Congressional investigators will have “key figures” appear for depositions in an investigation into allegations of influence peddling levied against President Joe Biden and his family, according to a top Republican lawmaker.
During an interview with Fox News, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) shared insight into what steps his panel will take as it ramps up its inquiry into what he has described as a pattern of millions of dollars flowing to Biden and his relatives from foreign nationals under suspicious circumstances.
“We’re going to start bringing in key figures in the Biden family influence-peddling schemes for depositions,” Comer said, “and I think we’re on the right track, even though we’re having to fight the FBI, fight the DOJ [Department of Justice], fight the Democrats in Congress and fight the mainstream media.”
The GOP-led House Oversight Committee has been ramping up their inquiry into the Biden family in recent months, saying the investigation may inform legislative reforms to strengthen disclosure requirements. Democrats in Congress dismiss the probe as a politically motivated endeavor to tar Biden ahead of the 2024 election, and Biden himself has called the corruption allegations “a bunch of malarkey.”
All the while, Biden’s son, Hunter, is facing an investigation by a U.S. attorney in Delaware looking into his financial affairs. The younger Biden has said he expects to be cleared of wrongdoing.
House Oversight Republicans paid a visit to the Treasury Department in April for an examination of Biden-related suspicious activity reports (SARs), used by financial institutions to flag possible criminal behavior, and Comer has issued subpoenas for bank records.
“I think we’ve done as much as we could do with the obstacles we’ve had to overcome. No one thought I would get bank records,” Comer said. “No one thought we would get access to the Treasury, Cabinet’s suspicious activity reports, but we would not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Comer said about his committee’s efforts.”
He added: “We kept fighting and we prevailed. When we got access to the suspicious activity reports, the mainstream media said there was nothing there.”
At least 20 “sham” companies and complicated financial transactions have been used to hide money funneled to members of the Biden family, Comer said in a recent tweet. The chairman predicted in an interview last week with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that he expects bank records to show Biden family members accepting anywhere from $10 million up to $30 million from foreign nationals. Countries such as Ukraine, China, and Romania have become a focus of the inquiry.
On Monday, Comer subpoenaed Devon Archer, who is believed to have played a role in Biden family deals abroad, demanding a deposition. And Comer has been pressing the FBI for documents related to a confidential human source who claimed there was a Ukraine-centered $5 million scheme involving a foreign national paying six figures to secure favorable actions from Joe Biden at a time when he was vice president.
Questioning what federal investigators have done to look into possible money laundering, Comer told Fox News “there’s a pattern here where the federal government, the deep state bureaucracies, have turned a blind eye to Joe Biden.”
He added: “Our job in the House Oversight Committee is to follow the money, and we have more bank records coming in.”