House Republicans Back Down From Wray Contempt Vote

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has provided a biting assessment of FBI Director Christopher Wray recently in response to an ongoing probe into allegations that President Joe Biden had participated in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.

According to a source Comer described as reputable, the FBI possesses a document that lays out the claims against Biden, which date back to his term as vice president during the Obama administration.

In response, House Republicans called on the FBI to turn over the form — but Wray rejected the demand. He offered to show Oversight Committee leaders the document during a briefing but would not allow it to be removed from the bureau.

Comer subsequently asserted that Wray’s action was insufficient and signaled that lawmakers would vote on Thursday to hold him in contempt of Congress. That vote had been set for 9 a.m., but the committee chairman reportedly removed it from the schedule a short time prior. 

The reason for the last-minute change was reportedly due to the FBI’s decision to provide access to a redacted version of the form to every member of the panel. 

For his part, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said that such a compromise would be enough to take contempt charges off the table.

“He needs to show it to every Republican and every Democrat on the committee,” McCarthy said. “If he’s willing to do that, then there’s not a need to have contempt.”

Of course, merely providing access to a redacted version of the document still falls short of Comer’s demands. Nevertheless, he issued a statement confirming that he would back down from the planned contempt vote.

“After weeks of refusing to even admit the FD-1023 record exists, the FBI has caved and is now allowing all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to review this unclassified record that memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden,” he affirmed.

Comer went on to conclude that allowing members of the committee “to review this record is an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people.”