Republicans on the House Oversight Committee and have demanded that Democrat President Joe Biden’s family members hand over documents related to their shady foreign business dealings.
On Thursday, the Committee made a formal request to Hunter Biden to surrender information and records related to his deals.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) also sent requests for records to the president’s brother, James Biden, and Hunter’s business partner, Eric Schwerin.
The requests come as Republicans investigate whether members of the Biden family leveraged Joe Biden’s position as vice president to “sell access around the world.”
“If President Biden is compromised by deals with foreign adversaries and they are impacting his decision making, this is a threat to national security,” Comer warned in a statement.
“The American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden family’s influence peddling.
“The Oversight Committee is committed to exposing the waste, fraud, and abuse that has taken place at the highest levels of our government.
“Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Eric Schwerin’s documents, records, and communications are critical to this investigation,” he added.
Hunter Biden and the others were given a February 22 deadline to respond before Republicans will consider issuing a subpoena.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s counsel, responded to Comer in a letter on Thursday.
Lowell argues that the committee “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” in seeking Biden’s documents.
“As your Letter is a sweeping attempt to collect an expansive array of documents and communications from President Biden and his family, I write to explain that the Committee on Oversight and Accountability lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and oversight basis for requesting such records from Mr. Biden, who is a private citizen,” Lowell wrote.
“Rather than engage in back-and-forth letter-writing campaigns or any formal proceedings, I would offer to sit with you and your staff, including the ranking member and his staff, to see whether Mr. Biden has information that may inform some legitimate legislative purpose and be helpful to the Committee.
“I hope that you will engage in this effort,” the attorney said.
Meanwhile, former Twitter executives testified to the Oversight Committee on Wednesday about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on Twitter.
The New York Post’s reporting in that story first called attention to Biden’s business deals with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
The revelations prompted the GOP allegations of corruption against Biden.
The president has previously denied any involvement in his son’s business dealings.
Emails from the laptop suggest Joe Biden was secretly involved in the deals, however.
Comer accused Twitter of running a “coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news, and the intelligence community to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth testified that Twitter had made a “mistake.”
