House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is demanding the FBI release evidence highlighting the Biden family’s pay-to-play schemes to investigators in the lower chamber.
On Thursday, the Ohio lawmaker sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide Congress an FD-1023 form from March 2017. The document was referenced in the bombshell FD-1023 form released this summer, exposing an apparent bribery scheme between the president and a foreign oligarch.
“The Committee requires this document to evaluate whether sufficient grounds exist to consider drafting articles of impeachment,” the Judiciary chairman wrote.
The FD-1023, from June 2020, provided detailed information from a “highly credible” confidential human source (CHS) about the Biden family cashing in on the president’s political influence. According to the unclassified document, the Biden family allegedly took a $10 million bribe from Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board raking in excessive compensation.
“Because the 2020 FD-1023 includes such serious allegations of bribery and the involvement of President Biden in Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and because material in the 2017 FD-1023 led to the development of the 2020 FD-1023, the Committee needs access [to] the 2017 FD-1023,” Jordan wrote. “In sum, the 2017 FD-1023 is necessary to inform potential legislation and to inform the Committee’s impeachment investigation into President Biden.”
House Republicans launched impeachment proceedings against President Biden in September before a weeks-long adjournment of the chamber to elect a new speaker. Lawmakers have issued formal subpoenas for several members of the Biden family and associates as part of the congressional investigation, including Hunter Biden. On Wednesday, the president’s son made a surprise appearance on Capitol Hill as members of the House Oversight Committee deliberated contempt proceedings for Hunter’s disregard of the congressional subpoena.
The House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee ultimately voted to advance resolutions to hold the younger Biden in contempt for refusing to sit for private depositions.
“Hunter Biden’s willful refusal to comply with the Committees’ subpoenas is a criminal act. It constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the appropriate United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution as prescribed by law,” said Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky. “We will not provide Hunter Biden with special treatment because of his last name.”
Bank records released by the Oversight Committee in December show Hunter Biden funneling money directly to Joe Biden as the family peddled political influence with overseas businessmen. According to House investigators, the Biden family directed money through more than 20 shell companies, most of which were established while Joe Biden was vice president. The Biden family was found to have raked in upwards of $20 million from foreign oligarchs from places like China, Russia, and Kazakhstan.
While President Biden repeatedly denied ever discussing business with his son in the run-up to the 2020 election, abundant evidence has surfaced casting doubt on these claims. Fox News reported in December, based on records from the House Ways and Means Committee, that President Biden using “email aliases and private email addresses to communicate with son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates.”