‘The Democrats launched a nuclear weapon with impeachment, and then wanted to negotiate while it was in the air…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The U.S. Treasury Department is handing over confidential banking records related to Hunter Biden to the Senate’s investigative committees as Republicans prepare to launch an investigation into the Bidens’ business dealings overseas.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked the Treasury Department last November for “suspicious activity reports” about money laundering or fraud related to Hunter Biden.
This week, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the committee, confirmed that the Treasury Department is “rapidly complying” with Grassley’s request, calling the investigation a “sideshow.”
“Applying a blatant double standard, Trump administration agencies like the Treasury Department are rapidly complying with Senate Republican requests—no subpoenas necessary—and producing ‘evidence’ of questionable origin,” Wyden’s spokeswoman, Ashley Schapitl, told Yahoo News.
Grassley’s office said it could not elaborate on what records the committee has obtained, but a spokesperson criticized Wyden and the other Senate Democrats for recklessly trying to obstruct the committee’s investigation.
“As a matter of routine, we don’t discuss sensitive third-party material during ongoing investigations,” Taylor Foy, Grassley’s spokesman, said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that Democrats whom we’ve kept in the loop on our investigations would recklessly seek to interfere with legitimate government oversight.”
Just this week, Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked the U.S. Secret Service to hand over Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s official travel records.
The senators requested information on what sort of security detail Hunter Biden received while his father served as vice president, and a list of dates and places Hunter Biden went to with service detail. They also requested information on whether Hunter Biden traveled on government aircraft while making business trips.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-SC, has also said his committee will begin calling witnesses for hearings related to Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Graham told Fox News last month.
Graham also said he “can prove beyond any doubt” that Joe Biden’s claims that he sought to root out corruption in Ukraine were undermined by his son’s position with Ukrainian oil company Burisma.
“We’re not going to give him a pass on that,” Graham said.
Senate Democrats are now complaining that the federal government is cooperating with the Republicans’ requests for information because there is “concern that the [Treasury Department] would prioritize Republican requests over Democratic requests,” said Schapitl.
“Republicans are turning the Senate into an arm of the president’s political campaign, pursuing an investigation designed to further President Trump’s favorite conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and smear Vice President Biden,” she continued.
However, after a particularly weak performance in the Iowa primary on Monday, Biden’s campaign may already have hobbled itself without any help from the Senate.
The former front-runner’s staff has openly expressed worries that the “train wreck” in the Hawkeye State could be a devastating blow to his campaign momentum.
The Democrats’ claim that there is now suddenly a double standard is ironic, said one Republican Senate aid, who pointed to the Democrats’ recent attempt to impeach President Trump.
“The Democrats launched a nuclear weapon with impeachment, and then wanted to negotiate while it was in the air—that’s not how oversight works,” the aide said.