WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Oversight panel on Thursday formally invited the president Joe Biden to testify before his committee as part of it impeachment inquiry.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the committee, suggested. letter On Thursday, Biden appeared on April 16 and testified in a public hearing last week by Hunter Biden’s former co-workers – Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis. Comer said their testimony contradicted the president’s testimony about his son’s involvement in business deals. He first announced plans to invite the president to testify at the end of the hearing, which included a former Ukrainian businessman. Leo Parnassus.
“Given the wide gap between your public statements and the evidence gathered by the Committee, as well as the White House’s obstructionism, it is in the interest of the American people that you respond directly to questions from members of Congress, and I hereby invite you to do so,” Comer wrote.
The proposed testimony will come at a crucial moment for Biden’s primary challenger in 2024, former President Donald Trump. Trump’s New York criminal trial will begin a day earlier, on April 15.
Comer’s letter specifically cites President Gerald Ford’s 1974 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Criminal Justice as precedent.
In response, the White House hinted Writing in X When Comer announced last week that he planned to invite Biden to testify, spokesman Ian Sams.
“Comer knows that more than 20 witnesses testified that POTUS did nothing wrong,” Sams said in the post. “He knows the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he has obtained disprove his false claims. It’s a sad move at the end of a dead impeachment. Call it a day, my friend.”
Democrats on the control panel He wrote in X On Thursday, Republicans “failed to find an impeachable offense” and called the evidence in the investigation “comically twisted and twisted.”
“The GOP impeachment inquiry was a circus. Time to bring down the tent,” they wrote.
Bobulinski and Galanis testified during a hearing last week that the president was involved in schemes to help Hunter Biden’s business, which the White House has denied.
“The public is left with two irreconcilable stories. The first — which you allege — is that you did not engage in influence peddling in exchange for payments to your family,” Comer wrote Thursday. “The second — corroborated by witnesses and a body of evidence that I’ll briefly review below. You have indeed participated in payment-for-effect schemes.”
Comer’s letter referred to the debts Biden gave to his brother James Biden before his presidency. President’s brother testified behind closed doors last month that the loans were “short-term” and quickly repaid.
Comer also said the committee had testimony that said the president “regularly attended meetings through speakerphone” with his son and business associates. Devon Archer, former business partner of Hunter Biden, testified in July that the president engaged in about 20 calls with his son and associates, but that these were short conversations that did not involve official business. Archer also testified that he was not aware of any wrongdoing by the president.
Parnas, who was invited by Democrats to testify before the committee, testified last week that no evidence The Biden family’s corruption related to Ukraine and the Russian government’s false allegations. He later told NBC News that the Republican-led hearings were “pushing the same Russian narrative and propaganda.”
House Republicans have repeatedly targeted Hunter Biden as part of an impeachment inquiry into his father, who has offered no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the president.
The Republican-led investigation into former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, whose allegations played a major role in sparking the probe, suffered a significant setback last month. was accused and is accused of providing false information to the FBI about Biden and his son during the 2020 presidential campaign.
In itself closed sediment Last month, as part of an impeachment inquiry by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, Hunter Biden testified that he did not implicate his father in business dealings and denounced the investigation as “unwarranted and destructive political bungling” based on “MAGA motivation.” conspiracies”.
Rebecca Kaplan reported from Washington and Zoe Richards from New York.