CNN’s John King Torpedoes ‘Stunning’ Bribery Claim About Biden: ‘More Stunning Republicans Admit They Have No Evidence’
CNN anchor John King roasted a new “stunning” claim Republicans are making about President Joe Biden and a “bribery scheme” — saying it’s “more stunning the Republicans making this claim admit they have no evidence, just an unverified tip.”
At issue is a new demand by Republicans in Congress for an alleged FBI document involving President Biden and his family. In letters and press releases, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) demanded a document they say they “believe the FBI possesses” in which an unidentified informant alleges to FBI agents that Biden “engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.”
The subpoena, issued by Comer’s House Oversight Committee, demands all FBI interview documents containing the word “Biden” as well as “all accompanying attachments and documents.”
On Thursday afternoon’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, King teased a segment on the issue by saying “A stunning allegation: Joe Biden taking foreign money to shape U.S. policy. Also stunning, I would argue more stunning: The Republicans making this claim admit they have no evidence, just an unverified tip.”
Moments later, he hosted correspondent Sara Murray, who pointed out on six different occasions that there’s no evidence to back up the claim, and called the whole thing “a clear, deliberate political move”:
JOHN KING: So a major escalation now in Republicans investigations into President Biden and his family. The House Oversight Committee chairman, James Comer, has issued a new subpoena to the FBI, citing a whistleblower complaint. Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa writing to the FBI demanding a form they say, quote, “describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.” The White House is dismissing the claim and says Republicans are, quote, “trafficking in innuendo.”
Let’s get the details in. And Sara Murray joins us now with the latest. Sara, what’s at play here?
SARA MURRAY: Well, I mean, look, this is an explosive claim coming from two Republicans who have spent a whole lot of time investigating the Bidens. And they say they’ve heard from an unnamed whistleblower who insists the FBI has some kind of evidence that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, was involved in this criminal scheme that involved paying off a foreign national.
Now, we should note they don’t offer any evidence to back this claim up. They don’t offer it in their press release. They don’t offer it in subsequent interviews that Chuck Grassley has done on this.
But Comer still has issued this subpoena to the FBI. He’s asking for documents that are supposedly related to this. And these documents, John, are the kinds of forms the FBI would fill out when they have someone who comes in, they’re a memo memorializing an interview or they’re trying to take information down from a confidential source.
But essentially what these forms do is they document allegations. They don’t document document information that’s been corroborated by the FBI.
So, again, these are unverified claims. And we should know that while James Colmer has been doing this Biden investigation, he has done plenty of subpoenas quietly, outside of the public view.
So it was a clear, deliberate political move for him and Chuck Grassley to decide they were going to go out publicly announced the subpoena publicly with no information at this point to back it up John.
JOHN KING: A very, you’re right, calculated decision.
Similarly, on Thursday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Kaitlan Collins asked about the demand by first noting there’s “ZERO evidence” to the potential allegation
Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.
