The Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Ron Johnson, did away with voting on issuing a subpoena Wednesday to a witness related to the committee’s investigation into the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
Burisma is a Ukrainian gas company that hired Hunter Biden, son of the current Democratic presidential front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden, to be one of their board members during his father’s time at the White House.
A committee source told the Washington Examiner Johnson will instead subpoena the public affairs firm Blue Star Strategies for the same documents. Because of this change, the vote to subpoena the witness, former Blue Star Strategies consultant Andrii Telizhenko, was canceled on Wednesday.
“We will be subpoenaing Blue Star directly. The chairman has always said he would conduct this investigation in a methodical, responsible manner. We will continue to do that. In the meantime, we believe a subpoena to Blue Star is a bipartisan path forward,” the committee source said.
Before the business meeting, Johnson sent a note to members explaining the change in strategy and later expressed his intention to subpoena Blue Star at the beginning of Wednesday’s business meeting.
“Over the last several weeks, we have had a number of bipartisan meetings and briefings to discuss our committee’s ongoing investigation. I want to thank each of you for your engagement on this issue,” Johnson told members of his committee on Wednesday.
“Out of an abundance of caution and to allow time for you to receive additional briefings, I will postpone a vote to subpoena records and an appearance from former Blue Star Strategies consultant Andrii Telizhenko about his work for the lobbying firm,” he went on to say.
He added, “at the suggestion of both Republican and Democrat committee members, we will instead go straight to the source and compel the same records and an appearance directly from Blue Star Strategies.”
Republicans on the committee had long wanted to subpoena Telizhenko, a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in D.C., to testify since Telizhenko claimed Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa urged him to engage in anti-Trump efforts in 2016. Chalupa disputed this charge.
Democrats on the committee were reluctant to go forward with the Burisma investigation, urging Johnson to focus more on potential Russian interference in the 2020 election.
This disagreement set off a back-and-forth between Johnson and ranking member Gary Peters over information given at FBI briefings and asked for by committee staff.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican and a member of the committee, told the Washington Examiner he plans to vote for the subpoena.
“Some of [the documents] will depend on what we get from the subpoena,” Hawley said. “We can’t see them without the subpoena.”
