Sen. Kamala Harris called on the Senate Homeland Security Committee to focus on the coronavirus rather than continuing its investigation related to the Bidens and Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas firm.
The committee will vote Wednesday on Chairman Ron Johnson’s request to subpoena people from Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic public relations firm that represented Burisma in the United States while Hunter Biden was on the board. In a Monday letter to Johnson, Harris said the vote should not be prioritized over the committee’s work related to the pandemic.
“It has now been over two months since our committee’s last hearing with administration officials responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and two years since we have had an oversight hearing with the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” the California Democrat wrote.
“Rather than prioritize providing important oversight that will protect Americans from the unprecedented threat posed by this pandemic, you have continued to pursue partisan political matters — such as the markup scheduled for this Wednesday on the issuance of a subpoena — that do nothing to help the millions of constituents that we serve,” she added. “This is a clear abdication of responsibility.”
Harris argued that the coronavirus pandemic deserves the committee’s “undivided attention” and reiterated a call for a hearing on FEMA’s response to the pandemic.
“There is nothing more important for our committee to consider than this pandemic that is killing thousands of people in this country each week,” she said.
Johnson has been pursuing a subpoena for Blue Star Strategies because he said he believes the firm may have assisted Burisma as it “sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department.” The Wisconsin Republican maintained that the investigation is “not focused on the Bidens.”
