Republican senators had heated exchanges with FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday over the existence of an FBI document with allegations that President Joe Biden and his family took $5 million in bribes during his time as vice president, The Columbia Bugle reported.
When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked if it is true that the FBI has a report making those allegations, Abbate responded that "I'm not going to comment on that, Senator."
When pressed further on the matter about why he won't answer the question, Abbate insisted that "this is an area that I'm not going to get into with you."
Cruz responded by stating that "I understand you don't want to, and that's why people are mad at the FBI. Because you are stonewalling and covering up serious allegations of evidence of corruption from the president."
The frustrated senator said, "You're not going to say whether you did your job" when Abbate refused to answer if the FBI investigated in any way the allegations against the Bidens.
After the FBI deputy director replied that "we do our job to the very best of our ability," Cruz answered, "Well not here! You're not answering a single question to the American people. And you may think this is esoteric, I promise you millions of Americans are concerned.
"You know who isn't concerned? Not a single Senate Democrat. We're going to go through this whole hearing, not one Democrat will ask a question about this. You know who else isn't concerned? The corporate media who is joining with the Democrats in covering up the evidence."
When Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn grilled Abbate over reported recordings of Joe and Hunter Biden with a Ukrainian executive who allegedly paid $5 million in bribes, the FBI deputy director said that "we often redact documents to protect sources and methods … the document was redacted."
Blackburn said that "there is only one conclusion that any serious person could draw: There is a two-tiered system of justice under this administration. The American people know that, if they aren't loyal to Washington's liberal political elite or if their last name doesn't happen to be Biden or Clinton, they are at risk of being targeted."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.