House Republicans Warn Ex-FBI Agent Not to Destroy Documents Related to Hunter Biden Investigation

Frank Fang
By Frank Fang
September 25, 2022Politics
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House Republicans Warn Ex-FBI Agent Not to Destroy Documents Related to Hunter Biden Investigation
Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks during a House Judiciary Committee mark up hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington on June 2, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Timothy Thibault, a former top FBI official who left the bureau last month, has been warned not to alter or destroy documents and communications in his possession, particularly those connected to his work on the Hunter Biden investigation.

The warning came from three Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, when they sent a Sept. 23 letter to Thibault, asking the former FBI agent to “preserve all existing and future records and materials” in his possession.

“Whistleblowers have come to Congress alleging that you were part of a scheme to undermine and discredit allegations of criminal wrongdoing by members of the Biden family. Accordingly, we believe that you possess information relating to our investigation and we request your assistance with our inquiry,” the letter says.

The letter was signed by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the committee’s ranking member, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Before leaving the FBI, Thibault was an assistant special agent in charge at the bureau’s Washington Field Office.

Thibault came under close scrutiny in late July after FBI whistleblowers told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that the former FBI official “ordered closed” information the bureau had obtained about Hunter Biden’s “criminal financial and related activity” in 2020.

Hunter Biden-GettyImages-1233045326-1200x800
Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House in Washington on May 22, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Grassley has also exposed (pdf) how Thibault had displayed a political bias against former President Donald Trump, as evident by his Twitter activities. For example, Thibault once shared a Twitter post that called Trump “a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.”

However, Thibault’s lawyers with Morrison & Foerster LLP told The Epoch Times in a statement in August that he did not show any political partisanship in his work and “did not supervise the investigation of Hunter Biden.”

“You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry,” the three lawmakers told Thibault in their letter.

House Republicans have said that they will launch an investigation into Hunter Biden if they regain a majority in the chamber in November. As a result, the letter suggests that Thibault is likely a target of that investigation.

‘Domestic Violent Extremism’

Other documents and communications that Thibault needs to preserve are related to an allegation that he “pressured line agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ even though there was minimal, circumstantial evidence to support a reclassification,” the letter says, citing a July report from Breitbart.

In a letter (pdf) to FBI Director Christopher Wray in July, Jordan said one of the FBI officials pressuring agents to reclassify cases was a “field office Counterterrorism Assistant Special Agent in Charge.” Jordan later told Breitbart that the unnamed agent in his letter was Thibault.

“Given the narrative pushed by the Biden Administration that domestic violent extremism is the ‘greatest threat’ facing our country, the revelation that the FBI may be artificially padding domestic terrorism data is scandalous,” says Jordan’s letter to Wray.

It turns out that the FBI was inflating the number of these cases to make it seem like the United States has a bigger “domestic violent extremism” than it actually does, Jordan revealed last week based on another whistleblower. The new whistleblower also revealed that the FBI was redirecting resources away from child sexual abuse cases to Jan. 6 cases.

In their letter, the three GOP lawmakers are also requesting that Thibault take part in a transcribed interview, and the former FBI official needs to schedule the interview before Oct. 7.

“We are investigating several allegations concerning the politicization of the Department [of Justice] and the FBI,” the letter says, adding that Thibault’s testimony “is necessary to advance our oversight.”

From The Epoch Times

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