by Sharon Rondeau
(Mar. 20, 2024) — The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hold a public hearing Wednesday morning on the subject of “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office” beginning at 10:00 a.m. EDT.
The hearing is another step in the committee’s investigation of Joe Biden’s alleged knowledge of and participation in a long-running scheme to garner tens of millions of dollars from foreign countries, some of which are adversarial to the United States, in exchange for access to him when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Biden’s son Hunter, who appears to have been the face of the business operations, has denied his father was in any way involved.
Along with several others in separate sessions last month, the younger Biden gave closed-door testimony to the committee but will reportedly not appear today pursuant to Comer’s “invitation.”
On Sunday committee chairman James Comer (R-KY1) told Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures” that “multiple” criminal referrals are expected to result from the committee’s nearly-two-year probe into the Biden family “influence-peddling” gambit which galvanized an initial impeachment probe last fall.
The full House of Representatives voted December 13 to open an “impeachment inquiry.”
According to the Associated Press on Wednesday, Comer is now focusing on the criminal referrals rather than impeachment. Last week Fox News reported that as of that time, the House did not have enough votes to approve Articles of Impeachment.
However, according to Reuters, “Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives seeking to chart a part forward in their impeachment probe of President Joe Biden will on Wednesday question two former associates of his son Hunter.”
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan (R-OH4), has conducted its own investigatory work into the Biden family business dealings, including a joint closed-door session February 21 with Oversight of James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother.
According to a memorandum released March 12, 2024 by Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Comer subpoenaed banks for “inherently private information” during his investigation of the Bidens.
Even though Chairman James Comer’s “impeachment inquiry” purports to be focused on
the conduct of President Biden, throughout this investigation, Chairman Comer has sought—and received—extensive personal bank records of a number of private citizens, including the President’s son, brother, and sister-in-law, based on subpoenas issued in secret. Many of these bank records encompass more than 15 years’ worth of bank and credit card statements and have resulted in the production of inherently private information about routine—and wholly irrelevant—consumer transactions, such as the amount paid for a child’s dance lessons, the number of times someone has been to the hospital, how many parking tickets someone has paid, how often someone eats at Papa John’s or has coffee at Starbucks, and how much someone spends on groceries at Safeway.
Witnesses Wednesday reportedly include Jason Galanis and Tony Bobulinski, both of whom were colleagues of Hunter Biden and provided closed-door depositions for committee members last month, and Lev Parnas, tapped in 2020 by then-Donald Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to delve into the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine, which included Hunter’s seat on the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, at a hefty salary and without any relevant experience while his father was vice president and reportedly effected the firing of a prosecutor investigating Burisma for corruption.
In October 2021, Parnas was convicted on six counts of illegal campaign contributions, defrauding investors, false statements and wire fraud. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution. However, on September 5, 2023, he was released and is currently serving a three-year probation.
In September 2020, Galanis was sentenced to 189 months in prison, more than $80 in forfeitures and restitution, respectively, and three years’ supervised release for taking part in three investment “schemes,” one of which involved fellow former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer. Galanis will therefore testify remotely.
According to CNN, Archer was invited to appear for Wednesday’s hearing but declined.
Last summer Archer testified to House Oversight Committee members behind closed doors for five hours, after which he interviewed with Tucker Carlson.
According to a 12-page report issued by the Judiciary Committee (footnote references omitted):
The deal with the Chinese energy company, CEFC, is one example of how the Bidens’
influence peddling operation worked. For months, Hunter Biden and his associates had been working to close a deal with CEFC. However, it wasn’t until “the Brand” himself stopped by a lunch at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C. in mid-February 2017 that the agreement was finalized. At the lunch were Hunter Biden, his business partners, and eight Chinese executives with CEFC. Joe Biden—the “big guy”—“drop[ped] by” and gave remarks to the group. Just a few weeks later, Hunter Biden and his partners received $3 million from CEFC.
Although Fox News reported that the Judiciary Committee will participate in today’s hearing, it does not appear on the committee’s website. On Tuesday, however, the committee issued a video titled, “The Brand” which they claim demonstrates “how Hunter Biden and his business associates sold and marketed the Biden name to profit off lucrative deals in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, and China.”
On Wednesday morning, Jordan provided an interview to Newsmax indicating Judiciary will be present at the hearing.
“We’re not in an official impeachment inquiry,” Jordan told host Rob Finnerty, but when questioned, he demurred on an imminent vote in the House on impeachment.