Republican Admits Biden Tapes Might Not Be Smoking Gun

For weeks, congressional Republicans have claimed the existence of smoking-gun evidence they say directly implicates President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in a multinational influence-peddling scheme involving numerous U.S. adversaries.

Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Monday, Iowa's Chuck Grassley claimed to have knowledge of the existence of 17 recordings made by a Burisma executive kept as an "insurance policy" for their alleged business dealings, a claim that would directly implicate both Bidens in alleged bribery involving the Ukrainian gas giant.

The source of those claims, Grassley said, was reportedly a redacted FBI FD-1023 form that members of Congress are seeking the public release of—a sort of "tip sheet" that reportedly contains allegations from a "credible" foreign source directly linking the Bidens to crimes.

Whether the recordings exist, however, is a place few Republicans seem willing to go.

Speaking with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday, South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace—a House GOP Oversight Committee member and one of the leading voices in the Biden investigation—stopped short of suggesting whether the allegations were an impeachable offense, saying she did not want to jump to conclusions about crimes that might or might not have been committed.

And in an interview on Newsmax on Tuesday, Kentucky Representative James Comer left some room for reasonable doubt around the existence of any audio recordings involving the Bidens—only that someone the FBI interviewed claimed they existed.

"I can confirm they were listed in the 1023 that the FBI redacted," Comer said on the program. "We don't know if they're legit or not, but we know the foreign national claims he has them."

Newsweek reached out to the White House, which declined to comment.

Tuesday's press tour comes after weeks of media reporting the FBI's previous efforts to investigate Biden's business dealings overseas, which several news outlets said have largely come up empty.

The Washington Post reported last week that the allegations contained in the FD-1023 document being sought by Republican lawmakers was reviewed by the FBI under former former Attorney General William Barr, only for the agency to conclude the allegations were found not to be supported by facts. The investigation was later dropped, a fact confirmed by several outlets.

Despite this, Republican lawmakers have threatened FBI Director Christopher Wray with contempt over his unwillingness to release the allegedly incriminating document, despite it reportedly containing largely debunked information.

Other alleged evidence against the Bidens, including the release of documentation exploring the establishment of a series of shell companies set up on behalf of members of the family, has been used by GOP lawmakers to air suspicions of an alleged money laundering operation they say points to an influence peddling operation. However, the evidence is largely circumstantial, and GOP lawmakers have yet to offer any concrete evidence of illegal activity, something Republicans acknowledged after their release.

"On the bank records, you're not going to see 'bribe to change this policy.' You have to infer what's happening here," Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson told Bartiromo in May.

The White House, meanwhile, has been aggressively working to discredit the investigators.

The White House Press Office last week released a memo criticizing Comer for wasting taxpayer dollars in an effort to hurt Biden's poll numbers, arguing that his big promises over the course of the GOP-led investigation have ultimately underdelivered, failing not only to document direct payments between foreign governments and Biden but any tangible proof that the alleged payments had any impact on U.S. foreign policy.

"This repetitive tactic of laundering thin innuendo has proven his total lack of credibility—and lays bare why his baseless or debunked claims deserve derision," a copy of the memo obtained by Newsweek reads.