Lee Zeldin Demands Congress Subpoena Hunter and Others in ‘Joe Biden Crime Family’
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) called on Congress to issue subpoenas for Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, and others in the “Joe Biden Crime Family.”
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said last year he planned to subpoena Hunter Biden, not President Joe Biden, but the committee confirmed Tuesday it had not yet issued Biden family member subpoenas.
“Congress needs to subpoena Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, and others in the Joe Biden Crime Family to testify under oath!” Zeldin tweeted Thursday. “It’s a corrupt, global operation granting foreigners direct access to the highest levels of gov’t in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in cash.”
Early this year, the committee demanded Hunter and James Biden provide it relevant documents. James apparently did not respond to Comer’s letter, dated February 7, while Hunter denied the demand, claiming the committee has no legitimate oversight or legislative purpose to compel the information.
After the Bidens stonewalled the committee, it threatened to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James Biden if they failed to provide requested documents.
“The next step will be subpoenas,” Comer told Fox News. “We will use the subpoena power.”
“For the subpoenas to win in court, we have to give them every opportunity to supply that information to us,” Comer said. “The ball is in their court.”
“We can’t fully understand the extent of what these laws need to be until we know the exact amount of money that the Biden family took in, including from the sources,” Comer said.
In March, Comer revealed three Biden family members who collectively received $1.3 million via a bank wire through a Biden associate from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency.
In May, Comer unveiled the Biden family business received at least $10 million from business schemes in Romania and China. In turn, nine Biden family members received payments from the family foreign business ventures, including two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren:
- Hunter Biden
- James Biden, Joe Biden’s Brother
- Sara Jones Biden, Joe Biden’s Brother’s Wife
- Hallie Biden, Beau Biden’s Widow and Hunter Biden’s Ex-Lover
- Kathleen Buhle, Hunter Biden’s Ex-Wife
- Melissa Cohen, Hunter Biden’s Current Wife
- Two Children of Joe Biden’s Son
- Joe Biden’s Brother’s Child
In August, Comer provided evidence that the Biden family business received more than $20 million from Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan while Joe Biden was vice president.
The Biden family business caused six banks to flag more than 170 “large” amounts of money in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to the treasury for review, 20 more than previously known, Comer revealed in July. SARs “often contain evidence of potential criminal activities, such as money laundering and fraud,” according to a 2020 Senate report.
Overall, Comer believes the Biden family opened more than 20 shell companies to hide payments and launder money. “When you set up a bunch of shell companies for the sole purpose to launder money, that is called racketeering,” he said.
RELATED — Comer: “Joe Biden Has Been Implicated” by “Damning Evidence” of Hunter’s Message About Giving Joe Half His Income
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
More Biden Bank Records to Be Released This Week, Comer Says
More bank records pertaining to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s probe of the Biden family’s business dealings will be released this week, according to Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
The congressman was in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, on Aug. 5 hobnobbing with voters and the rest of his state’s top politicians at the annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic—often viewed as the state’s premier political event. In between handshakes, however, he found time to chat with the press about the next steps in his ongoing investigation of the Biden family.
“This next week, we will release more bank records—we’ll do our third bank memo—where we show some interesting wire transfers and some suspicious bank activity that I think the American people will have a lot of questions about,” the congressman told CNN in an interview.
In an email to The Epoch Times, an Oversight Committee spokesperson noted that the new bank memo will likely be released “later this week” and pertains to transactions with Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.
Latest Developments
Throughout their investigation, Mr. Comer and his fellow Oversight Committee Republicans have maintained that President Joe Biden and his family members enriched themselves by selling access to his office.
According to the committee, subpoenaed bank records (pdf) show that nine of the president’s family members received at least $10 million in payments from foreign nationals, starting during his term as vice president. The documents also show that before reaching those family members’ bank accounts, the funds were funneled through a network of at least 20 shell companies.
Last week, the committee interviewed Devon Archer, a former associate of first son Hunter Biden.
Describing the two men’s business relationship during an Aug. 5 appearance on Fox News, Mr. Comer said: “They didn’t have a legitimate business. Their business was influence peddling, and that’s what Devon Archer testified in the transcribed interview. They were simply selling ‘the brand,’ which was Joe Biden.”
The president has repeatedly claimed that he has never had any involvement in the business activities of his son or other family members. But the transcript of Mr. Archer’s closed-door testimony, released publicly on Aug. 3, paints a different picture.
