WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has demanded the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence release a trove of documents that were apparently “misclassified” to “downgrade” alleged wrongdoing by former President Joe Biden’s family.
In a Monday letter, Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) revealed that records obtained by Grassley’s office indicated the FBI “misclassified information” to obstruct congressional inquiries into Operation Round River, a bureau task force that compiled derogatory information on Joe and Hunter Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
“To-date, the available records cause serious concerns about how federal law enforcement and the Intelligence Community used its resources to downgrade allegations of criminality relating to the Biden family apparently without sufficient investigation,” Grassley and Johnson wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton.
“The records also cause concern about how federal records were stored and managed,” the lawmakers added.
The letter referenced an undated email from a FBI supervisory special agent that mentioned “classification caveats” requested by the agency’s Office of General Counsel “based on past experience with Crossfire Hurricane,” the 2016 investigation into whether the Trump campaign illegally colluded with Russian officials.
Under former Director Christopher Wray, the FBI apparently “intentionally misclassified information a certain way which would result in more obstacles to obtaining access, whether it be Congress or the American people who sought it,” the Republicans charged.
Grassley’s office also received other documents indicating the Round River team may have operated as a so-called Special Access Program, the output of which was given high degrees of classification.
The operation appeared to serve as a clearinghouse for claims about the Bidens — including potential “criminal information” — that were then discredited as foreign disinformation likely originating from Russia.
More than 40 confidential human sources provided information on the Biden family to multiple FBI field offices, Grassley first revealed in October 2023.
Grassley noted in Monday’s letter that he has been investigating Round River since July 2022 and much of the information he’s received has been found “parked away in a hidden classified compartment.”
The Judiciary Committee chairman also noted that a December 2019 email from FBI Section Chief Tony Riedinger to FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joe Pientka appeared “to corroborate existing public evidence that President Trump was the target of a political hit” and should be “declassified to the fullest extent possible under the law.”
The letter from Grassley and Johnson did not clarify any details of the Riedinger message.
The White House Government Transparency Task Force last week declassified a few Round River documents showing the FBI was seeking to “red flag” information from confidential informants about Biden family “corruption and other Ukraine-related topics.”
Reps for the DOJ, FBI and ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
