WASHINGTON – House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer accused the White House Friday morning of obstructing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden – as the White House responded with a memo claiming it had actually shown extraordinary cooperation.
A source familiar with Comer’s remarks during a closed-door meeting of Republican lawmakers told The Post that he emphasized the administration’s failure to produce emails sent or received by Biden using an email account registered under a pseudonym during his eight-year term as vice president. year.
Comer (R-Ky.), who on Friday evening sent a letter to eldest son Hunter Biden’s legal team seeking confirmation that he will appear for a deposition scheduled for later this month, told colleagues that his panel had received only 14 of about 82,000 pages from vice president Biden’s emails known to exist.
James Comer accused the White House Friday morning of obstructing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Comer also accused Biden of repeatedly lying about his relationship with his brother’s business partners, as well as his family’s income from China, and said the White House did not comply with requests to interview various current and former officials.
The dispute over whether Biden’s aides resisted document requests is in the spotlight as Republicans consider holding a House-level vote — possibly within the next two weeks — to retroactively authorize the impeachment inquiry and give it additional momentum.
Biden’s son Hunter, 53, and brother James, 73, will testify under subpoena — on December 13 and 6, respectively — about the president’s interactions with their business partners from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
A recent White House memo questioning the legal grounds for the investigation has pushed GOP momentum toward a possible floor vote. Republican leaders canceled the planned September vote because of resistance from swing district legislators.
The White House insisted on Friday that it had in fact cooperated with the document request – in an apparent attempt to deny retroactive authorization.
President Biden speaks in Pueblo, Colorado. Getty Images
White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams insisted in a two-page press release: “The claims of ‘obstruction’ and ‘stone throwing’ are easily refuted by the facts.”
Sams argued that Comer had received “more than 35,000 pages of private financial records,” “more than 2,000 pages of Treasury Department financial reports” and “thousands of Vice Presidential-era records released by the National Archives.”
However, House Republicans noted that there are other unmet requests from the Oversight Committee, which is leading a joint investigation with the Judiciary Committee and the tax-focused Ways & Means Committee.
In addition to Vice President Biden’s emails, Republicans are seeking — but have not received — Air Force Two flight manifests that are believed to show members of the Biden family participating in official trips to countries where they are seeking business.
Comer also wants communications involving the vice president’s aides and the Biden family’s business entities.
GOP investigators are still waiting to receive visitor logs from Biden’s Delaware residence and information about the contents of classified documents from his Senate tenure found last year at his Wilmington home, to see if they are related to the country where his family does business.
Comer is also looking into communications involving vice presidential aides and Biden family business entities. Getty Images
The panel has also demanded records of people who have bought the first child’s artwork since his father took office as president.
While the Biden White House itself has raised concerns about money laundering through high-priced art purchases, Hunter has reportedly sold at least $1.3 million of his work to mostly anonymous buyers — though one buyer reportedly scored a visit to the Biden White House and a prestigious venue . presidential commission appointment.
Meanwhile, the FBI did not provide information requested about what was being done to investigate a whistleblower’s tip that the owner of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, said in 2016 he was “forced” to pay a $10 million bribe to the Biden family in exchange for helping to remove . a prosecutor investigating the company.
Burisma paid Hunter Biden up to $1 million a year starting in early 2014, when Joe Biden was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy and secretly had dinner with Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015.
Hunter in December 2015 called his father from Dubai with Pozharskyi and Zlochevsky, former Biden family associate Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee on July 31 — before Joe Biden’s push to oust prosecutors as a condition for $1 billion in US foreign aid, a move that documents show surprised US officials others work on the basis of Ukraine.
Comer arrived for a House Republican conference meeting in November. Getty Images
Biden has denied knowing about or ever discussing business dealings with family members, but the impeachment inquiry has turned up significant evidence to the contrary.
Archer told the Oversight Committee that Hunter put his father on speaker phone during about 20 business meetings with foreign associates and Joe Biden during the vice president’s two dinners at DC’s Cafe Milano — in 2014 and 2015 — with Kazakhstani, Russian and Ukrainian clients his son.
Archer also said Joe Biden had coffee — rather than a mere handshake — in December 2013 with Jonathan Li, CEO of the Chinese government-backed investment fund BHR Partners, which Hunter co-founded within weeks of joining his father on Air Force Two for a trip to Beijing.
The second son also put Joe Biden on speaker phone with Li during a subsequent business trip to China, Archer said, while the future president wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
Hunter Biden held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his father’s first year as president and the terms of the divestment remain unclear.
As part of China’s later venture with state-linked company CEFC China Energy, Joe Biden allegedly met twice with his brother’s son and partner and was even included as a “big man” for a 10% cut, as documented in May 2017 e- mail a few months after he left his position as vice president.
Hunter Biden, James Biden and the president’s daughter-in-law Hallie Biden received more than $1 million in early 2017 from a CEFC State Energy HK-related firm, according to bank records released by the Oversight Committee.
Comer spoke to reporters on Friday. AP
As part of the same Chinese business relationship, Hunter sent a threatening WhatsApp message on July 30, 2017 to an associate based in China warning that he was “sitting here with my father” and threatening retaliation if the deal was cancelled, shortly before the transfer of $5.1 million from CEFC to Biden-related accounts.
IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who are accused of hiding in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden for not paying about $2 million in federal taxes, said they were not allowed to obtain cell phone location data to determine whether Joe Biden was actually sitting next door. to Hunter, even though a photo from his idle laptop showed him at his father’s Wilmington home that day.
A bank money laundering expert wrote in an internal email released this week by Comer that the financial institution should consider cutting ties with Hunter Biden because the payments appear to have been made without “any services rendered.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
