(Headline USA) House Republicans on Wednesday opened their long-promised investigation into President Joe Biden and his family, wielding the power of their majority to demand information from the Treasury Department and former Twitter executives as they lay the groundwork for public hearings.
“Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
Comer told reporters there are “troubling questions” specifically about the business dealings of Hunter Biden and one of the president’s brothers, James Biden, that require deeper investigation.
The Republican-led committee sent a series of letters requesting financial information from the Treasury Department about financial transactions by members of the Biden family that were flagged as suspicious activity.
Those reports are routine, with larger financial transactions automatically flagged to the government, and are not evidence on their own of misconduct.
When paired, however, with the evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop—and a previous report compiled by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa—those transactions may help paint a fuller picture of corruption that the Biden administration and its deep-state allies have sought for years to conceal and stonewall from the public.
Republicans have discussed issuing congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with Hunter Biden, and they recently brought on James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor, to assist with the investigation as general counsel for the Oversight Committee.
Lawmakers also requested testimony from multiple former Twitter executives who were involved in the company’s handling of an October 2020 story from the New York Post about Hunter Biden, the president’s younger son.
Recent evidence released by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the FBI pressured media and social-media companies to suppress the damning bombshell ahead of the presidential election that November for fear of harming Biden’s election chances.
Not unlike the politically explosive probes that House Democrats used to target the Trump administration after taking power in 2018, Comer’s investigation sets up a likely showdown with the White House that could shape the contours of the 2024 race for the White House.
Both Joe and Hunter Biden are said to have lawyered up in anticipation, and the White House sprung to launch its own pre-emptive offensive strike, claiming the GOP priority was little more than a witch hunt—even using it to deflect blame for Biden’s policy failures.
“In their first week as a governing majority, House Republicans have not taken any meaningful action to address inflation and lower Americans’ costs, yet they’re jumping out of the gate with political stunts driven by the most extreme MAGA members of their caucus in an effort to get attention on Fox News,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement.
The Treasury Department declined a request for comment.
Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation, with a grand jury in Delaware hearing testimony in recent months.
His membership on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, and his efforts to strike deals in China have long raised questions about whether he traded on his father’s public service, including reported references in his emails to the “big guy.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
