biden’s laptop was legitimate.
In a letter to Wray on Monday, Jordan gave the FBI chief until March 25 to turn over the information or face contempt proceedings.
The letter escalates a standoff between congressional Republicans and the Biden administration over federal agencies’ handling of issues related to the troubled first son. Jordan and other Republicans have accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of pulling punches in a federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax issues and foreign business dealings. The Justice Department, which opened an investigation into Hunter Biden in 2018, was poised to shut down the probe with no charges until two IRS whistleblowers released information that Biden committed felony tax evasion.
Jordan has pressed the CIA over its involvement in a letter from more than 50 former intelligence officials that falsely called the release of Biden’s laptop part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell has testified that he orchestrated the letter after discussions with the Biden campaign and gained approval from the CIA to release the letter.
In his letter to Wray, Jordan said the FBI has repeatedly refused to produce documents regarding meetings with social media companies and other internal communications. He said that FBI lawyers repeatedly blocked Laura Dehmlow, the section chief for the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, from answering questions about the social media meetings during a congressional interview last year.