Senator tells 'America's Newsroom' Congress must ensure FBI doesn't sweep Biden case 'under the rug'
Sen. Chuck Grassley reacted Thursday on Fox News to Hunter Biden's "sweetheart" plea deal falling apart, saying the fact that the judge presiding over the case questioned its constitutionality "speaks for itself."
"I agree with everybody that said this was a sweetheart deal, and the fact that the judge said it could be unconstitutional, some of the things that were done, I think that speaks for itself," Grassley, R-Iowa, told Bill Hemmer during "America's Newsroom."
Hunter Biden's plea deal collapsed on Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware, after Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned a diversion clause in the original agreement.
The judge pressed federal prosecutors on the investigation and questioned whether there was the possibility for future charges, and asked prosecutors if Hunter Biden was currently under active investigation. Prosecutors said he was, but would not answer specifically what the president's son is under investigation for.
Hunter pleaded not guilty to two federal tax charges as a result. He was previously expected to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge.
A courtroom sketch depicting Hunter Biden in a federal courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware on July 26, 2023. (COURTESY: William J. Hennessy, Jr.)
The plea deal implosion comes on the heels of Grassley releasing an FBI document that allegedly revealed a bribery scheme implicating the Biden family.
The document is an FBI-generated FD-1023 form, which details how Joe Biden and his son allegedly "coerced" Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky to pay them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company fired.
U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, left, will oversee Hunter Biden's plea hearing, which is slated for July 26 at 10 a.m. ET. (Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images, United States District Court for the District of Delaware)
"This 1023 document that I released a week ago is five or six pages. There's a lot of meat in it, and a lot of that could maybe have something to do with what the U.S. attorney in Delaware is doing with Hunter Biden," Grassley said.
"The bottom line of it is that all the meat that's in this document, we need to know what the FBI is doing with it. Have they followed up? We don't get any answers."
The FBI released a statement in response to the release saying, "We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential. Today's release - at a minimum - unnecessarily risked the safety of a confidential source."
The agency originally sent the document, redacted, to the House Oversight Committee, a move Grassley suggested displayed FBI "bias" in order to protect the Bidens.
"My job is to make sure, is the FBI doing their job of investigating properly everything dealing with the Bidens," he said. "And I think we've got plenty of reason to believe that they could be if they aren't investigating it, then the political bias, that is so just run rampant in the seventh floor the FBI building, then they could be sweeping this under the rug, and we've got to make sure as congressional oversight people that the FBI is doing their job."
In testimony earlier this month before Congress, FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted that the bureau is "absolutely not" protecting the Biden family amid allegations the Hunter Biden probe was influenced by politics.
Wray told the committee about the good work of the FBI, denied any alleged politicization within the bureau and blasted claims he is biased against conservatives as "somewhat insane."
Fox News' Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital. Story ideas can be sent to
