Ex-AG Bill Barr rebuts Dems’ claim that Biden bribery probe has been ‘terminated’

Former Attorney General Bill Barr has refuted a claim by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) that the Justice Department in 2020 “terminated the investigation” into allegations that President Biden was involved in a $5 million bribery scheme during his days in the Obama White House.

“It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” Barr told The Federalist on Tuesday of an FBI informant’s allegations that then-Vice President Biden took the money in exchange for policy decisions. “On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, claimed to reporters Monday that he had “not heard that this is part of any ongoing investigation,” calling the bribe claim “second-hand hearsay” and mentioning that it “surfaced after Rudy Giuliani was making particular allegations” about Ukraine and the Biden family in early 2020.

A spokesman for Raskin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Raskin made the comments after privately reviewing the FBI informant file along with Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who said the FD-1023 form revealed the alleged bribery was part of an active investigation that involved “shell companies” benefitting the Biden family.

“The claims made in the document are consistent with what we found and disclosed to you all in Romania. It suggests a pattern of bribery where payments would be made through shell accounts and multiple banks,” he said.

Comer later told Fox News on Tuesday that Raskin had “lied to the American people,” saying that FBI officials who met with both of them the day before had said “four times that this was part of an ongoing investigation.”

The Oversight chairman also said he will move to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt Thursday for not handing over a physical copy of the FBI file to the panel, adding that the form he had reviewed was “heavily redacted.” A source familiar with the review told The Post Monday that names were redacted from the file the FBI brought to the Capitol, except for Joe Biden’s.

Scott Brady, the former US Attorney for Pittsburgh who served from 2017 to 2021, had been tasked with the investigation before passing on the information to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who is probing whether to charge first son Hunter Biden on tax- and gun-related offenses.

Neither Brady nor the Delaware US Attorney’s office responded to requests for comment.

Raskin referred to Brady as Barr’s “handpicked prosecutor” and “a Trump appointee” when speaking about the investigation with reporters on Monday.

“If there is a complaint, it is with Attorney General William Barr, the Trump Justice Department, and the team that the Trump administration appointed to look into it,” he added.

Comer has noted that the allegations “date back to 2017,” though the FD-1023 form was created in 2020.

The information was provided to the FBI independent of Giuliani, according to a source who spoke with The Post about the investigation, though his agitation over the Biden family’s interests in Ukraine may have prompted another review.

First son Hunter Biden earned up to $1 million per year working for the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma from 2014 to 2019. He joined the company’s board shortly after his father assumed the Obama administration’s Ukraine portfolio.

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