House Republicans Subpoena Biden Aides to Testify about Classified Docs, Biden Family Business Dealings

House Republicans issued subpoenas on Monday to former White House counsel Dana Remus and several other current and former Biden aides to appear for depositions.

The House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee are demanding that director of Oval Office operations Annie Tomasini, Jill Biden adviser Anthony Bernal, chief of staff aide Katherine Reilly, and special assistant Ashley Williams meet with the committees to discuss President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and any role he may have in his family’s foreign business dealings. 

“The Committees are also investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House,” Oversight chairman James Comer and Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan wrote to the Biden aides.

The subpoenas are the latest step in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Newly anointed House Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed the probe, which was launched by his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.

“I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads,” Johnson told Fox News.

Meanwhile, Comer has said the committee believes Biden’s aides began combing through classified material at the Penn Biden Center — a think tank that served as Biden’s private office from 2017 to 2019 — almost two years before Biden’s aides claimed to have found the papers.

Comer and Jordan wrote in a letter to Remus’s attorney that the former White House counsel “has knowledge of why White House personnel began to visit with frequency Penn Biden Center in 2022, where classified materials, including materials related to Ukraine, were later discovered.”

“Therefore, your client is in a position to provide information related to whether, among other things, Joe Biden, as Vice President and/or President: (1) took actions to hide or cover up his improper possession of classified materials; (2) abused his office of public trust by knowingly using Executive Branch employees to attempt to ameliorate any political repercussions of having been discovered to have improperly possessed highly sensitive classified materials; or (3) knowingly maintained improper possession of classified materials related to countries from which his family received millions of dollars.”

Attorney general Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents in January after the president’s attorneys found classified documents reportedly related to his time as a senator and as vice president in his Delaware residences and at the Penn Biden Center.

The documents recovered from Biden’s think tank were discovered in a locked closet by personal attorneys for Biden who were cleaning out the space, the White House said. The lawyers then informed the White House, and White House counsel told the National Archives, which referred the matter to the Justice Department.

The FBI later found “some materials and handwritten notes” at the Biden family home in Rehoboth, Del., from Biden’s time as vice president.

Comer says the committee has “developed significant evidence” about the classified documents stored at the Penn Biden Center. At least five current and former White House employees coordinated accessing boxes that contained classified documents between 2021 and October 2022, according to witness testimony, emails, and text messages reviewed by the committee, Comer said.

“Facts continue to emerge showing that the White House’s narrative of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents doesn’t add up,” Comer said in a statement on Monday. 

“It is imperative to learn whether President Biden retained sensitive documents related to any countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings that brought in millions for the Biden family. The Oversight Committee looks forward to hearing directly from Dana Remus and other central figures to further our investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and determine whether our national security has been compromised,” he added.

House Republicans subpoenaed testimony last week from Hunter Biden, his business associate Rob Walker, and President Biden’s brother, James Biden. They also requested that other family members and Biden family associates appear for transcribed interviews, including Sara Biden, Hallie Biden, Elizabeth Secundy, Melissa Cohen, and Tony Bobulinski.

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 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.