Specifically, Mr. Archer testified that the value the first son brought as a board member to Burisma Holdings, a now-defunct Ukrainian energy firm, was primarily the Biden family “brand.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), seeking clarification, asked: “When you say, ‘Biden family,’ ... you aren’t talking about Dr. Jill [Biden] or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?”
Mr. Archer replied, “Yeah, that’s fair to say.”
And although he also testified that Mr. Joe Biden had no “direct” involvement with Burisma, he noted that the so-called Biden brand was essential to keeping the embattled company afloat.
“My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” Mr. Archer said.
Another highlight of his testimony was the news that Mr. Hunter Biden would often have his father chat via speakerphone with his foreign business partners during meetings.
Further building on that revelation in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Archer described the president’s claims of having no involvement in his son’s business dealings as “categorically false.”
More Witnesses
Mr. Archer is the latest in a string of witnesses to provide bombshell testimony to the committee relating to the Bidens.
Recently, two IRS whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm on what they perceived to be preferential treatment of Mr. Hunter Biden during an ongoing federal investigation of his taxes.
And according to Mr. Comer, the committee has even more witnesses they're planning to interview.
“We’re going to bring in additional people,” he told Fox News. “There are about five or six people whose names were also on these shell companies, these fake companies that the Bidens were using to launder money from these foreign nationals.”
In May, the congressman made waves when he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that a key informant linked to allegations that the president was involved in a pay-to-play bribery scheme had gone “missing.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant—we’re hopeful that the informant is still there,” he said on May 14.
“Nine of the 10 people that we’ve identified that have very good knowledge with respect to the Bidens, they’re one of the three things, Maria: They’re either currently in court, they’re currently in jail, or they’re currently missing.”
One such witness has since been identified as Gal Luft, a former Israeli Defense Force colonel who's facing charges of arms trafficking, among others. He was arrested in February in Cyprus but fled after being released on bail.
A dual U.S.–Israeli citizen, Mr. Luft has said the charges against him are politically motivated.
“I’ve never been an arms dealer,” he wrote in a Feb. 18 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “[The Department of Justice] is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden. Shall I name names?”
Other claims of retaliation have been made in recent weeks as people have come forward with testimony.
In the case of the two IRS whistleblowers, both believe that they were retaliated against for voicing their concerns as they were subsequently removed from the investigation of Mr. Hunter Biden’s taxes.
Republicans have suggested that a letter that the Justice Department sent two days before Mr. Archer’s testimony requesting the setting of a date for him to report to prison was tantamount to witness intimidation.
He was sentenced in February 2022 to a year and one day in prison for attempting to defraud a Native American tribe of almost $60 million in bonds.
However, Mr. Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said his client doesn't agree that the letter was meant as an intimidation tactic.
Tom Ozimek, Catherine Yang, and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.FEEL THE HEAT FUKER BIDEN, ALL THE WAY TO GITMO!
WATCH: Biden Lashes Out at Reporter for Question About Hunter’s Business
President Joe Biden lashed out at a reporter when asked about the growing evidence linking him to his son's foreign business dealings.
"I never talked business with anybody, I knew you'd have a lousy question," Biden on Wednesday told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. The reporter asked about testimony from Hunter Biden's former business associate Devon Archer last week that Biden was on speakerphone during business meetings with his son's foreign business partners.
Biden told Doocy "it's not true."
Archer, who also sat on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter Biden, told the House Oversight Committee last week that Hunter Biden called his father more than 20 times during business meetings to sell the Biden "brand."
It's not the first time Biden got into it with Doocy about his role in his family's foreign business.
"I have never spoken to my son about his overseas dealings," Biden told Doocy in 2019, before yelling at him to "ask the right questions."
Archer also testified that Biden attended a dinner as vice president with several business associates of his son, including "Vadym P. from Burisma."
"Vadym P." refers to Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma executive who thanked Hunter Biden for bringing his father to the dinner, which took place at Café Milano in Washington, D.C.
"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spend some time together," Pozharskyi wrote in an April 2015 email that the New York Post first reported in 2020.
Archer also revealed last week in an interview that Biden sent him a letter in 2011, contradicting the president's claims that he never discussed his son's business dealings.
"I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday. … I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming," then-vice president Biden wrote to Archer. A handwritten portion reads, "P.S. Happy you guys are together."
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