House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced a breakthrough on Tuesday in his investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
“After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” Comer said in a statement.
House Republicans hope the suspicious activity reports, which financial institutions can use to flag possible criminal behavior, will help root out any evidence of international influence peddling schemes that may involve President Joe Biden.
“We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat,” Comer said.
In recent weeks, Comer accused the Treasury Department of making “several excuses” for delaying compliance with his demands for information and began to increase pressure by seeking a transcribed interview with the agency official tasked with communicating with Congress. Now with the Treasury Department providing an “in camera” review of the suspicious activity reports, Comer said plans for an interview had been postponed.
The Daily Wire reached out to the Treasury Department for comment.
The White House has painted Republican probes into the Biden family, including Hunter’s art sales, as being steeped in politics. “Instead of working with President Biden to address issues important to the American people, like lower costs, congressional Republicans’ top priority is to go after President Biden with politically motivated attacks chock-full of long-debunked conspiracy theories,” said White House spokesman Ian Sams.
Democrats in Congress vociferously oppose the probes run by Republicans into the Biden family, including the president’s brothers and his son, Hunter Biden, whose financial dealings are also being scrutinized by federal prosecutors.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Comer over the weekend raising concerns that a subpoena the chairman sent to Bank of America seeking 14 years of records involving people linked to Hunter Biden was geared toward giving former President Donald Trump an edge in a possible 2024 election rematch.
“I fear this wildly overbroad subpoena suggests that your interest in this investigation is not in pursuing defined facts or informing public legislation but conducting a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President Trump,” Raskin wrote.
Comer defended his subpoena this week, saying that his committee learned John “Rob” Walker, who has been identified as a business associate of Hunter Biden in a venture with executives from CEFC China Energy, received a $3 million wire from two individuals associated with the Chinese Communist Party about two months after Joe Biden left the office of vice president.
Within a day, Walker’s account started transferring money into three different Biden family members’ accounts, including a “new” member who has not yet been part of the GOP investigations, Comer said during an interview on Fox News on Tuesday. Although Comer did not reveal the identity of that “new” Biden family member, he stressed that this discovery “really changes things.”