Sen. Mitt Romney will vote to subpoena a former consultant for a U.S. firm with connections to Burisma Holdings.
The Utah Republican revealed his support after the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee assured him the witness would be interviewed privately.
“Senator Romney has expressed his concerns to Chairman Johnson, who has confirmed that any interview of the witness would occur in a closed setting without a hearing or public spectacle. He will therefore vote to let the Chairman proceed to obtain the documents that have been offered,” Romney’s communications director, Liz Johnson, said in a statement.
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who is the chairman of the panel, said he intended to seek a subpoena against former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko, who was a consultant for Blue Star Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm that represented the interests of Burisma Holdings in the United States.
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, was on the board of Burisma while his father was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Republicans have questioned why Burisma gave Hunter a high-paying position on the company board despite him having little experience in the energy sector and a well-documented problem with drug use. The issue also got swept up in the impeachment fight that ended in President Trump’s acquittal by the Senate last month.
Johnson announced his intent to seek a subpoena on Monday, as the former vice president’s chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination increased after his huge win in South Carolina.
Romney said Thursday that his party’s investigation “appears political.”
“There’s no question but that the appearance of looking into Burisma and Hunter Biden appears political, and I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations,” the Utah senator told reporters.
Johnson, who insisted he’s “not focused on the Bidens,” alleged that 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.”
Romney’s vote against the effort would have derailed the subpoena, as Republicans have only an 8-6 majority on the panel — the exact number of votes needed to issue the subpoena.
