US Republicans subpoena FBI over unverified Biden allegation
Senior congressmen say a concealed document allegedly provides evidence Biden was influenced by a foreign national as vice-president.
Senior Republican congressmen have accused the FBI and Department of Justice of concealing a document that allegedly provides evidence President Joe Biden was influenced by a foreign national during his time as vice-president, a ground for impeachment under the US constitution.
The decision to subpoena the two agencies for the relevant June 2020 document by the House of Representatives Oversight committee on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) drew the president himself into a series of allegations of alleged corruption against the president’s son and family.
“The information provided by a whistle blower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national,” said James Comer, chairman of the committee in a statement on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
“The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States of America to make money for himself,” he added in comments that could foreshadow a political, as much as a legal, quagmire for Mr Biden, who last week announced he would be seeking a second term as president in 2024.
Republican senator Chuck Grassley, a veteran conduit for disgruntled government whistleblowers, accused the two federal agencies, nominally under control of the Biden administration, of a “history of botching politically charged investigations” that had caused them to drag the chain on any investigation.
“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” he added.
The White House, in keeping with its reaction to previous allegations related to the Biden family, did not comment.
The formal request added to a growing list of questions over the behaviour of the Biden family during and after Mr Biden’s time in office, following evidence found on the president’s son Hunter’s laptop in 2020 that suggested he had sold access to his father to Ukrainian and Chinese businesses.
“The evidence not only against Hunter Biden but against Joe Biden being complicit and profiting from corruption is growing and growing,” said Republican senator Ted Cruz, who, speaking late Wednesday told Fox News he anticipated the president’s son would be formally indicted soon.
Reports in US media on Wednesday suggested Justice Department attorney David Weiss in Delaware, who has been investigating the younger Biden since 2018, would soon make a decision on whether to indict the First Son over tax and gun-related crimes.
Separately, an Arkansas judge this week ordered Hunter to formally answer questions about his finances after the mother of one of Hunter’s children, Lunden Roberts, refused to agree to a reduction in child payments for his out-of-wedlock daughter from the current arrangement of US$20,000 a month.
Democrats fear the deposition, scheduled for June, could elicit financial information about the Biden family that could assist the Congressional committee’s investigation into the Biden family, which began after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in November midterm elections, or at least present political challenges.
Mr Comer’s committee last month said up to nine members of President Joe Biden’s family might have improperly received cash payments from foreigners during the years before Mr Biden became president in 2021, after the committee reviews thousands of pages of financial records provided by US banks.
In April the committee said it had evidence showing that after Mr Biden left the office of vice president in early 2017, State Energy HK Limited, a CCP-linked Chinese company, sent $US3m to a company associated with John Walker, a friend of the Bidens, some of which was ultimately disbursed to members of the Biden family.
“The Biden family enterprise is centred on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family,” Mr comer said at the time.
The series of announcements and legal decisions related to the Biden family this week provided former president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose own legal woes on multiple fronts have dominated US media for months, with some respite as Republican seeks to apply the same legal and political blowtorch to the ruling family.
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