WASHINGTON —?House Republicans will hold their first public hearing in the?impeachment inquiry into President Biden?on Thursday, Sept. 28.
A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee?told The Post?Tuesday the hearing would focus on “constitutional and legal questions surrounding the president’s involvement in corruption and abuse of public office.”
Ahead of the hearing, the panel led by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to subpoena the bank records of first son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden, whose overseas business interests are at the center of the impeachment inquiry announced by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last week.
The subpoenas are meant to determine whether?funds from countries such as China and Ukraine flowed to Joe Biden and could trigger?a lengthy court fight over Congress’ right to the information.
“The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the evidence and money trail to provide the transparency and accountability that Americans demand from their government,” the spokesperson said.
White House spokesman Ian Sams slammed the hearing, which will be held ahead of a potential partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, and said it was intended to “distract from [Republicans’]?own chaotic inability to govern.”
“Staging a political stunt hearing in the waning days before they may shut down the government reveals their true priorities,” Sams said. “To them, baseless personal attacks on President Biden are more important than preventing a government shutdown and the pain it would inflict on American families.”
The president routinely interacted with his son and brother’s international business associates during his vice presidency, and Hunter, now 53, complained in a message retrieved from his abandoned laptop that he had to pay “half” of his income to his father.
Republicans have not yet determined whether Joe Biden received money from his family’s foreign ventures, but are investigating incriminating messages including a 2017 text message in which Hunter Biden pressured a Chinese government-linked businessman to follow through on an agreement by warning he was?“sitting here with my father,”?immediately preceding the transfer of $5.1 million.?
That May, Joe Biden —?referred to as the “big guy”?in an email — was penciled in for a 10% cut of the same Chinese venture by one of Hunter’s partners.
The Oversight Committee also is?investigating?a paid FBI informant’s tip that Joe and Hunter Biden received?$10 million in bribes?from Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in exchange for the elder Biden’s help in forcing out Kyiv’s Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the firm.
Burisma paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in early 2014, when his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and the then-vice president?dined in DC?with a Burisma executive in 2015 — despite claiming publicly he “never” discussed business with his son.
The president’s alleged role in additional business relationships involving his son and brother’s Chinese, Kazakhstani, Romanian, Russian and Mexican associates also are being studied by the committee.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee on July 31 that Joe Biden was on speakerphone during roughly 20 business meetings with his son’s associates, dined twice in DC with his Eastern European and Central Asian patrons and had coffee in Beijing and then spoke on the phone with the CEO of a state-backed fund co-founded by Hunter.
Archer, who is due to serve a prison sentence for fraud, said Hunter and two Burisma leaders stepped away from a December 2015 meeting in Dubai to call then-Vice President Biden — immediately before?Joe Biden?reportedly?caught fellow US officials off guard?by linking $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Shokin’s ouster.