House Republicans are looking into President Joe Biden’s alleged use of a fake name to mask his identity as they ramp up an investigation into the first family.
Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter on Thursday to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requesting all unredacted records and communications regarding Biden’s official duties as vice president that overlapped with his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine.
In particular, Comer said he seeks documents in which the elder Biden allegedly used a pseudonym; his son’s former business partners Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer are copied; and all drafts of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to Ukraine’s parliament in December 2015.
Comer said the oversight panel wants unrestricted special access under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled “Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,” which the chairman noted has been published on NARA’s website.
Burisma Holdings is the Ukrainian energy company that employed Hunter on its board for several years, a lucrative arrangement that has drawn scrutiny by investigators in addition to other foreign business ventures. Joe Biden served as vice president from January 2009 to January 2017.
“These records have been redacted for public release pursuant to the PRA and FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act]. For example, an email bearing the subject ‘Friday Schedule Card,’ is withheld in part under a ‘P6’ and ‘b(6)’ restrictions, denoting personal information regarding the subject under the PRA and FOIA respectively,” Comer said.
“Attached to this email, and made available on the NARA website, is a document that indicates at 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko,” the letter continued. “It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to ‘Robert L. Peters’ — a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice President Biden. Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President’s son, Hunter Biden — and only Hunter Biden — was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden.”
Comer asked that NARA provide the requested documents by August 31. He noted that are needed to help Congress work on “legislative solutions” for ethics laws and disclosure rules.
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“The Committee is concerned that foreign nationals have sought access and influence by engaging in lucrative business relationships with high-profile political figures’ immediate family members, including members of the Biden family,” Comer wrote.
A NARA spokesperson told The Daily Wire that the agency received the request and will respond in accordance with the requirements of the PRA.
For years, Joe Biden claimed to have never spoken to Hunter about his business dealings, but as the oversight panel uncovered more evidence, the White House has taken to saying the elder Biden never did business with his son. Last week, the president snapped at a reporter who asked about the calls with Hunter’s business associates, saying, “I never talked business with anybody.”
In a press release, Comer pointed to comments Joe Biden made as a presidential candidate in August 2019 in which he said, “I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period,” and “There will be an absolute wall between the personal and private and the government.”
But the release noted that Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter’s, recently testified to the House Oversight Committee that then-Vice President Biden addressed their foreign associates over speaker phone roughly 20 times, dined with “corrupt foreign oligarchs” in Washington, D.C., and met with his son’s Chinese business associate for coffee in Beijing.
Though Archer indicated that the conversations stuck to casual topics such as the weather or fishing, the Biden family “brand” went a long way in their ventures and the calls were “signal enough to be powerful.”
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” Comer said in a statement.
“We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates,” he added. “We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption.”
Democrats on the oversight panel have criticized the congressional investigation into the Bidens, insisting that their GOP colleagues have found no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden while claiming that the Republicans are trying to “distract” from the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump.
Hunter is also facing a criminal inquiry that so far has led to tax evasion and gun charges. After a plea deal fell apart, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Delaware’s U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel, giving the prosecutor broader authority to bring charges in districts outside his own.
Staff memos show the GOP-led oversight panel has identified more than $20 million in payments to members of the Biden family from sources in foreign countries — including China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan — through a web of more than 20 companies, raising concerns about the president being susceptible to influence peddling. Republicans have also raised concerns about an FBI document showing an informant’s claims that the president might have been involved in a bribery scheme linked to Ukraine and Burisma.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said last month that the probe into the Biden family’s finances is “rising to the level” of an impeachment inquiry. Though McCarthy has yet to commit to the impeachment process, there has been some chatter indicating that an inquiry could begin as soon as this fall as the 2024 presidential election cycle heats up.
Comer said last week that members of the Biden family will eventually face subpoenas.