NEW DOCUMENTS UNCOVER FBI ‘ROUND RIVER’ OPERATION TARGETING BIDEN PROBES AS RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION
WASHINGTON — Newly declassified documents released by the White House transparency task force have exposed a clandestine FBI counterintelligence operation, code-named “Round River,” that systematically labeled some of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party as “conduits” for Russian disinformation specifically because they pushed for investigations into President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The documents, which detail a sprawling effort within the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) leading up to the 2020 election, reveal a strategy explicitly designed to “neutralize certain narratives,” most notably the origins of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the family’s financial ties to Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence, confirmed to The Center Square that the “Round River” operation was more than just an intelligence assessment; it was a proactive counterintelligence campaign aimed at shaping the information environment to protect the government’s narrative.
According to the declassified documents, the operation identified specific high-ranking Republicans as unwitting or witting participants in a Russian influence campaign. The list of those labeled as “conduits” for Russian misinformation includes former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the late Senator Lindsey Graham. These individuals were allegedly used by the operation’s architects to further what they deemed a foreign threat. In stark contrast, the same documents classify figures such as George Soros, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and former Secretary of State John Kerry as “targets” of Russian disinformation. This binary classification system, critics argue, created a dangerous feedback loop where any information that damaged the Biden family was automatically presumed to be of hostile foreign origin.
The specific mechanics of “Round River” are laid out in a document released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) under then-Director Tulsi Gabbard in 2025. The report details that a dedicated team within the operation was tasked with scouring “confidential human source files” within the FBI and other intelligence agencies. Their mission was to identify any files containing “derogatory information” on the Bidens. Once identified, the team was instructed to “deem the information to be Russian disinformation,” regardless of its source or veracity. This proactive effort to label information as disinformation, rather than investigate its validity, represents a significant expansion of the government’s role in policing domestic narratives, according to the White House official.
The ODNI report was particularly damning in its assessment of the FITF’s methodology. The report concluded that the task force “did not go in and try to determine the merit of the allegations, or to examine if they were factually true, or consult with the agents working those informants.” Instead, the process was entirely outcome-driven. “They simply designated them as foreign intelligence threats and designated their files as such,” the White House official confirmed, summarizing the ODNI findings. This revelation suggests that the intelligence community operated less as an investigative body seeking truth and more as a political shield, actively working to bury stories that could be politically damaging to the Biden campaign by cloaking them in the language of national security.
In a letter to the White House transparency task force, newly appointed FBI Director Kash Patel indicated that he is taking the matter seriously. Patel confirmed that under his leadership, the FBI has formally ended the Foreign Influence Task Force and its related activities, including Operation Round River. Furthermore, he affirmed that the Bureau is currently investigating the operations of the defunct task force. This represents a significant repudiation of pre-existing internal policies and a sign that the new administration is willing to look into alleged intelligence overreach. The White House official argued that the “information learned from the Round River assessment was used to undermine or influence ongoing investigations,” explicitly by focusing “only on a subset of confidential human sources that were reporting derogatory information on the Bidens.”
However, significant questions remain. When asked by The Center Square for the identities and current status of the specific FBI personnel involved in “Round River,” the White House official stated that the FBI is currently “in the process of producing the documents” necessary to answer those questions. The official specified that the inquiry must determine “who was involved” in the operation and “how high did it go?” within the intelligence and justice departments. The process of identifying and releasing these internal documents is expected to take weeks, but it raises the prospect of high-level disciplinary actions or criminal referrals. For now, the documents paint a picture of an agency that, under the previous administration, used the full weight of the counterintelligence apparatus not just to spy on foreign adversaries, but to label its own political opposition as pawns of the Kremlin.
