EGN NEWS DESK
House Republicans on Wednesday urged the Justice Department to cost Hunter and James Biden, the president’s son and brother, with making false statements to Congress within the impeachment inquiry in opposition to President Biden.
The chairmen of three House committees really helpful the motion in a legal referral despatched lower than per week after the conviction of former President Donald J. Trump on 34 felony counts in New York. Their allegations, which assert that each males made false statements to Congress about President Biden’s involvement in his household’s enterprise dealings, seem to incorporate misrepresentations of Hunter Biden’s testimony.
They additionally accused Hunter Biden of perjury.
The referrals carry no pressure of legislation, however House Republicans are hoping to affect the Justice Department, significantly if Mr. Trump takes it over, to hold out extra prosecutions of the Biden household. And since his conviction final week, they’ve been looking for methods to make use of their majority within the House to retaliate and undercut the 2 federal indictments of the previous president.
In an announcement, Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, whom Republicans have accused of anti-conservative bias, ought to show his independence by taking rapid motion on the accusations.
“If the legal professional common needs to display he’s not operating a two-tiered system of justice and concentrating on the president’s political opponents, he’ll open legal investigations into James and Hunter Biden,” Mr. Johnson mentioned.
Hunter Biden has already been indicted by two federal grand juries in several jurisdictions and is presently on trial in Wilmington, Del., on costs of mendacity about his drug use on a federal type when he bought a gun.
Representative James Comer, the Oversight chairman; Representative Jim Jordan, the Judiciary chairman; and Representative Jason Smith, the Ways and Means chairman, signed off on the brand new referrals.
Hunter Biden testified in February and rebuked House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry throughout a closed-door deposition as a “partisan political pursuit” that was primarily based on a “false premise” and fueled by “lies.” James Biden additionally testified that his brother had no “involvement or any direct or oblique monetary curiosity” in his enterprise work.
The referral claims that Hunter Biden made false statements about holding a place at Rosemont Seneca Bohai, a company entity that obtained tens of millions of {dollars} from international people.
In his testimony, when requested whether or not he held the place of “company secretary” on the agency, Hunter Biden mentioned, “I didn’t even know there was such a factor.”
Members of his authorized group say that Hunter Biden mentioned that he was unaware he held the title of “company secretary” although paperwork present he did maintain such a title.
They level to testimony from Devon Archer, a enterprise affiliate of Hunter Biden’s, who mentioned that Hunter Biden didn’t maintain a place with the agency however was an fairness accomplice. During Hunter Biden’s deposition, he was requested, “It appears to me that Devon Archer’s testimony and your testimony are the identical: You had no place with Rosemont Seneca Bohai. Is that right?”
Hunter Biden responded, “That is right.”
The referral additionally accuses Hunter Biden of offering “a completely fictitious account” about threatening WhatsApp messages he despatched to a enterprise accomplice whereas claiming to be sitting subsequent to his father. In his testimony, Mr. Biden mentioned he had exchanged such messages with a Henry Zhao, exhibiting he will need to have been drunk and excessive, since he was really in enterprise with a completely totally different particular person named Raymond Zhao.
But it was Republicans and an I.R.S. agent who initially confused the 2 Zhaos when presenting the proof that Hunter Biden relied upon to reply questions in regards to the messages. The referral accuses Hunter Biden of deliberately deceptive them in regards to the true recipient.
The Republicans additionally allege that James Biden lied to Congress when he said that Joseph R. Biden Jr. didn’t meet with Hunter Biden’s enterprise affiliate Tony Bobulinski in 2017 whereas they have been pursuing a take care of a Chinese entity.
In his testimony, James Biden denied that such a gathering happened, however Hunter Biden informed Republican investigators that Mr. Bobulisnki did meet his father within the foyer of the Beverly Hilton in California. Hunter Biden mentioned that he launched the lads, and that they shook arms and talked a few member of the family of Mr. Bobulinski’s who was affected by most cancers.
In James Biden’s testimony, he mentioned that no such assembly happened, and that he by no means mentioned such a gathering with Hunter Biden both. “Not that he remembers,” his lawyer interjected. “Not that I recall,” James Biden mentioned.
“It seems making false statements runs within the Biden household,” Mr. Comer mentioned in an announcement. “We’ve caught President Biden’s son and brother making blatant lies to Congress in what seems to be a concerted effort to cover Joe Biden’s involvement in his household’s schemes.”
A lawyer for James Biden criticized the congressional referral on Wednesday.
“This baseless partisan motion is a clear and cynical try to distract from and retaliate for Donald Trump’s latest legal conviction,” the lawyer, Paul J. Fishman, mentioned in an announcement. “James Biden testified earlier this 12 months and has at all times maintained that Joe Biden by no means had any involvement in his enterprise dealings.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer has denied he lied to Congress. The lawyer, Abbe Lowell, mentioned the examples in his shopper’s testimony that Republicans pointed to had been twisted to distort their which means. “This is nothing greater than a determined try by Republicans to twist Hunter’s testimony to allow them to distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and intervene together with his trial,” Mr. Lowell mentioned.
Republicans finishing up an impeachment investigation into President Biden have struggled for months to attempt to tie any of Hunter Biden’s alleged legal misconduct to his father. That has left them with out the votes in their very own party to cost the president with excessive crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional normal for impeachment.
Instead, high G.O.P. lawmakers have pivoted to the technique of constructing legal referrals, that are a politically simpler transfer for House Republicans than impeachment. They don’t require a vote of Congress.
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the highest Democrat on the Oversight Committee, mentioned the G.O.P. pivot to legal referrals made clear the party’s impeachment investigation into President Biden was dead.
“The chairmen’s 60-page letter is a last-ditch effort to distract from the exoneration of President Biden by providing ‘gotcha’ accusations in opposition to the president’s son and brother primarily based on their efforts to remember years-old monetary transactions, textual content messages and conversations in the middle of this interminable fishing expedition,” he mentioned.
In some methods, the Republicans are following a mannequin created by Democrats within the final Congress.
The Democratic-run particular House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol made main headlines within the final Congress with its legal referrals of Mr. Trump. (He was later charged by the Justice Department with crimes associated to the plan to overturn the 2020 election.)
