A top House Republican investigator set a new hearing this week to blast the Treasury Department for failing to hand over suspicious activity reports linked to Hunter Biden following more than a year of the Biden administration dragging its feet.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee for the 118th Congress, spent much of 2022 and early 2023 repeatedly pushing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to hand over the suspicious bank activity reports linked to Biden family businesses as he argued that the Treasury Department’s meager responses continued to stonewall his efforts to get answers on the financial transactions of President Joe Biden's son linked to China, Russia, and elsewhere.
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“Biden’s Treasury Department continues to make excuses for its failure to provide the suspicious activity reports that are critical to our investigation of the Biden family’s business schemes,” Comer said over the weekend. “We are concerned the Treasury Department is acting in bad faith to produce these documents to the Oversight Committee when we know that it has already produced them to another congressional office. At next week’s hearing, a Treasury Department official can explain to Congress and the American people why the department is hiding critical information.”
The Republican-led committee said Treasury Department official Jonathan Davidson will be called to testify on Friday and that “at the hearing, the committee will examine the justifications Treasury officials have provided the committee about its failure to produce requested documents and examine legislative solutions to ensure Congress has timely access to suspicious activity reports.”
The Treasury Department claimed in May 2022 that it “has made SARs available for every request we’ve received, regardless of party, and will continue to do so.” Comer, however, said in July 2022: “This is not true.”
Comer wrote to Yellen in January 2023, again requesting access to these SARs, arguing that “during the 117th Congress, the Department of the Treasury refused our requests to provide information about the Biden family.” The Republican sent a follow-up letter to the Treasury Department last month, contending that the “Treasury has not provided the Committee any SARs to date” and claiming that the department has “made several excuses for Treasury’s delay regarding this production.” He suggested that the “Treasury may be delaying its production to hinder our investigation and operating in bad faith.”
Hunter Biden controversially held a lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma while his father was vice president. The president’s son also pursued business deals in China and elsewhere during and after his father’s tenure as vice president, raking in millions thanks to these associations.
Davidson, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, responded to Comer’s requests for information in September 2022, defending the department’s decision to keep a close hold on the suspicious activity reports.
“The Department deeply respects the critical oversight role of Congress and remains committed to responding to appropriate requests from committees of jurisdiction,” the Treasury official wrote, arguing that "safeguarding Bank Secrecy Act information is critical to law enforcement efforts to investigate money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit financial activity.”
Davidson added: “These suspicious activity reports and other BSA reports filed with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network contain details of financial transactions and other sensitive, nonpublic information. This is preliminary and unverified tip-and-lead information on possible violations of law."
Comer renewed his demand that Yellen hand over “all SARs generated in connection with” Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden, the younger Biden’s business partners (including Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer), and his businesses. Comer also asked Treasury to provide any FinCEN records tied to any banks related to Hunter Biden, James Biden, and others.
The renewed call for access to the suspicious activity records comes after a Washington Examiner investigation in 2022 found Hunter Biden disclosed in text messages to a woman named Eva, the go-between who served as his primary point of contact for the UberGFE escort service, that his accounts were frozen temporarily after his attempted payments to her "girls," who had Russian-linked email accounts, raised a "red flag" with his bank.
The president's son spent over $30,000 on escorts linked to Eva and UberGFE between Nov. 26, 2018, and March 10, 2019. Eva directed him to make payments to bank accounts linked to “.ru” Russian email addresses at least 11 times during that time frame.
Hunter Biden was able to spend this much money thanks in part to Joe Biden committing to wiring him a total of $100,000 allegedly to help pay his bills from December 2018 through January 2019. In one instance, Joe Biden wired his son $5,000 while he was actively engaged with an UberGFE escort.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) have demanded that the FBI and the Justice Department investigate that, too.
Comer recently said that former business associates of Hunter Biden are cooperating with his Biden family investigation. It remains to be seen what will be gleaned from their testimony.