Deal ends weeks of foot dragging over Suspicious Activity Reports.
By John Solomon
The Biden Treasury Department ended weeks of foot dragging Tuesday by agreeing to provide congressional investigators with access to secret bank records that flagged suspicious overseas financial transactions involving Hunter Biden and the first family.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer announced the deal to let his investigators access the so-called Suspicious Activity Reports in a secure reading room.
“After 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,” Comer said Tuesday morning.
“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. For over 20 years, Congress had access to these reports but the Biden Administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight,” he added.
The deal comes just a few short weeks after Comer secured the cooperation of longtime Hunter Biden business partner Eric Schwerin, a development described as a major breakthrough in the probe to determine if Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings with controversial figures in China, Russia, Ukraine and other countries compromised his father’s policy work as vice president and president.
Comer said he expects the bank records to show just how much the Biden family profited from overseas business deals secured in the shadows of Joe Biden’s official government work.
“According to bank documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million dollar wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency,” Comer said.
“Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family. We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat,” he added. “If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance.”
Comer demanded back in early January that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen turn over the bank records and last week called on a Treasury Department official to appear for a transcribed interview to explain why the Treasury Department had not provided the requested information. That appearance has been postponed by the deal announced Tuesday.
