The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives offered an update on the impeachment investigation against President Joe Biden that has been progressing for months in the House. The statements were forceful and show that more and more information indicates that the president was aware of and benefited from the alleged influence peddling scheme, through which the presidential family may have received money in exchange for the current president's influence.
Was Biden aware of his family's businesses?
"No one is above the law – even if your last name is Biden," said James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Adding that "Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from these schemes. This is a national security threat at the highest level of government and Americans demand accountability for the Biden's corruption."
The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith, also referred to the evidence that Congress has obtained regarding the president's role in the events, most of which occurred when Biden was vice president of the Obama administration.
"We have learned that President Biden wasn't just aware of his son's business dealings, he wasn't just involved, but he appears to have directly benefited from them. This directly contradicts what President Biden said throughout his presidential campaign, and while being President," Smith said.
Burisma
Citing perhaps the best-known case of the alleged dirty dealings of the Biden family, Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recalled what happened concerning the Ukrainian company Burisma: "You have a politician who does certain things, those actions benefit his family financially, and then there's an effort to sweep it all under the rug. We know this has happened. The best example is to use the Ukrainian energy company Burisma."
Rep. Jordan detailed the general facts of the Burisma case: "Hunter Biden gets put on the board of Burisma, fact number one. Fact number two, he's not qualified to be on the board. He said to himself in an ABC interview, he said he got the job because of his last name. Fact number three, the executives at Burisma asked Hunter Biden specifically, will you weigh in with folks in D.C. to help us deal with the pressure we are under? A few days later, Joe Biden gets on a plane, flies to Kiev, and announces that you will not get the money that was already approved unless you fire the prosecutor who was applying the pressure."
Why was Biden using aliases?
Meanwhile, Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise referred to the current administration's behavior and the emails that President Biden signed under false names: "As more facts come out, the White House continues to try to change their tune to cover up what really happened. As Rep. James Comer talked about, tens of thousands of pages of alias information is still at the White House, that they won't turn over to Congress. What are they trying to hide at the White House? Why won't the White House fully comply?"
Congress is trying to access all these communications to understand why the then-vice president used false names to communicate.
