Exclusive: Jim Jordan Threatens to Hold FBI Director in Contempt over Hunter Biden Laptop Story

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio.) is threatening to escalate his fight against FBI director Christopher Wray if the bureau does not turn over communications related to the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Jordan sent a letter to Wray on Monday explaining that the Judiciary Committee may resort to holding the FBI director in contempt of Congress to compel the release of internal communications and the names of key personnel who participated in the bureau’s meetings with social-media companies ahead of the 2020 election.

The letter, obtained exclusively by National Review, cites the testimony of Laura Dehmlow, former section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), who appeared before the Judiciary Committee last year and recounted the FITF’s dealings with social-media companies ahead of the 2020 presidential election, revealing that the agency held more than 30 meetings with Big Tech companies to warn them about foreign efforts to tamper with the election.

Dehmlow refused to reveal, however, a number of pertinent details about the bureau’s interactions with social-media companies at the direction of her FBI superiors, prompting Jordan to issue a subpoena demanding that information. The escalatory letter sent Monday was prompted by the bureau’s refusal to honor that subpoena.

“During her transcribed interview, Ms. Dehmlow revealed that the same FBI personnel who were warning social media companies about a potential Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation in the lead-up to the 2020 election knew that the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was not Russian disinformation,” the letter reads.

“After the New York Post published a story based on the contents of the laptop about Biden family influence peddling, the FBI made the institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions from social media companies about the laptop’s authenticity,” the letter adds.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, an IRS agent with years of experience on the Hunter Biden tax case, testified to the House Ways and Means Committee last year that the FBI verified the authenticity of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop in November 2019. Special counsel David Weiss and his team of prosecutors gave a similar account of how the laptop was verified in a recent court filing related to Hunter Biden’s federal gun case.

“In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violations for the defendant’s Apple iCloud account,” federal prosecutors said. “Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant’s Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store. A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.”

The New York Post’s first story on the Hunter Biden laptop archive was published on October 14th, 2020, and the FITF held a previously scheduled meeting with Twitter on the same day, Dehmlow testified. At the meeting, an analyst with the FBI’s criminal investigative decision said the laptop was authentic, until an FBI lawyer interrupted the analyst and said the FBI had “no further comment” about the laptop’s authenticity.

The FBI instructed Dehmlow during her testimony not to reveal the name of the FBI analyst or the FBI official who cut off the analyst during the meeting. The FBI and Justice Department counsel also told Dehmlow not to disclose the names of FITF personnel who attended meetings after the Twitter discussion where the FBI officials discussed what the bureau would tell social-media companies at future meetings.

When Facebook asked the FITF about the authenticity of the laptop, Dehmlow said she had “no comment” on the situation, because she was instructed during internal FITF deliberations to give that response. Dehmlow testified that FBI personnel inside the FITF knew the Hunter Biden laptop was real, but she was not permitted to give further information on the internal deliberations.

Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post and its reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, to the benefit of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The Judiciary Committee is still seeking the names of all the FBI personnel brought up by Dehmlow, in addition to the FITF communications. Dehmlow testified the FBI’s internal communications are stored on Sentinel, the bureau’s case-management system.

In August, the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the FBI for the names and communications mentioned by Dehmlow, but the FBI has not “substantially complied” with the subpoena, Jordan’s letter says.

“Following the Committee’s issuance of the subpoena, the FBI has made limited productions with heavy redactions, as discussed above. Even after the Committee provided the FBI with a list of priority documents, the FBI still has not substantially complied with the Committee’s subpoena,” the letter states.

The FBI is being asked to improve its compliance with the subpoena by March 25th. The Judiciary Committee will consider “all available enforcement mechanisms” if the FBI fails to do so. The FBI confirmed to National Review it received the letter and declined to comment further.