Grassley Probing Withheld FBI Records On Alleged Chinese Election Interference

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

WASHINGTON—Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the FBI for additional records regarding alleged Chinese election interference files after finding that the agency had sought to destroy relevant information under its previous leadership.

FBI Director Kash Patel declassified and shared a file with Grassley a day earlier, an action Grassley said arose from the senator’s request for an intelligence information report from its Albany Field Office dated Sept. 25, 2020, according to a June 17 letter Grassley shared with The Epoch Times.

In the letter, directed to Patel, Grassley said that the intelligence report states it was “recalled in order to re-interview the source.”

It also states, “Recipients should destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings.”

“The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI,” Grassley told The Epoch Times.

He asked Patel to provide all records relating to the re-interview and recall “all communications between and among agents and intelligence analysts,” in order to “better understand the decision-making process” of Patel’s predecessor’s FBI, he wrote in the letter. He specifically sought communication records among intelligence analyst Jordan Siri, supervisory special agent Charles Keller, and intelligence analyst in charge of the Washington Field Office Nikki Floris.

Floris, who previously worked on counterterrorism and counterintelligence at the FBI, has been the intelligence analyst in charge for the agency’s Washington field office since 2022. Grassley, in a May letter shared with The Epoch Times, said his office has been corresponding with Floris for years but had yet to receive any records from her regarding his requests.

Grassley also requested the FBI to “describe all investigative steps the FBI has taken, or will take, to determine the veracity of the allegations” in the intelligence report, the individuals who took the action, and the basis for it.

The FBI, in the reply, should also explain why under Patel’s predecessor it had required the original report’s destruction, whether this step is consistent with the agency’s past and current practice, and how it conforms to federal record preservation requirements, Grassley said.

“The FBI has an obligation to perform a complete investigation and provide full transparency to the American public about this matter,” he wrote in the letter, adding that the FBI needs to name any intelligence community agency that owns information relating to his request, and “the records they’ve asserted control over to prevent production.”

Grassley demanded a response by July 1.

The FBI told The Epoch Times it has posted on social media about the documents and has no further comments.

U.S. officials have long been concerned about potential Chinese meddling in U.S. elections.

In January 2021, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who now directs the CIA, said that he believed China had “sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections” based on “all available sources of intelligence.”