The chairman of the House Oversight Committee said Tuesday he is moving forward with holding FBI Director Chris Wray in contempt of Congress because the department has not turned over a bureau record that purports to relate to President Joe Biden and his family.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., criticized the federal law enforcement agency after he said his committee was told it would not gain access to an unclassified form that describes “an alleged criminal scheme” involving the president and a foreign national.

“The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable,” Comer said in a statement.

In response, the FBI said in a statement that it remains committed to cooperating with lawmakers in “good faith,” and that “any discussion of escalation under these circumstances is unnecessary.”

The FBI said it offered to give the Oversight committee “access to information responsive to the Committee’s subpoena in a format and setting that maintains confidentiality and protects important security interests and the integrity of FBI investigations.”

The bureau called that offer “an extraordinary accommodation.”

Comer and Wray are scheduled to speak by phone on Wednesday amid the standoff.

Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned that Wray could be held in contempt if he did not supply the documents by the end of the day.

“Let me not just tell you, let me tell Director Christopher Wray right here, right now: If he misses the deadline today, I am prepared to move contempt charges in Congress against him,” McCarthy said during an interview with Fox News. 

Earlier this month, Comer subpoenaed a specific FBI form from June 2020 that is a report of conversations or interactions with a confidential source. Comer, in a letter to Wray with Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said that “it has come to our attention” that the bureau has such a document that “describes an alleged criminal scheme” involving Biden and a foreign national “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” when Biden was vice president and includes “a precise description” about it.

In a May 10 letter to Comer, Christopher Dunham, the FBI’s acting assistant director for congressional affairs, said Justice Department guidelines bar the bureau from sharing the Confidential Human Source Reporting form Comer is seeking. Revealing the informant would violate a confidentiality agreement, and disclosing the information itself could help others identify the source, putting them or their loved ones in danger, Dunham said. Information in such forms, Dunham added, is “unverified” and “incomplete.”

McCarthy said Tuesday the Oversight Committee has the right to review the form and related documents and that Wray “does not have the right to choose what he can and cannot show us.” The speaker added that he told Wray he can redact portions of the documents to protect people and investigative methods.

“There's enough problems in the FBI, and I am not going to sit back and allow him to ignore this,” McCarthy said. “We will get this document.”

Congressional Republicans say the “disclosures” demand further investigation, and they want to know whether the FBI investigated and, if so, what agents found.

Democrats on the Oversight committee called Comer’s narrative of the FBI obstructing “a radical distortion of the situation.” And they accused the chairman of stonewalling them from the call with Wray on Wednesday.

“This subpoenaed document, by definition, reveals nothing more than an unverified and unsubstantiated tip made to Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which presumably led to no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement late Tuesday.

The White House has previously said Comer’s subpoena was the latest example in the yearslong series of “unfounded, unproven” political attacks against Biden by Republicans “floating anonymous innuendo.”

A White House spokesperson, Ian Sams, said Biden “has offered an unprecedented level of transparency” about his personal finances with the public release of a total of 25 years of tax returns.

Republicans claim they have amassed evidence in recent years that raise questions about whether Biden and his family have used their public positions for private gain. But Comer has not revealed much about the findings of his investigation so far. The Kentucky Republican said in a Fox News interview May 15 that his team has been unable to reach the FBI informant alleging corruption by Biden and his family.

Contempt votes would have to clear both the Oversight Committee and the full House. It’s unclear if McCarthy is considering holding Wray in criminal or civil contempt. 

A criminal contempt case would be referred to the Justice Department, which would decide whether to prosecute. 

In a civil contempt case, Congress would ask the judicial branch to enforce its subpoena.

There also is the option of inherent contempt proceedings, in which the House sergeant-at-arms takes the offending person into custody until he or she complies with Congress’ demand. That method, however, has not been used since 1934.