The GOP is pushing the Hunter Biden investigation despite a slim majority

WASHINGTON (AP) Even with their slim majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans have more than doubled this week to use their new powers next year to investigate the Biden administration and, in particular, the president’s son.

But the results of the midterms encouraged the White House, which had been preparing for a long time for this moment. Republicans secured margins much smaller than expectedAides to President Joe Biden and other Democrats believe voters have punished the Republican Party for relying on conspiracy theories and falsehoods fueled by Donald Trump during the 2020 election.

They see it as an affirmation of the administration’s evidence for midterms and are moving forward to focus on and carry on legislative achievements, unlike the Trump-aligned candidates whose grievances about the president’s son played out to their most loyal supporters and were too far in the weeds. for ordinary Americans. Democrats have retained control of the Senate and the House GOP margin is expected to be the narrowest majority in two decades.

“If you look back, we’ve had seats in New York, New Jersey, California,” said Mike Duhemey, a Republican strategist and public affairs executive. “These weren’t voters coming to the polls because they wanted to investigate Hunter Biden — far from it. They were coming to the polls because they were upset about inflation. They are upset about gas prices. They are disturbed by what is happening with the war in Ukraine.

But the House Republicans used their first press conference After clinching the majority to discuss presidential son Hunter Biden and the Justice Department, renewing long-simmering grievances over what they claim is a politicized law enforcement agency and a massive corruption case that Democrats and the media have overlooked.

“From their first press conference, these congressional Republicans have made it clear that they will do one thing in this new Congress, which is investigations, and they are doing it for political revenge for Biden’s efforts on an agenda that helps workers,” said Kyle Herrig, founder of the Congressional Integrity Project, an effort that has been reinstated. Newly launched, multimillion-dollar campaigns by Democratic strategists to counter the onslaught of House Republican investigations.

Inside the White House, the chancellor’s office added staff months ago and ramped up communications efforts, and the staff has been deep into researching and preparing for the attacks. They worked to try to identify their weaknesses and plan effective responses.

Rep. James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said there are “troubling questions” of utmost importance about the business dealings of Hunter Biden and one of the president’s brothers, James Biden, that warrant deeper investigation.

“Eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government is the oversight commission’s primary mission,” said Comer, R-Ky. “As such, this investigation is a top priority.”

Republican lawmakers promised a raft of new information last week, but what they’ve provided so far has been an intense rehash of several years’ worth of complaints about Hunter Biden’s business dealings, back to conspiracy theories fanned by Trump.

Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2014, at the time his father, then Vice President, helped run the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Ukraine. Senate Republicans said the appointment may have created a conflict of interestbut they did not provide evidence that the hiring affected US policies, nor did they implicate Joe Biden in any wrongdoing.

Over the past year, Republican lawmakers and their staffs have been analyzing messages and financial transactions that were found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. They have long discussed issuing congressional subpoenas for foreign entities doing business with it, and recently brought in James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor, to help with the investigation as general counsel for the oversight committee.

The difference now is that Republicans will have subpoena power to proceed, no matter how small their majority.

“Republicans will move forward,” said Tom Davis, a Republican attorney who specializes in congressional investigations and legislative strategy. “I think their members are passionate about pursuing these things. See, the 40-year trend is that parties are under their own investigation and over-investigating the other. It didn’t start here.”

White House Press Secretary Karen Jean-Pierre dismissed the GOP focus on investigations as “brand-level” thinking.

“They said they’re going to fight inflation, they said they’re going to prioritize that, and then they get the majority, and their top priority is actually not focusing on the American family, but focusing on the president’s family,” she said.

Even some newly elected Republicans are fighting back against the idea.

The top priority is dealing with inflation and the cost of living. Representative-elect Mike Lawler of New York said on CNN…

Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign businesses are already under federal investigation, with a Delaware grand jury hearing testimony in recent months.

Although he held no position on the presidential campaign or in the White House, his membership on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to strike deals in China have long raised questions about whether he was trading in his father’s public service, including what was reported. In his emails he refers to the “big guy”.

Joe Biden has said he has never spoken to his son about his overseas business, and nothing Republicans have mentioned suggests otherwise. There are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president.

Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters have advanced a widely discredited theory that Biden pushed to fire Ukraine’s attorney general to protect his son and Burisma from investigation. Biden had already pushed for the attorney general’s dismissal, but it was a reversal of the official position not only of the Obama administration but of many Western countries and because the attorney general was seen as soft on corruption.

House Republicans also pointed to upcoming investigations into immigration, government spending and parental rights. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and FBI Director Chris Wray have been notified as potential witnesses.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the next judiciary chief, has long complained about what he says is a politicized Justice Department and about the ongoing investigations into Trump.

On Friday, Garland appointed a special counsel To oversee the Department of Justice’s investigation into the existence of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate investigation related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

Trump, in a speech Friday night at his home in Mar-a-Lago, blasted the project as “the latest in a long line of witch-hunts.”

Of Joe and Hunter Biden, he asked, “Where’s their attorney general?”

It’s one thing if the Hunter Biden investigations stick to questions of corruption, said Matt Makoviak, a Republican political strategist, but if they veer into the kind of smoldering messages circulated in far-right circles, “I don’t know the public will have much.” of patience with that.”