House Republicans on the Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for members of the Biden family and several of the family’s business associates.
As part of the committee’s investigation into the family’s influence-peddling operations, GOP Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky announced subpoenas for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and the president’s brother, James, on Wednesday.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” Comer said in a statement. “Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence.”
House Republicans officially opened an impeachment inquiry into the president in September following months of controversy over the family’s corporate ventures with new evidence implicating Joe Biden in a criminal bribery scheme. In addition to Hunter and James Biden subpoenaed Wednesday, House Republicans are also seeking testimony from James Biden’s wife, Sara, Joe Biden’s widowed daughter-in-law, Hallie, and former Biden family business partners Rob Walker and Tony Bobulinski. Hallie’s older sister, Elizabeth Secundy and Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, were also asked to answer questions from House lawmakers. Only Walker, Hunter Biden, and James Biden were given formal subpoenas.
[READ: James Biden’s Role In The Biden Access-For-Hire Operation Shows It Was A Family Affair]
Financial records reviewed by the House Oversight Committee show the Biden family laundered money through more than 20 shell companies, most of which were established while Joe Biden was vice president.
“Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family’s business schemes, bank records don’t lie,” Comer said Wednesday. “These records reveal how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around to the world to benefit the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself, to the detriment of U.S. interests.”
House Republicans held their first impeachment hearing at the end of September, just before the lower chamber came to a weeks-long standstill to elect a new speaker.
“So far, the evidence suggests the Biden family ‘business’ is exactly what it appears to be: an influence-peddling scheme on a scale never before seen in American history,” reported Federalist Senior Editor John Davidson.
Based on what we already know, it’s hard to see how Joe Biden couldn’t have been involved or couldn’t have benefited from his son’s corrupt dealings. Consider just a few items of evidence mentioned during Thursday’s hearing. In one text exchange with his uncle in June 2017, Hunter refers to his father as his “family’s brand” and “only asset.” That echoes something Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner, said in his July testimony to the House Oversight Committee, that the value of adding Hunter to the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma was “the brand” — clearly a reference to then-Vice President Joe Biden. (Hunter had no experience in the energy sector and brought no value to the company other than access to his father.)
[READ: Yes, The Biden Impeachment Hearing Presented Evidence Of Corruption — Lots Of It]
