Top Republicans demand White House provide communications between Joe, Hunter Biden
U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan are investigating allegations that President Joe Biden urged his son to dodge congressional subpoenas.
Comer and Jordan sent a letter Wednesday to Edward Siskel, assistant to the president and White House counsel, requesting documentation on any communications from the White House on Hunter Biden’s deposition. The chairmen suggest that the president may have attempted to impede the probe into Hunter Biden as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry.
The chairmen are seeking “documents and communications sent or received by employees of the Executive Office of the President regarding the deposition of Hunter Biden,” and “documents and communications sent or received by employees of the Executive Office of the President regarding President Biden’s statement about his family’s business associates on December 6, 2023.”
On Dec. 13, Hunter Biden refused to attend a closed-door deposition and spoke to reporters outside the Capitol, denying allegations that his father was involved in his business dealings.
“Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not financially involved in my business – not as a practicing lawyer. Not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not my investment at all nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist,”
Hunter Biden said.
Hunter Biden asserted that he would only testify in a public setting, fearing that Republican lawmakers would leak his testimony and misrepresent it.
During a news conference the same day, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-pierre told reporters that President Biden was “certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.”
Comer and Jordan argue that Jean-pierre’s comments indicate that the President Biden had “advanced knowledge that Mr. [Hunter] Biden would choose to defy two congressional subpoenas.”
The congressmen wrote that Pierre’s comments have triggered an investigation into whether President Biden encouraged his son to ignore the subpoenas.
“In light of Ms. Jeanpierre’s
statement, we are compelled to examine the involvement of the President in his son’s scheme to defy the Committees’ subpoenas," the letter reads. "The Committees have accumulated substantial evidence that Hunter Biden’s business endeavors have improperly included his father, and the President has made false claims about his knowledge and involvement in these schemes.”
The congressmen are looking into whether President Joe Biden ”corruptly sought to influence or obstruct the Committees’ proceeding by preventing, discouraging, or dissuading his son from complying with the Committees’ subpoenas.”
Biden’s alleged actions could “constitute an impeachable offense,” the congressmen wrote.