Graham launches probe into Bidens, Burisma and Ukraine
Washington — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to former Vice President Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.
The inquiry by Graham, R-S.C., is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country’s top prosecutor, as well as any that referenced an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Graham’s document request suggests he is seeking to legitimize Trump’s accusations that Biden, then vice president, put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation.
Graham, one of Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill, told The Washington Post in late October that he was under intense pressure to launch an investigation into Biden by Trump and his allies.
But he said he would not “turn the
Senate into a circus” and would instead focus his committee’s work on the investigation into the Justice Department’s launch of the Russia investigation.
Taylor Reidy, a spokeswoman for Graham, said the senator is now seeking the documents because “Adam Schiff and the House Intel Committee have made it clear they will not look into the issues about Hunter Biden and Burisma.” Rep. Schiff, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“Graham is requesting documents which could shed additional light on that issue and hopes they will be able to answer some of the outstanding questions,” she said.
In Graham’s letter to Pompeo — seemingly timed to coincide with the conclusion of the public impeachment-inquiry hearings in the House — he asks for communications between Joe Biden and Poroshenko as well as any between Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden’s, and then-Secretary of State John Kerry on March 2, 2016, based on reporting that the two were scheduled to meet that day.
A former Kerry aide, who requested anonymity to speak about a private meeting, said that the meeting was “100 percent unrelated to Burisma” and included “no mention of business.” The aide characterized the meeting as a “courtesy hello to a 2004 alumni” of Kerry’s presidential campaign.