Comer subpoenaed 14 years of bank records in Hunter Biden probe: Raskin
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued a sweeping subpoena for 14 years of bank records linked to three people in the panel’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, the top Democrat on the committee disclosed Monday.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) fired off a bitter protest letter denouncing the subpoena, which he said was issued by Comer (R-Ky.) to Bank of America on Feb. 27 seeking records beginning when Joe Biden became vice president.
“The subpoena you issued, after giving Committee Democrats mere hours of notice despite longstanding Committee practice of providing at least 48-hour notice, required Bank of America to produce ‘all financial records’ for three private individuals from January 20, 2009, to the present — a staggering 14-year period,” Raskin revealed.
Raskin indicated the three account holders were “business associates” of Hunter and first brother James Biden in a venture with CEFC China Energy, including John “Rob” Walker.
“To justify this roving congressional inquisition into the affairs of at least one private American citizen, you have offered that, ‘[b]y 2017, Biden family members and their associates, including John R. Walker, formed a joint venture with CEFC China executives,'” Raskin wrote.
“Despite this limited justification, you compelled the production of and obtained thousands of pages of Mr. Walker’s private financial information, including statements of his and his wife’s joint checking account for a decade.”
“These documents go well beyond any business deal with Hunter Biden or CEFC,” Raskin wrote, adding: “I fear this wildly overbroad subpoena suggests that your interest in this investigation is not in pursuing defined facts or informing public legislation but conducting a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President [Donald] Trump.”
During an appearance on “Hannity” Monday night, Comer confirmed to Fox News host Sean Hannity that he received Walker’s bank records and that they implicate a “new Biden family member” in the alleged influence peddling scheme.
“We got his account. We confirmed that that account, around two months after Joe Biden left the office of vice president, received a $3 million wire from two individuals directly associated with the Chinese Communist Party,” Comer told Hannity.
“The very next day after that wire was received. The Walker account started transferring money into three different Biden family members accounts, including a new Biden family member that’s never before been identified as someone being involved in the influence peddling scheme,” he added.
Comer did not reveal the identity of the “new Biden family member.”
His office would not immediately confirm to The Post the names of the other people whose records were subpoenaed, but a committee spokesperson said the documents “solidify our understanding of several areas of concern and have opened new avenues of investigation about the Biden family’s business schemes.”
Comer also is seeking from the Treasury Department suspicious activity reports on Biden family transactions — as well as sales records for artworks sold, supposedly to anonymous buyers, by Hunter Biden through a Manhattan gallery.
Comer told Hannity Monday that the Treasury Department has told him it will grant his committee access to the suspicious activity reports, but he cautioned that “there’s still a lot to learn about how we’re going to receive those.”
House investigators are trying, in part, to determine President Biden’s role in his family’s foreign enterprises — saying that they create conflicts of interest for US foreign policy and could amount to corruption.
Hunter Biden is under federal investigation by the US Attorney’s Office in Delaware for possible tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying and other crimes.
The first son wrote in communications retrieved from his abandoned laptop that he paid as much as “half” of his income to his father.
A 2017 email described 10% of the CEFC China Energy deal being held for the “big guy.”
Two former Hunter Biden business associates, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, have identified Joe Biden as the “big guy” in the CEFC deal, which Comer targeted, according to Raskin.
Hunter and James Biden ultimately earned $4.8 million from CEFC, which was a reputed cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign-influence campaign, in 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington Post’s review of Hunter Biden laptop documents.
Republicans have accused Biden of being too soft on China on issues such as determining the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans, and stopping fentanyl exports, which killed about 196,000 Americans from 2018 to 2021 alone.
The review of Joe Biden’s role in his family’s overseas income is expected to touch on various other enterprises.
In a different Chinese venture, online business records indicate the first son still owns a 10% stake in state-backed BHR Partners, which says it manages $2.1 billion in assets.
Hunter co-founded BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li in a hotel lobby and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
Republicans also are seeking to better understand Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he earned up to $1 million per year beginning in 2014 while his VP dad led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Laptop records indicate that Joe Biden, as sitting vice president, attended a 2015 DC dinner organized by Hunter that included Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, who emailed Hunter the next day to thank him for the “opportunity to meet your father.”
Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, were invited to the same 2015 dinner, according to laptop records. A fellow guest confirmed to The Post that the couple attended.
A 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees that cited suspicious activity reports said that Baturina in 2014 paid $3.5 million to a firm associated with Hunter Biden. Further reporting linked the transfer to US real estate purchases.
Baturina and another Russian billionaire with whom Hunter Biden partnered on US real estate investments, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, have not been sanctioned by President Biden over the more than yearlong invasion of Ukraine, despite Biden sanctioning a vast swath of Russia’s elite in a bid to stop the war.
