He then pivoted to the topic of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ukraine, telling Brennan, “I think questions about the conflict of interest regarding Hunter Biden in the Ukraine need to be asked. The State Department had warnings and they ignored the conflict of interest.”
Graham noted that if Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, “has any information coming out of the Ukraine, he needs to turn it over to the Department of Justice, because it could be Russian propaganda.”
“I’m going to get to the bottom of the FISA work process because it was an abuse of power, of the Department of Justice, the FBI. And we’re to make sure that Hunter Biden’s conflict of interest is explored because it’s legitimate. How could Joe Biden really fight corruption when his son is sitting on the Burisma board?” Graham told Brennan.
Graham also said he had contacted Attorney General William Barr about the matter.
In response to a question by Brennan, who asked whether “the Department of Justice been ordered to investigate the Bidens?” Graham said: “No. The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy to see. He told me that they’ve created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified.
“So let’s look at Hunter Biden’s conflict. Let’s look at Joe Biden. Vice President Biden, what did you do when they told you your son was on Burisma’s board? It undercuts your ability to fight corruption,” Graham said.
In the interview, Graham described Giuliani, as a “crime fighter,” “loyal to the president,” and “a good lawyer,” but noted that “the Russians are still up to it” and that “when it comes to documents coming out of the Ukraine,” both Republicans and Democrats should “be very cautious turning anything over you got over to the intel community.”
This isn’t the first instance of a senator calling for an investigation into Hunter Biden.
Barr also said that an “intake process” had been established for any information received by the DOJ on Ukraine.
“The DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant,” Barr said.
“But as I did say to Senator Graham, and we have to be very careful in, with respect to any information coming from the Ukraine. There are a lot of agendas in the Ukraine. There are a lot of cross-currents, and we can’t take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value,” he said.
“And for that reason, we had established an intake process in the field so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could assess its provenance and its credibility.”
Deputy FBI Director David Bowdich, when asked at the same press conference how the FBI was handling the information provided by Giuliani, he responded, “we’re taking information as we would in any case. We will evaluate it appropriately.”
Bowdich was also asked whether the FBI was investigating Joe or Hunter Biden, to which Bowditch said, “I’m not going to talk about any investigation as I never would. We do not talk about open investigations.”
The Post reported that according to a DOJ official, the Ukraine “information is being routed to the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh.”
New DOJ Guideline on Probing Presidential Campaigns
Last week, on the same day that Trump was acquitted by the Senate, Barr issued a memorandum requiring the FBI “and all other divisions under the department’s purview” to obtain direct permission from Barr prior to investigating any of the 2020 presidential candidates.“In certain cases, the existence of a federal criminal or counterintelligence investigation, if it becomes known to the public, may have unintended effects on our elections,” Barr noted in the memo, which was reportedly obtained by The New York Times.
Barr noted that the DOJ has a responsibility to ensure that elections are “free from improper activity or influences.” He also required that high-level department heads must be notified prior to the investigation of Senate or House candidates. These new requirements will remain in effect throughout the 2020 election cycle, at which point, they will be re-evaluated and a determination will be made if they should remain in place.
The announcement of the new requirement comes after the DOJ allegedly has been looking into Ukraine matters related to Hunter and Joe Biden, which suggests that permission must have been directly granted by Barr for Brady’s office and the FBI to proceed.
Roger Stone Case
In an election-matter dating back to the 2016 presidential campaigns, federal prosecutors announced on Feb. 10 that they were seeking a harsher-than-expected sentence of seven to nine years in prison for Roger Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness.The official reportedly told Fox that the “sentencing recommendation was not what had been briefed to the Department.”
On the same day, all four prosecutors who had handled the Stone case abruptly resigned from the case. Three of the four, Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, and Michael Marando, remain employed by the DOJ in other capacities, but the fourth, Jonathan Kravis, left the DOJ entirely.
The most notable of these resignations was that of Zelinsky, who was a former member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Zelinsky resigned his “special assignment to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office” but remains employed as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland.
None of the four provided a public reason for their resignations.
