The Republican-led panel investigating the business activities of Hunter Biden is poised to authorize subpoenas for current and former advisers to his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Sen. Ron Johnson, who leads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is seeking testimony from Antony Blinken, a senior foreign policy adviser on the Biden campaign and former deputy secretary of state, Amos Hochstein, former special envoy for international energy, and former State Department officials Victoria Nuland and Catherine Novelli.
The committee will also interview David Wade, former chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, according to Politico. The subpoenas may be authorized as soon as Wednesday, during the committee’s next meeting.
Republicans, who have voiced concerns about possible corruption, have long sought information about Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that employed Hunter Biden on its board at the same time his father was serving as vice president. Democrats claim the inquiry is a partisan attempt to damage the elder Biden’s election prospects.
The inquiry came to fruition around the impeachment investigation into President Trump.
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, which 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 Democrat-controlled House.
Trump was impeached by the House on two Ukraine-related charges but was acquitted in February by the GOP-led Senate.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee subpoenaed Blue Star Strategies, the Democratic public relations firm that represented Burisma Holdings, as part of its investigation in May.
