HOW THE MACHINE WORKS: Hunter’s Laptop All Over Again: The House Oversight Committee seeks an FBI document alleging Joe Biden took a bribe, and the effort to discredit the claim is already under way.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed a Federal Bureau of Investigation form he says outlines details of a $5 million bribe allegedly paid to Joe Biden while he was vice president. Until last week, the FBI wouldn’t even concede the document existed.

Nevertheless this Monday morning an FBI team dispatched by Director Christopher Wray made its way up to Capitol Hill in hopes that Rep. Comer would be satisfied with a look-see. He wasn’t. After the meeting, he said the FBI told him there is a continuing investigation but reiterated that he still plans to hold Mr. Wray in contempt unless he turns over the document.

The response is telling. Mr. Comer, a Kentucky Republican, has been painted as a partisan rube chasing conspiracies. Nobody seems to care that a sitting vice president was accused by a trusted FBI source of taking a bribe. For those who lived through the Hunter Biden laptop saga, it is, as Yogi Berra would say, déjà vu all over again.

But after Mr. Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley told Mr. Wray in a phone call last Wednesday that they’d already seen the document, pretending it doesn’t exist was no longer an option. Now that the FBI says there’s an investigation, there is a campaign to discredit the charges before the public can see them.

The first salvo came from CNN last Wednesday.

Well, CNN.