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Exclusive: The FBI blocked an investigation into allegations that the Chinese Communist Party manufactured licenses for fake drivers and shipped them to the US with plans to affect the 2020 presidential election.
Records containing communications between FBI officials ahead of the 2020 election were recently declassified by FBI Director Kash Patel and sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
Biden’s 2020 election will be investigated by the FBI and China’s plan to influence the Senate Judiciary Committee
Fox News Digital reported in June that Patel had been discovered and declassified, claiming that Patel tried to provide a fake driver’s license to US Chinese sympathizers who voted for Biden in the 2020 election. The document does not say whether the vote was cast as part of the scheme.
FBI Director Kash Patel has declassified the original report claiming that the Chinese Communist Party tried to provide a fake driver license to US Chinese sympathizers who voted for Biden in the 2020 election. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
The FBI recalls reporting on September 25, 2020 – a day after Ray testified before Congress that the FBI had not seen a coordinated voter fraud ahead of the 2020 election.
The FBI recalled the report at the time “to reinterview the source.” I also told the “recipients” of the original report to “destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer possessions.”
However, Patel declassified this week, including records related to source reinterviews and communications between then-FBI officials discussing the decisions behind the recall and decision not to republish intelligence reporting.
The records were sent to Grassley, and Fox News Digital reviewed the records.
“The sources were once again involved and provided additional context to support the initial IIR, but the FBI headquarters remained in a position not to republish the report,” FBI Director Marshall Yates wrote in a letter to Grassley obtained by Fox News Digital. “One of the reasons why I didn’t publish IIR was because “the report contradicts Ray’s testimony supervision.” ”
Fox News Digital could not reach Wray for comment.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) arrives at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on judicial nominations at Capitol Hill on September 6, 2023. (Drew Anger/Getty Images)
During the Senate hearing on September 24, 2020, Ray said he had never seen widespread fraud in the mail, saying that if he had it, it would be something we would seriously investigate.
“We have not seen historically coordinated national voter fraud efforts, whether by mail or not, in major elections,” Ray testified. But “We are wary of the threat and look closely at it, so we must not make mistakes as we are in new, unknown territory.”
However, Ray also testified that the Chinese are “expanding influence efforts,” saying they are “looking for different ways to retrieve pages from malignant foreign influence playbooks seen elsewhere.”
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However, Yates explained in a letter to Grassley that the recall of the original report was “abnormal.”
“The rationale provided to Albany staff for the recall was that the headquarters viewed the report as not an “authoritarian,” but this characterization was met with disagreements by people at the Albany office,” Yates explained.
Grassley told Fox News Digital: “We record political decision-making and prove that the Ray-led FBI is a deeply broken institution. Prior to high-stakes elections amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI has turned its back on its national security mission.”
“In any case, you need to thoroughly investigate your intelligence and determine whether it’s true or whether it’s just smoke and mirrors,” Grassley said.
The FBI is assisting Maine Police in the search for 14-year-old Stefanie Damron. (AP Photo/Charlie Neighborgole, file)
The report was recalled at the direction of Cyber Division’s anti-intelligent Nikki Floris and Associate Assistants of Tonya Ugoretz.
Fox News Digital first reported that Floris was an FBI official who gave a “defensive briefing” to Senator Grassley and Senator Ron Johnson in August 2020, claiming that their Hunter Biden investigation had advanced Russian disinformation.
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The FBI reflects concerns that declassifying internal emails and suppressing documents among Albany staff obtained by Fox News Digital is “critical to potential political consequences as reasons for not publishing information.”
Yates explained that “it was not the role of an analyst to align intelligence with public testimony.”
“Albany staff also warned the FBI in anticipation of the Intelligence Reports Community (IC)’s role as the sole gatekeeper, highlighting that suppressing field-generated reports could deprive other IC elements of the opportunity to support or trust intelligence,” Yates said.
In an email from September 30, 2020, reviewed by Fox News Digital, the agent questioned why it could not release the report.
