House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said he will issue subpoenas on Wednesday to Hunter Biden and his business associate Rob Walker, as well as President Biden’s brother, James Biden, to appear for depositions.
Comer said he will also request that other family members and Biden family associates appear for transcribed interviews, including Sara Biden, Hallie Biden, Elizabeth Secundy, Melissa Cohen, and Tony Bobulinski.
“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. 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,” Comer said.
“Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family’s business schemes, bank records don’t lie,” he said. “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.”
The committee says financial records show the family created a complex web of more than 20 shell companies “in a concerted effort to hide payments from foreign adversaries.” The family, its business associates and their companies raked in more than $24 million from foreign nationals over a period of five years. That includes millions of dollars from China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan.
Just last week, the committee released bank records that purportedly show a complicated series of money transfers that ultimately resulted in President Biden receiving $40,000 that originated with a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC China Energy.
Biden received a $40,000 personal check from an account shared by his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in September 2017 — money that was marked as a “loan repayment.” The alleged repayment was sent after funds were filtered from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC, through several accounts related to Hunter Biden and eventually down to the personal account shared by James and Sara Biden.
The committee says the series of payments establish a direct benefit Biden received from his family’s business dealings, despite Biden’s claims that he has not been involved.
The Bidens began working with CEFC, a Chinese energy company linked to the CCP, when Joe Biden was vice president. Hunter Biden sent a WhatsApp message to CEFC associate Raymond Zhao on July 30, 2017, demanding a $10 million payment.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. I am very concerned that the Chairman has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept,” the message read.
“And Z if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction,” he added.
The next day, Hunter Biden asked to reshape the partnership to exclude James Gilliar, Rob Walker, and Tony Bobulinski, leaving CEFC working only with James Biden.
“CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family,” Zhao replied.
Walker told the FBI that Biden appeared at a CEFC meeting in Washington, D.C. with Hunter Biden. Walker acknowledged that the younger Biden had his father attend in order to increase the chances of getting a deal to work out.
Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer previously testified that then–vice president Biden joined at least 20 phone calls and/or in-person meetings with Hunter’s foreign business associates during their time working together. He explained that access to the vice president served as the selling point of the Biden “brand” that allowed him and Hunter several lucrative financial opportunities, including joining the board of Burisma.
At the time, Burisma’s founder and CEO Mykola Zlochevsky was being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whom the elder Biden later bragged about having fired.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office exchanged 19,335 emails with Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed last month.
The House Oversight Committee previously sent a letter to NARA on requesting “unrestricted special access” to communications between the office of then–vice president Joe Biden and Hunter Biden or his business associates.
Among the requested documents is a December 4, 2015, email in which longtime Biden family business associate Eric Schwerin sent quotes to Biden’s then–communications director Kate Bedingfield that he said the White House should use in response to media outreach regarding Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Bedingfield responded hours after Schwerin’s email was sent saying, “VP signed off on this.”
The subpoenas are the latest step in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Newly anointed House Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed the inquiry, which was launched by his predecessor, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads,” Johnson told Fox News.
He separately said he would support Comer’s decision to subpoena Hunter Biden, saying “desperate times call for desperate measures, and that perhaps is overdue.”
Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell wrote to Johnson on Wednesday calling on the speaker to rein in the “partisan political games.”
Lowell said Republicans’ investigation has been full of “worn-out, false, baseless, or debunked claims.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered a similar response to the subpoena news: “This is an investigation that has turned up zero evidence of wrong doing because there is none, this is a baseless smear campaign.”