The Treasury Department will give suspicious activity reports (SARs) relating to Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings to the House Oversight Committee.
James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, who requested the SARs in January, made the announcement Tuesday: “Ater two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions. It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request.”
Comer also implied that the Biden administration was playing defense, noting that for over 20 years, Congress “has had access to these reports but the Biden administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight.”
The announcement, and the bitterness, further confirms what was long expected – that Republicans will use their new majority power in the House to vigorously investigate Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden: Treasury Department Explains
Treasury Department official Jonathan Davidson explained for the SAR delay. In a letter to Comer, Davidson wrote that the Treasury Department was going through the process to ensure that the “law enforcement sensitive material is identified and handled appropriately.”
Davidson elaborated: “The Department has been working to complete all necessary review, including consultation with law enforcement agencies. These processes ensure that sensitive material extraneous to the Committee’s inquiry is not inadvertently disclosed and that law enforcement sensitive material is identified and handled appropriately.”
Davidson added that the processes of the review were standard operating procedure, were already well underway, and that the SARs would be provided as soon as possible. Of course, the Treasury Department has since provided the SARs, confirming Davidson’s assertion.
Vindictiveness and Partisanship
Personally, I don’t care about Hunter Biden or his business dealings. And I don’t much appreciate that Congress is investing so much time and energy into investigating Hunter Biden and his business dealings.
I understand the perceived political benefit to investigating Hunter Biden, and I accept that politics and legislating and overseeing are interwoven – but something like this is so nakedly political it becomes hard to support.
We already know that whatever the investigation finds, Comer and Co. will declare the entire Biden family corrupt. That’s the ultimate purpose of the investigation – to impugn President Biden – not to determine whether Biden family business dealings were suspect or whether ethics were violated or whether national security was threatened. And impugning President Biden is a waste of taxpayer’s resources.
I can also appreciate that Republicans are responding to the treatment endured under a Democratic-controlled House, which wielded its power for naked political purposes against President Donald Trump. Contemporary Republican behavior is not unusual or even out of step with their predecessors – but that doesn’t make it appropriate or productive.
Alas, the investigation will surely continue, full steam ahead. The Oversight Committee has already subpoenaed Bank of America for over a decade’s worth of financial dealings. “According to banks documents we’ve already obtained,” Comer said, “we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency. Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family.”
Right.
Expect the Hunter Biden investigation to linger.
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Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