Christopher Ray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), arrives at a House Judiciary Committee hearing held in Washington, DC, USA on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (Aldrago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On October 1, 2020, an agent from the Albany Field Office responded.
“I’m not trying to struggle with this, but after taking the time to think about it, I want to make clear that I’ll express my views and concerns about this issue and disagree with reasons not to issue this,” wrote an FBI agent at the Albany Field Office.
“I’m not satisfied with why we need a review of the new 1023 and HQ, as these are routine operational and management requirements,” the agent continued. “To me, I have said that the report is inconsistent with Director Ray’s testimony. I was implying this because it implies that one of the reasons we haven’t put this out is political reasons.
FBI Director Kash Patel vows to restore confidence in the station and corner bad actors in every corner of this planet.”
The agent added: “Similarly, at the operational level of the field, I don’t feel that it’s our job to assess whether intelligence matches the director. Rather, we provide intelligence to people who are far above wage grades (such as directors) to call what the FBI sees as a whole.”
The agent agreed that the FBI “has an obligation not to publish reckless information where they know something is false or that it will cause excessive harm.”
“However, we are not in our only position to determine the validity of the report, as we constitute only one USIC agency and a very small percentage of all USICs, as well as other FBI sources that can report on this issue,” the agent wrote. “My concern is that if I cite potential political consequences as a reason for not giving out information, I think it would be dangerous.”
The agent also emphasized that with the decision to recall the report, the FBI is “beginning to become the sole decision maker for the Intelligence Reporting community as it can potentially deprive USIC of the remainder of USIC’s opportunities of corrobate or trust.”
“Chris Ray’s FBI was not looking for Americans. They were trying to save their own image,” Grassley told Fox News Digital. “Now is the time to rebuild the FBI’s trust.”
He added: “Working with me, Director Patel, to establish new transparency and accountability is an important part of that process and I praise his efforts.”
Meanwhile, Yates explained that despite the information analysts “requiring further investigation and re-engagement with the source, the headquarters ultimately decided not to issue a new IIR, and that even after the source has been re-interviewed, it has decided to cite the lack of additional empirical information.”
Yates said the FBI believes the sources “appear to be trustworthy” and the FBI “didn’t close the cause of trustworthy or lack of information.”
According to declassified documents, the source was a Chinese-based individual who was not a member of China’s Communist Party. In a reinterview, the documents show that Albany officials were able to “partially support some of the information provided.”
“Case Agent considers the source to be competent and authentic in his/her report,” the declassified FBI record states.
When asked how “confident” the source of information was, the agent wrote, “very, very confident.”
“Additional emails indicate that the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) did not approve of the reissue of the IIR, citing concerns about authority and the possibility of disinformation by foreign actors,” Yates explained. “However, with the exception of the request for information to US Customs and Border Protection, we found no information indicating that Fitf-china actively investigated the reported information, despite supporting its intergovernmental reporting and logical investigation leads.”
The original FBI report comes just a month after a U.S. Customs and Border Guard officer at the international postal facility at Chicago O’Hare International Airport seized nearly 20,000 fraudulent licenses.
From January 2020 to June 30, 2020, CBP officers at the location reported seized 1,513 shipments of fraudulent documents, including a total of 19,888 counterfeit US driver’s licenses.
“The majority of these shipments arrived from China and Hong Kong,” CBP posted in a July press release.
It was not immediately clear whether the seizure had any connection to the allegations in the document.
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“Finally, for this episode, the FBI headquarters set new requirements for the field of elections in 2020. “All live reports about elections will require adjustments to the headquarters that were not previously necessary,” Yates explained to Grassley.
The FBI said the records “reflect the broader sentiment within the Albany Field Office that the decision to recall and the consequent suppression of IIR raised serious questions about the integrity of the intellectual reporting process and its sensitivity to perceived political pressure.”
The FBI continues to investigate the issue and notes that records are stored within the station’s systems.
Brooksingman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and Fox Business.
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