Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is turning up the heat on the FBI, demanding answers over what he calls a stunning attempt by the agency’s previous leadership to destroy key records tied to Chinese election interference.
In a June 17 letter obtained by The Epoch Times, Grassley raised alarms about a 2020 intelligence report from the FBI’s Albany Field Office that had been marked for retraction and deletion.
The senator says the move undermines national security and public trust.
The controversial document, dated September 25, 2020, was only recently declassified and shared with Grassley by current FBI Director Kash Patel, following a direct request by the senator.
What Grassley discovered was deeply troubling: the report had been officially “recalled in order to re-interview the source.”
All recipients were also instructed to destroy and purge all copies, both digital and physical.
Grassley told The Epoch Times:
“This document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated.
“The American people deserve transparency.”
In his letter to Director Patel, Grassley demanded full disclosure of all communications and records related to the decision to recall the report.
Specifically, he called for messages exchanged between key figures, including intelligence analyst Jordan Siri, supervisory special agent Charles Keller, and Nikki Floris, the intelligence analyst overseeing the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Floris is a long-serving counterintelligence and counterterrorism official.
According to a previous May letter, Floris has been the subject of years of unanswered requests from Grassley’s office.
Grassley now wants more than just overdue documents.
He’s calling for a detailed explanation of every step the FBI has taken, or plans to take, to verify the allegations in the report.
He also pressed for the FBI to justify why prior leadership ordered the document’s destruction, whether that action violated federal record-keeping laws, and whether it reflects a pattern of covering up politically sensitive information.
“The FBI has an obligation to perform a complete investigation and provide full transparency to the American public about this matter,” Grassley wrote, demanding the agency disclose which other intelligence agencies may be withholding records relevant to his request.
Grassley set a hard deadline: the FBI must respond by July 1.
This isn’t the first time U.S. officials have sounded alarms over Chinese election interference.
In January 2021, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, now serving as CIA director, publicly stated that China had “sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections.”
Ratcliffe cited “all available sources of intelligence.”
Yet, despite mounting evidence, no major accountability actions have followed, raising questions about whether elements within federal agencies are protecting foreign influence operations from public scrutiny.
With more members of Congress now pushing for answers, this investigation could blow the lid off what Grassley and others believe is a deliberate attempt to bury explosive national security intelligence just before a presidential election.
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