GOP Oversight chairman subpoenas Hunter Biden associates’ bank records

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has issued a subpoena for the bank records belonging to associates of Hunter Biden.

The news was first disclosed in a letter that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Oversight committee, sent to Comer expressing concerns about the panel’s investigation into presidential ethics.

In that letter, Raskin referenced “the sweeping subpoena you recently issued relating to business associates of President Biden’s son,” which he said Democrats were given with “mere hours of notice.” Raskin said this was a break from “longstanding committee practice” of giving the committee’s minority a minimum of 48 hours notice for subpoenas.

He later said the subpoena compelled Bank of America to produce “all financial records” from a 14-year period — from January 20, 2009 to the present — for three private citizens. One of the individuals targeted was John R. Walker, who is alleged to have “formed a joint venture with CEFC China executives,” which Raskin said is a “now-bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate.”

Raskin said Comer has “obtained thousands of pages of Mr. Walker’s private financial information, including statements of his and his wife’s joint checking account for a decade.” He added that the documents “go well beyond any business deal with Hunter Biden or CEFC.”

A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee confirmed to The Hill that the panel “has subpoenaed and obtained financial records related to the Biden family’s influence peddling,” adding that “These documents solidify our understanding of several areas of concern and have opened new avenues of investigation about the Biden family’s business schemes.”

Raskin, for his part, raised concerns about the “wildly overbroad” nature of the Walker subpoena.

“I fear this wildly overbroad subpoena suggests that your interest in this investigation is not in pursuing defined facts or informing public legislation but conducting a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President Trump,” he wrote.

Comer launched an investigation into the Biden family finances in January, kicking off the probe with a letter requesting information from the Treasury Department. Since then, the panel has sent out a number of requests for additional information.

Last month, an attorney for Hunter Biden denied the committee’s request for documents and information, arguing that there was “no legislative purpose.”

Raskin penned the letter to raise concerns about the handling of documents related to potential foreign conflicts of interest involving former President Trump’s time in the White House.

In the last Congress, when Democrats controlled the committee, the panel started receiving documents from the Mazars audit and advisory firm following a subpoena. Those documents, according to Raskin, showed that foreign governments — including the People’s Republic of China and Saudi Arabia — had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at properties owned by Trump during his time in the White House.

But now, Raskin is accusing Comer of working with Trump attorneys “to block the disclosure” of documents related to the committee’s ethics investigation.

“Since taking over as Chair of the Committee two months ago, you have recognized both the need for meaningful legislative solutions to weaknesses in our government ethics and disclosure laws, particularly with regard to foreign transactions, and the specific ethical issues raised by former President Trump’s Administration,” Raskin wrote.

“Yet, you have worked with attorneys for President Trump to block the disclosure of documents directly relevant to these issues, in spite of a court-supervised settlement agreement and a lawful Committee subpoena, reviewed by every level of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States,” he added.