House issues demand for Biden’s VP files as impeachment looms

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday issued one of its broadest set of demands yet for documents from President Biden’s eight years as vice president — including “all” of his calendars and communications involving an array of Biden family associates and top officials.

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) set a Sept. 20 deadline for the National Archives to provide the documents — as House Republicans threaten to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden’s role in his son Hunter and brother James Biden’s foreign business dealings.

“Joe Biden never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work — his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates,” Comer said in a statement that accompanied the request.

“Americans demand accountability for this abuse of government office for the benefit of the Biden family.”

Comer has led a probe that is expected to lay the groundwork for Biden’s possible impeachment — deposing witnesses, subpoenaing bank records of Biden family associates, and reviewing Treasury Department suspicious activity reports filed by banks.

His pending requests before the Archives include demands for Air Force Two flight manifests that list Hunter and emails involving Joe Biden’s use of the pseudonyms “Robert L. Peters” and “Robin Ware,” of which nearly 5,400 reportedly exist.

Comer’s latest request for documents covers “[a]ll executive calendars created for then-Vice President Joe Biden dating from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.”

He’s also seeking unredacted files covered by a pending Freedom of Information Act request and “all documents and communications to or from the Executive Office of the President (including but not limited to the Office of the Vice President) to, from, copying or regarding [Biden family business associates] Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer, Vuk Jeremic, John Robinson “Rob” Walker, or Jeffrey Cooper.”

The letter further demands “[a]ll documents and communications to or from [Biden aides] Kate Bedingfield, Michael Carpenter, Kathy Chung, Amos Hochstein, Colin Kahl, and Alexander Mackler to, from, copying or regarding Hunter Biden or James Biden.”

The chairman cited July 31 testimony from Archer, a former Hunter Biden business partner, as justifying his expansive latest request.

Archer said Joe Biden was on speaker phone for about 20 business meetings with Hunter’s associates and that Hunter and two executives from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holding — owner Mykola Zlochevsky and board advisor Vadym Pozharskyi — stepped away from a December 2015 meeting in Dubai to call the elder Biden.

Burisma paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in 2014 when his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.

Zlochevsky allegedly told an FBI informant in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s pressure on Kyiv to oust Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin.

Pozharskyi, who allegedly joined Hunter Biden to call his dad in late 2015, dined with Joe Biden in Washington that April.

In his Wednesday letter to Archivist Colleen Shogan, Comer wrote, “On December 4, 2015, at 10:45 a.m.—in an email with the subject of ‘Quotes’ — Eric Schwerin (a longtime Biden family business associate) wrote to Kate Bedingfield in the Office of the Vice President providing quotes the White House should use in response to media outreach regarding Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma.”

“Later that day — at 2:30 p.m. — Ms. Bedingfield responded to Mr. Schwerin saying, ‘VP signed off on this’,” Comer went on. “The timing of this email traffic is concerning to the Committee. According to Devon Archer… after a Burisma board of directors meeting in Dubai — on the evening of December 4, 2015 (midday in Washington, D.C.) — Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ to discuss pressure that Burisma asked him to relieve.”

In his statement, Comer said, “Suspiciously, Hunter Biden’s associate had a media statement on Burisma approved by Vice President Biden himself the same day Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ for help with the government pressure facing Burisma.”

The president has tried to laugh off the Burisma bribery accusation, asking in June, “Where’s the money?”

House Democrats impeached former President Donald Trump in 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and argued that Shokin was ousted for his own corruption.

The Oversight Committee in May identified nine Biden relatives who allegedly received foreign income from shady figures in China and Romania, and Archer testified to the Oversight Committee that Joe Biden regularly interacted with Hunter’s associates, including by dining twice in Washington with his son’s Kazakhstani, Russian and Ukrainian patrons.

Hunter wrote in records retrieved from his abandoned laptop that he had to give “half” of his income to his dad.

Hunter — who has earned at least $1.3 million by selling his novice artworks since his father became president, including to a presidential commission appointee who visited the West Wing — and his uncle James repeatedly involved the now-president in foreign dealings.

Hunter traveled aboard Air Force Two with his dad on an official trip to Beijing in 2013 as he set up a state-backed investment fund called BHR Partners. Hunter introduced Joe Biden to incoming CEO Jonathan Li and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.

As part of a later Chinese business venture with government-linked CEFC China Energy, Hunter’s associates in May 2017 penciled in a 10% cut for Joe Biden. The president allegedly met with Hunter’s business partners in that deal, including Tony Bobulinski, and he was listed as a participant in an October 2017 call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.

Hunter also flew with his dad aboard the taxpayer-funded jet to Mexico in 2016 with Cooper as the pair courted that nation’s business elite, whom Hunter’s father had hosted the preceding year at the official vice president’s residence in Washington.