The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee spearheaded by Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson approved a subpoena for records related to Hunter Biden’s suspicious business activity in Ukraine.
Senate lawmakers gave the green-light to compel records by a partisan vote from Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm which had done contract work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma where Biden served on the board despite the absence of any experience in the industry. According to a Federalist analysis of Biden’s pay upwards of $50,000 a month, Biden was being showered in excess compensation raking in far more than board members with corporations of similar size.
Wednesday’s vote comes two months after Johnson initially planned to subpoena Blue Star Stategies consultant Andrii Telizhenko, but called off the vote to expand the scope of records requests. The latest subpoena comes as part of an ongoing probe led by Johnson and fellow Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa into Biden’s overseas conflicts of interest while Biden’s father served as vice president guiding the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Democrats objected to Wednesday’s vote as a partisan sideshow seven months out from the upcoming presidential election while the nation remains in crisis.
“At this moment when Americans need is to work together, this extremely partisan investigation is pulling us apart,” charged Michigan Sen. Gary Peters who serves as the ranking Democrat on the committee and faces a competitive challenge in November.
The Senate probe into Biden’s questionable business activity overseas however, has been ongoing since 2017, long before former Vice President Joe Biden jumped into the crowded race for president.
“The question I would ask it: What is everybody worried about? If there’s nothing there, we’ll find out there’s nothing there. But if there’s something there, the American people need to know that,” Johnson said defending the committee’s decision to move forward with the subpoena.
