House GOP lawmakers say they will probe Hunter Biden

In January, Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, will become chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He told reporters Thursday that the panel would be investigating the business activities of Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. (Nolan Clancy/Capital News Service)

WASHINGTON – Reps. On Thursday, James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio set the focus of the soon-to-be Republican-led House oversight and judiciary committees on an investigation of President Joe Biden and his family.

As the new 118th Congress takes shape and prepares to take office in January, the House will flip narrowly to Republican control, in turn giving the party the chairmanships of committees for the first time since the 115th Congress in 2019.

Comer is expected to chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Jordan likely will be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The pair, flanked by other Republican committee members, spoke at a press conference about the alleged international dealings of the president’s son Hunter Biden and how they implicated the president.

“This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the President of the United States, and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s international business schemes,” Comer said.

A spokeswoman for the House Democrats, Nelly Decker, told CNN the GOP’s targeting of the Bidens was politically motivated.

“Now that former President Trump is running for office again, House Republicans’ top priority is attacking President Biden and his family in a desperate attempt to return Mr. Trump to power,” Decker said.

More broadly, the future committee heads said they would prioritize investigating activities they consider overreaching by the federal government.

Jordan said the judiciary panel would target what it deems to be political within the Justice Department, keying in on specific actions that he said interfered with U.S. elections in the past.

Jordan alleged that the FBI spied on former President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 and went on to speculate that the bureau’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August was an attempt to influence the most recent election.

“Maybe it’d be nice if the FBI and the Justice Department just stayed out of it and let we, the people, decide who we think should represent us, who we think should lead us?” Jordan asked rhetorically. “That’s supposed to be how America works.”

On the oversight side, Comer said the committee had obtained two Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from banks that involved members of the Biden family. SARs are filed by financial institutions to report known or suspected violations of law, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

“We’re going to do a lot of investigations. We’re going to do a lot of probing,” Comer said. “We’re focused on waste, fraud, and abuse, and there’s no shortage of that in this federal government; let me assure you that.”

Republicans on the oversight panel published an interim staff report entitled “A President Compromised: The Biden Family Investigation,” a 31-page document that included screenshots of emails, SARs, and articles that alleged corrupt dealings.

Most of the evidence presented was allegedly obtained from Hunter’s laptop, which was said to be recovered from a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop in 2020.

A Justice Department investigation led by the U.S. attorney in Wilmington began in 2018 and remains open, but no charges have been brought against Hunter or the president thus far.

Neither Comer nor Jordan responded when asked about the possibility of an attempt to impeach Biden in the House.

“You’re going to be presented with something you haven’t been used to over the past four years: evidence,” Comer said.