The media did a complete 180 on the Hunter Biden laptop story: Rep. James Comer
Rep. James Comer: Hunter Biden whistleblowers are starting to cooperate.
The Treasury Department is giving the House Oversight Committee access to suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s foreign business deals, Chairman James Comer said Tuesday.
Comer, R-Ky., wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in January, requesting information about the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions flagged by U.S. banks. This week, the agency told the committee it will provide lawmakers with "in camera access" to the requested SARs.
"After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions," Comer said. "It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request."
Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation since 2018 for his tax affairs – an investigation that was predicated, in part, by suspicious activity reports on some foreign transactions. Those SARs involved funds from "China and other foreign nations," sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News in 2020.
Hunter Biden's laptop was at the center of a Big Tech censorship campaign in 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Comer has been pressing Treasury for weeks to comply with his request for information. In February, Comer contacted the Treasury Department again to discuss the agency’s "lack of accommodations."
Earlier this month, Comer called on Treasury Department official Jonathan Davidson, who serves as assistant secretary for legislative affairs, to appear before the committee for a transcribed interview "to explain why" the agency had not provided the requested information.
Now that Treasury has agreed to provide access, Davidson’s interview has been postponed, Comer said.
Comer noted that for more than 20 years, Congress "has had access to these reports but the Biden administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight."
But earlier this month, Davidson wrote a letter to Comer, obtained by Fox News Digital, which laid out the Treasury Department's process to ensure that the "law enforcement sensitive material is identified and handled appropriately," but said the process was "well underway" to respond to the committee's request.
"The Department has been working to complete all necessary review, including consultation with law enforcement agencies," Davidson wrote in the March 3 letter to Comer. "These processes ensure that sensitive material extraneous to the Committee’s inquiry is not inadvertently disclosed and that law enforcement sensitive material is identified and handled appropriately."
Davidson explained that "review of law enforcement sensitive materials is a standard aspect of the process of providing Congress with access to BSA-protected information."
"All of these processes—which are designed to ensure proper protection of potential or ongoing investigations and other law enforcement interests—are already well underway for your request, but they take time," Davidson wrote. "The Department is working to complete these processes as soon as possible and consistent with the timeframes for processing similar requests in the past, including requests received from committee chairs in the prior Congress that took months to complete."
Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (Photographer: Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The House Oversight Committee has already collected documents and records relating to the Biden family’s business dealings. Comer subpoenaed Bank of America for more than a decade of financial records belonging to three of Hunter Biden’s business associates. One of the associates’ records being turned over to the committee belong to Rob Walker.
Walker worked with Hunter Biden, President Biden's brother Jim, their business associate James Gilliar and Tony Bobulinksi in a joint-venture called Sinohawk Holdings, which was meant to be a partnership with Chinese energy firm CEFC.
"According to banks documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency," Comer said Tuesday. "Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, July 19, 2022. Chung Sung-Jun/Pool via REUTERS (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool via REUTERS)
Comer vowed to "continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat."
Comer warned. "If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance."
Fox News first reported in 2020 that the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s "tax affairs" began amid the discovery of SARs regarding funds from "China and other foreign nations."
President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
At the time, a Treasury Department official, who did not comment on the investigation, told Fox News that SARs are filed by financial institutions "if there is something out of the ordinary about a particular transaction."
Fox News first reported the existence of some type of investigation involving Hunter Biden in October 2020, ahead of the last presidential election. It became known then that the FBI had subpoenaed the laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden in the course of an existing money laundering investigation.
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Hunter Biden confirmed the investigation into his "tax affairs" in December 2020, after his father was elected president.
The investigation is being led by Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
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