The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden on Wednesday. In the course of its impeachment investigation, the committee took the unusual step of requesting depositions from President Biden’s family members.
The committee also requested that Melissa Cohen, the wife of Hunter Biden, and Sarah Biden, the wife of James Biden, participate in transcribed interviews. Additionally, Hallie Biden, Beau Biden’s widow, and her sister Elizabeth Secundy are requested to be interviewed by the panel.
The subpoenas, which also include one for Rob Walker, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, were issued weeks after the Oversight Committee requested access to the personal bank records of both James and Hunter Biden.
Additionally, the panel is asking to talk with Tony Bobulinski, who has been accused of lying to the FBI by Hunter Biden’s lawyer.
James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, stated in a statement that he “plans to send additional subpoenas and transcribed interview requests later this week.”
The decision to force their testimony was made the day after members of the House Judiciary Committee, one of the three panels overseeing the probe, participated in a voluntary interview with special counsel David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware conducting the investigation into Hunter Biden.
The subpoenas are the first significant action since Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was elected. Johnson has supported attempts to remove President Biden from office while emphasizing the need to exercise congressional authority wisely.
The White House rejected the subpoenas as a “smear campaign” against the president, citing the difficulty of electing Johnson and the approaching government shutdown.
“With just over a week to go until House Republicans may again thrust the country into a harmful and chaotic government shutdown, the most extreme voices in their party like James Comer are trying to distract from their repeated failures to govern,” Ian Sams, the White House’s oversight spokesperson, said in a memo.
“Despite spending millions of taxpayer dollars to conduct this probe, they have turned up no evidence to support their outlandish allegations of bribery and ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ which they claim are motivating their open-ended ‘impeachment inquiry.’”
The Bidens are the subject of a GOP inquiry that goes in several directions. Among them are allegations that the Bidens sold influence and that part of the proceeds went to President Biden while he was vice president.
The White House claims that President Biden’s attempts to remove a Ukrainian prosecutor for failing to confront corruption had nothing to do with his son’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy business, and House Republicans have not been able to prove that President Biden accepted a bribe. The White House has vehemently refuted any misconduct.
Additionally, Weiss refuted Republican allegations that DOJ headquarters obstructed his prosecution on Tuesday by asserting that he continues to have complete responsibility of the Hunter Biden probe.
Walker, who was previously interrogated by the FBI in 2020 and claimed that President Biden had minimal knowledge of his son’s business dealings, is already well-documented by the committee.
“I certainly never was thinking at any time that the V. P. was a part of anything we were doing,” he told the bureau at the time.
That was in reaction to allegations made by Bobulinski—with whom Hunter Biden claims he had a brief relationship—that the president’s son intended to hold funds for a person Bobulinski believed to be his father.
Walker informed the FBI that they were “wishful thinking” that President Biden would ever work for them.
Following their acquisition of the Bidens’ personal financial records, Republicans have drawn attention to two payments between the brothers that were received after Biden left office and were marked as personal loans.
The GOP claimed that they emerged following significant economic transactions, however James Biden’s employment with an American corporation preceded the repayment of a $200,000 loan. Hunter Biden obtained funds from a Chinese company and then transferred some of it to his uncle’s business, which then transferred it into his personal account. This resulted in a $40,000 cheque between the brothers.
Democrats contend that the money only reflect a brief loan that Biden’s family members made to one another while he was a private man.
The Republicans have stirred the pot, but they haven’t shown any concrete evidence that the president has benefited personally from his family’s foreign business ventures or that his vice president’s judgments have been influenced by them.
The main focus of the accusations is President Biden’s attempt to dismiss Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin while serving as vice president. Republicans contend that, contrary to what Biden has claimed, Shokin’s failure to confront corruption was not the reason behind such actions, but rather that they were made to help his son, who served on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma.
However, Biden’s actions were consistent with those of the international community, and documents from the State Department at the time indicate that the United States postponed money to Ukraine because of concerns over Shokin’s lack of significant changes.
Additionally, Shokin was not pursuing legal action against Burisma; according to his deputy, an earlier probe had been abandoned by the time Biden became involved. The United States’ apprehension on aiding Ukraine stemmed from Shokin’s lack of assertive prosecution.
The post NEW: Biden’s Hit With a Slew Of Subpoenas appeared first on The Republic Brief.
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