The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has invited President Joe Biden to testify in front of Congress about his potential involvement in his family’s business dealings, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer sent a letter to Biden on Thursday inviting the president to testify in front of Congress as early as April 16. The Chairman also listed a series of questions for the president to answer regarding his family’s business dealings. (RELATED: ‘Removed From Office Immediately’: More Republicans Are Warming To Impeaching Joe Biden)
“The purpose of this letter is not to recount every material inconsistency said by you or your defenders or to detail every piece of evidence accumulated by the Committee,” Comer wrote. “Instead, the letter summarizes the Committee’s concerns and describes why it is now necessary for you to provide testimony to the Committee in furtherance of the impeachment inquiry—a phase of the investigation I have sought in earnest and good faith to avoid.”
In the letter, Comer invites the president to explain whether he has ever met with Ye Jianming, the former chairman of bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, as well as two individuals connected to Burisma Holdings.
The chairman also asks the president whether his son Hunter Biden’s business associate Eric Schwerin had access to the insights of the president’s business account until Dec. 2017.
Comer goes on to inquire whether Joe Biden ever asked his brother, James, where he got the funds he used to repay the president for a loan.
Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks as committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) (R) listens during a hearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee at Rayburn House Office Building on March 20, 2024 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office.” (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The president’s son, Hunter, has been the center of the committee’s impeachment investigation into whether President Biden had any involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings.
Hunter Biden appeared in front of the committee on Feb. 27 for a closed-door deposition focused on his business transactions. The first son originally defied the committee’s subpoena, instead opting to hold a press conference outside of Congress.
During his closed-door testimony, Hunter claimed at least 29 times that he “did not recall” details of his foreign business dealings. Hunter was, however, able to recall during his testimony that his father was not at all involved in any of his foreign business ventures.
The first son was then invited to appear at a public hearing alongside his former business associates Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis on March 20. Hunter Biden turned down the invitation, and his attorney called the hearing a “blatant planned-for-media event.”
“As Chairman of the Committee, in addition to requesting that you answer the questions posed in this letter, I invite you to participate in a public hearing at which you will be afforded the opportunity to explain, under oath, your involvement with your family’s sources of income and the means it has used to generate it,” Comer wrote in the letter. “As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.”
Ford testified before the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Criminal Justice in 1974 to explain his decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon. The only other president to testify before the House of Representatives was Abraham Lincoln, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in 1863 to testify about the leak of his State of the Union address.
