House Republicans are joining in on the investigation into Bursima Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm that once employed Hunter Biden on its board.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter on Thursday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking for documents related to Burisma and Biden’s ties to the company.
Biden was employed by the company while his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, was leading Ukraine anti-corruption efforts for the Obama administration. The elder Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, and some Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican efforts to dig into Burisma are meant to hurt his candidacy.
Jordan, an Ohio Republican, requested unredacted copies of all documents released pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act related to Burisma, its founder Mykola Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, and any relevant communications between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 20, 2017, the day of President Trump’s inauguration.
The letter additionally asked for all documents and communications related to Christopher Heinz, the son of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and American businessman Devon Archer, who were both longtime business partners to Hunter Biden.
Jordan accused Biden, Heinz, and Archer of being “part of a broad effort by Burisma to bring in well-connect(ed) Democrats during a period when the company was facing investigations backed not just by domestic Ukranian forces but by officials in the Obama Administration” in his letter.
Burisma and the Bidens were roped into the impeachment proceedings that began last year.
Democrats accused Trump of improperly pressuring Kyiv last year to announce investigations into the Bidens and others while leveraging nearly $400 million in military aid and a White House meeting. A whistleblower complaint that raised concerns about Trump pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate whether the elder Biden improperly used his position as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire a top prosecutor to protect his son from an investigation into Burisma led to the impeachment investigation by the Democratic-controlled House.
Trump was impeached by the House on two Ukraine-related charges but was acquitted in February by the GOP-led Senate.
Last month, two Republican senators contacted the State Department seeking interviews with agency employees and documents specific to the dismissal of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. In particular, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee, asked to meet with: U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia Bridgett Brink, U.S. Ambassador to Greece and former Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent, and State Department official Elizabeth Zentos.
Shokin was dismissed in March 2016 after about a year in office by then-President Petro Poroshenko and claims he was ousted because Poroshenko wanted to investigate Hunter Biden’s lucrative role within Burisma. Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and other allies also claim Biden improperly used his position as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire Shokin to protect his son from an investigation into Burisma. Joe Biden has said there is no “credibility” to the claims of corruption.
Some Democrats have expressed frustration at their Republican counterparts’ pursuit into the matter that could have implications for the 2020 election.
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed concerns in his own letter to Pompeo, saying the State Department sent thousands of pages of documents to Republican lawmakers regarding the investigation into the Bidens while ignoring separate requests from Democrats.
Wyden said the department sent Republicans more than 3,000 pages of documents in February and another 1,000 in April, but the agency has not been nearly as responsive to Democratic requests regarding inquiries into the goings-on about the Trump administration.
“It is wholly inappropriate for the State Department to dedicate its limited resources to voluntarily complying with Republican requests without also making a good faith effort to respond to Democratic requests,” Wyden wrote.
The Homeland Security Committee is expected to vote next Wednesday on Johnson’s recent request to subpoena Democratic public relations firm Blue Star Strategies, which represented Burisma, as part of the investigation related to the Bidens.
Johnson announced his committee’s investigation shortly after Joe Biden’s primary victory in South Carolina earlier this year. The Wisconsin Republican, who insisted he’s “not focused on the Bidens,” alleged the company “sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned the decision to schedule a subpoena vote during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re in the middle of a public health and economic crisis, but instead of holding oversight hearings about testing, PPE, or bringing in the FEMA administrator, Senate Republicans are choosing to pursue diversionary, partisan conspiracy theories to prop up President Trump,” the New York Democrat said, according to Politico.
