GOPera: COME & TALK TO US, JOE!
Comer asks prez to impeachment hearing
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer has invited President Biden to testify in the Republican impeachment inquiry investigating him for alleged corruption.
Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to Biden that evidence shows he has “been repeatedly untruthful” by claiming he had no interactions with overseas patrons of his son Hunter and brother James during and immediately after his vice presidency.
“I invite you to participate in a public hearing at which you will be afforded the opportunity to explain, under oath, your involvement with your family’s sources of income and the means it has used to generate it,” Comer wrote Thursday in a seven-page letter to the president. “The Committee is open to accommodating your schedule but proposes April 16, 2024, for the hearing to occur.”
Biden, 81, has repeatedly denied any role in his relatives’ dealings — saying this month that “I did not interact with their partners” — despite evidence that he did meet with associates from two Chinese government-backed ventures and their contacts from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
‘Two narratives’
Republicans argue that Hunter, 54, and James, 75, sold access to their powerful relative in countries where he held sway over US policy.
Comer also asked Biden Thursday to answer in writing 10 specific questions about his links to his family’s foreign business associates.
“The public is left with two irreconcilable narratives. The first — asserted by you — is that you did not engage in influence peddling in exchange for payments to your family,” Comer wrote.
“The second — asserted by witnesses and a body of evidence . . . is that you were indeed involved in these pay-for-influence schemes and that you have been repeatedly untruthful regarding a matter relevant to national security and your own fitness to serve as President of the United States.”
Hunter contradicted his father’s denials by confirming several interactions during his own Feb. 28 testimony before the impeachment inquiry.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter a $1 million annual salary beginning in 2014 as his father spearheaded US policy toward Kyiv, attended a 2015 dinner with the Bidens.
His thank-you email to Hunter for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” was revealed in The Post’s initial October 2020 bombshell report on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter confirmed the dinners also included Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, who reportedly transferred $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to a company jointly owned by Hunter and business partner Devon Archer, and Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who purchased Hunter a $142,000 car.
Joe Biden met CEFC China Energy Chairman Ye Jianming at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington just weeks after he left office as vice president, former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified Jan. 26.