The House Judiciary Committee Interview of Scott Brady

So, I took my own advice and read over the transcript of the House Judiciary Committee's interview of former West District of Pennsylvania (WDP) US Attorney Scott Brady.  What did I find out?

Well, for one, it got rather redundant in places as Democrats and Republicans kept harping on the same information over and over. But in general, the WDP was tasked with reviewing tips from "the public" about goings on in Ukraine. Brady and five other attorneys at the office took on the task, in addition to their usual work.  They did not have any compulsory tools of a grand jury investigation, such as subpoenas, so they were limited to checking open sources, looking through their files, and voluntary interviews of US witnesses.  (They did not talk to Ukrainian witnesses, pp. 136-137).  They threw out tips they considered disproven and passed other ones on the the relevant grand jury.  

Brady was at some pains to point out that this investigation was not unusual, and that it took tips from the general public, not just Rudy Giuliani.  Democrats established that Giuliani was the first witness the WDP spoke to, and that Brady personally attended the interview.  Besides taking tips from the "public," Brady's team looked through FBI files for relevant information, which is how they found Smirnov's report from 2017 that made a "brief, non-relevant" mention of Hunter Biden.  Because of the sensitive nature of the investigation, it required renewal every 30 days from 17 different people.  (Brady was emphatic that the number was literally 17 and he was not just being hyperbolic).  The investigation came to a temporary stop several times as they awaited approval, and was further hampered by COVID restrictions.  Brady also sensed a resistance from the District of Delaware (which was the district investigating Hunter).  In October, 2020, both districts received a directive from above to give a briefing to Delaware, including providing Smirnov's report.  Delaware made clear that they were accepting the briefing only because of orders from above.

The discussion of the FD 2023 report is . . . interesting.

Q And can you tell us about the process that your office went through to vet the information that's now contained in this FD-1023? 

 Mr. Lelling. You can speak generally to that. I would not get into details.  

Mr. Brady. So we attempted to use open-source material to check against what was stated in the 1023. We also interfaced with the CHS' handler about certain statements relating to travel and meetings to see if they were consistent with his or her understanding.  

Q And did you determine if the information was consistent with the handler's understanding? 

A What we were able to identify, we found that it was consistent. And so we felt that there were sufficient indicia of credibility in this 1023 to pass it on to an office that had a predicated grand jury investigation. 

Q And did you determine that the CHS had traveled to the different countries listed in the 1023? 

Mr. Lelling. I would decline to answer that.

Mr. Lelling is Brady's lawyer.  The reason he gave was for refusing to answer was that the question was too detailed.  The same issue came up again later:

Q The ... Pittsburgh FBI Office obtained travel records for the CHS, and those records confirmed the CHS had traveled to the locales detailed in the FD-1023 during the relevant time period. The trips included a late 2015 or early 2016 visit to Kiev, Ukraine, a trip a couple months later to Vienna, Austria, and travel to London in 2019.Does this kind of match your recollection of what actions the Pittsburgh FBI Office was taking in regards to this. 

Mr. Lelling. Don't answer that. Too specific a level of detail.

Q You had mentioned last hour about travel records. Did your office obtain travel records, or did you have knowledge that the Pittsburgh FBI Office obtained travel  records? 

Mr. Lelling. That you can answer yes or no. 

Mr. Brady. Yes. (p. 93)

Scott Brady

It is clear from the indictment that as soon as the Delaware office looked at the travel records that the handler had, it became obvious that the source was lying because he was not in the places at the times that he said.  Another interesting note -- the handler operated out of Seattle.  It is not know whether the handler turned the travel records over to Brady.  If so, the lie would have been obvious.  As for closing the investigation into the 1023, Brady said that it was closed only in the sense that they were not able to investigate any further.  They forwarded the lead to Delaware (pp. 102-103).

The interview did not establish what percentage of the tips the WDP received were from Giuliani.  Democrats did quote the lawyer managing the Hunter Biden prosecution in Delaware as saying she did not want a briefing from the WDP because none of their information was credible, since it all came from Giuliani.  Brady responded that "some of the information" including the 1023 did not come from Giuliani (pp. 95-96), which I take as significant.  In describing sources of information, Brady said:

We had the information from Mr. Giuliani, and then we had developed work streams through discussions with other, either components within DOJ or other Federal agencies to run certain things to ground. But it wasn't limited to just Mr. Giuliani's information, yes. (p. 172).

This seems to suggest that the whole discussion of tips from the "public" was mostly a smoke screen, and that their actual information came from either Giuliani or in investigation of government files.  However, no one clarified this matter.  Another remark that seems rather startling, but that no one followed up on was Brady's statement that the only office that received "a" 1023 was Delaware (p. 150)*.  Note here that he does not say "the" 1023, i.e. the one from Smirnov that was under discussion.  Taken at face value, this would mean no one else received any 1023.  But no one followed up on this, and I should probably not leap to too many conclusions based simply on the use of an indefinite article. As for the information received from Giuliani:

There were a lot of names, which included details allegedly derived from those people, including, as I mentioned before, possible bank account records -- or I'm sorry, bank account numbers, email addresses, cell phones that would purportedly point towards evidence. There were a lot of -- there was information about a variety of schemes and accusations not limited to Burisma and Mr. Biden. 

In general, Republicans focused on the institutional resistance to the investigation.  Presumably their point was an effort to portray a "deep state" plot to protect the Bidens.  I suppose that is one possible interpretation.  I can think of others.  The FBI and DOJ may have been generally resistant because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.  Or they may have disliked the bureaucratic constraints on the sensitive investigation. (Republicans portrayed, and Brady agreed, that these restraints were extraordinary, even for a highly sensitive investigation).  Or they may have regarded Giuliani's leads as felgercarb and resented having to chase them.  There appears to be at least some confirmation of that last in the interview.

Democrats did not directly attack the credibility of the confidential informant, but focused on attacking Zlochevsky's credibility with open source statements such as interviews and news articles in which the participants denied any improper contacts with the Bidens.  I don't know.  I do not think if I were investigating I would give such things much weight for the simple reason that I would take for granted the participants were liars, and that what they said in a private conversation with a business associated would probably be more reliable than what they said on the record.  Probably the most worthwhile such public statement (pp. 141-142) was from the incoming Ukrainian Prosecutor General, who said he investigated the files and found no evidence to support the allegations.  

Democrats did not ask why, if  the confidential informant heard such explosive allegations in 2015-2019 and did not report them until 2020. Brady said that he asked for a follow up interview on the innocuous 2017 comments on the theory that Hunter Biden might not be relevant to the inquiry underway.  And yes, certainly it is possible that something that might not seem significant at the time might turn out to be significant later. But to me it just surpasses belief that an informant would hear anything so explosive as that and not report it until years later.  Even if it was not relevant to the immediate investigation, I would expect the handler to pass on the lead for a new investigation.

Other questions that seem significant but were not raised:

What percentage of your information came from Giuliani?

Did you get any tips from any other member of the "public?"  If so, how did the volume compare?

What percentage of your leads came from external tips versus search of internal files?

Did you activate any other confidential informants?

Did it concern you that all the information in the 1023 was unverifiable?

And, yes, didn't it seem strange to you that anyone would have a lead this explosive and sit on it for so many years?

Maybe the Inspector General can look into those questions.

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*The WDP was also in communications with New York City prosecutors about Giuliani and his associates being unauthorized foreign agents.  Brady was clarifying that the New York offices did not receive "a" or "the" 1023 report.