Dem Senator Calls for Probe into Agencies’ Cooperation with GOP Hunter Biden Requests, Suggests Political Bias
Senator Chris Murphy is seeking an investigation into several federal agencies over concerns they acted with political bias in acquiescing to Republican requests involving Hunter Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where he was a board member.
Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, voiced concerns that the agencies are cooperating with GOP investigations into Democratic 2020 presidential front runner Joe Biden’s son and Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings in a letter to be sent Wednesday to inspectors general for the State Department, Treasury Department, Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives. He has asked for a response by March 23.
“These agencies said ‘no’ to every document request related to the investigation of President Trump, but they may be willing to cough up anything that Senate Republicans are asking them to produce on the Biden family,” Murphy told Politico, adding that it appears to be a “really concerning double standard.”
“Our responsibility is to make sure that the official letters of the government aren’t used to destroy people’s political opponents — that seems to be a theme in this administration,” Murphy continued. “I expect Democrats are going to have to spend time explaining why it’s illegitimate for Senate Republicans to use their position to try to destroy the Bidens.”
Earlier this month, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced plans to issue the first subpoena related to the committee’s probe of Hunter Biden and his position on the board of Burisma, which paid him up to $50,000 a month. The younger Biden obtained the lucrative position in 2014 while his father was vice president and in charge of tackling Ukrainian corruption and left the board in April of last year.
The committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to subpoena former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a consultant for the Washington-based Blue Star Strategies, a firm Burisma hired to combat accusations of corruption within the energy company.
Internal State Department email exchanges reported last year showed that Blue Star leveraged the Biden name to secure a meeting between the gas company and State Department officials and then brought his name up again during that meeting. The meetings were part of a longstanding campaign to rehabilitate Burisma’s reputation in Washington following a corruption probe.
Along with Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Johnson have also asked the State Department to release any records on Hunter Biden, and the Secret Service has already turned over travel documents from Biden’s time as vice president. The chairmen have also asked the National Archives and Records Administration for records related to probing Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 election.
