The powerful House Oversight Committee chairman, Congressman James Comer, is threatening to hold the director of the FBI in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over a document that alleges President Biden was involved in a bribery scheme. It would be the first time in history that an FBI director is held in contempt. 

“If FBI Director Wray fails to produce the requested record by May 30, I will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” Mr. Comer wrote in a statement on Wednesday. 

Mr. Comer sent the first subpoena on May 3, asking for an unclassified version of a report that allegedly claims that as vice president, Mr. Biden was involved in a bribery scheme. When the FBI failed to produce information by the May 10 deadline, lawyers for the Oversight Committee met with FBI staff but were not given any information. 

“The FBI’s refusal to produce this single document is obstructionist,” Mr. Comer wrote to Mr. Wray on Wednesday before his threat to hold him in contempt. “Public corruption, influence peddling, federal ethics/financial disclosure regulations, and national security matters are directly within the purview of the Committee’s oversight authorities.”

In the May 3 subpoena, Mr. Comer and the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Grassley, asked the FBI to release an unclassified version of a whistleblower report that “allegedly details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions.” An unclassified version of the report is known as an FD-1023 form. 

“The information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national,” Mr. Comer wrote in a statement. “The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States of America to make money for himself.”

Should Mr. Wray be held in contempt of Congress, it is likely that nothing will come of it. Following such resolutions, the Department of Justice is authorized to pursue criminal charges against those individuals. President Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has been convicted of defying a subpoena, for which he was held in contempt. 

The Department of Justice would likely ignore this resolution, though. During the Obama administration, Attorney General Holder was held in contempt for not turning over documents related to the “Fast and Furious” scandal that saw guns being sold from the federal government to Mexican cartels. The Department of Justice did nothing after Mr. Holder was held in contempt. 

Mr. Comer and his committee colleagues are leading the congressional inquiry into claims of bribery, and Mr. Grassley is involved because the original whistleblower complaints were sent to him directly. The two are now asking for more extensive reports that the FBI may have, including all whistleblower complaints “that contain the word ‘Biden’ and all accompanying attachments and documents.”

Mr. Grassley has previously investigated the nature of Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals, which allegedly involved the president’s younger brother, James. In October 2022, Mr. Grassley’s Senate office sought information related to the Biden family’s involvement with business entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party. “The Justice Department’s and FBI’s continued silence on these matters is deafening and further erodes their credibility,” Mr. Grassley wrote at the time. 

“Simply put, enough is enough — the Justice Department and FBI must come clean to Congress and the American people with respect to the steps they have taken, or failed to take, relating to the Hunter Biden investigation,” he added.

Before that, Mr. Grassley had been conducting his own investigations into Hunter Biden while serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, though it was not an official committee investigation. Before the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Grassley’s office sent a number of financial records to the United States attorney for the district of Delaware, David Weiss, who is looking into the younger Mr. Biden’s business and tax records. 

Mr. Comer has also been investigating the business practices of the first son. In March, the Oversight Committee disclosed that millions of dollars had been dispersed to the Biden family through Hunter Biden from an energy firm in Communist China.