OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced this week the next phase of his panel’s ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
In an interview with Fox News, Comer said he would be focusing on the president’s past uses of pseudonyms in email communications, likely to hide his true identity. Congressional investigators have found at least three aliases – Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware — they believe were used by Biden when he was serving as vice president under Barack Obama, Newsmax reported.
“Right now, I think one of the most important amount of documentation that we need are those pseudonym emails,” Comer told Fox.
“What we did not know until recently was that he was, in fact, using those pseudonym emails to communicate with not just his son, Hunter Biden, but also with his shady business associates,” Comer noted further.
In August, Comer had made a request to the National Archives for pseudonym emails and other documents, seeking unredacted information to be provided to Congress. Subsequently, in November, he accused the White House of “withholding” 82,000 pages of pseudonym emails.
Comer told Fox News the 14 pages of emails the White House did allow to be turned over to Congress “didn’t even amount to half of 1 percent” of what he is seeking but added that he wants to give the Biden administration some room to argue that they are not incriminating, Newsmax reported.
In addition, the House impeachment inquiry is examining whether the president engaged in “a conspiracy to obstruct” Congress by allegedly coordinating with his son, Hunter Biden, to blow off a congressional subpoena for closed-door testimony.
“In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden was aware in advance that his son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress,” a letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel read.
Newsmax, in a separate report, noted that Comer “and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent the letter to investigate whether President Biden sought to influence or obstruct the committees’ proceedings by preventing, discouraging, or dissuading his son, Hunter Biden, from complying with the subpoenas for a deposition as part of the House impeachment inquiry.”
The letter requests all documents and communications related to knowledge of Hunter Biden’s compliance with the subpoena and his intended news conference to announce his refusal to comply with it.
“On December 13, Mr. Biden did not appear for the deposition as required by the Committees’ subpoenas,” the letter says. “Instead, Mr. Biden appeared on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol with his attorney and Representative Eric Swalwell. Mr. Biden gave a lengthy public statement to an assembly of reporters in which he made several statements that are relevant to the House’s impeachment inquiry, including representations about his business activities, assertions about President Biden’s awareness and ‘financial’ involvement in these activities, and attacks on the committees’ inquiry.”
The letter was in response to remarks from press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who said President Biden was “certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.”
“Ms. Jean-Pierre’s statement suggests that the president had some amount of advanced knowledge that Mr. Biden would choose to defy two congressional subpoenas,” the letter continued. “Under the relevant section of the criminal code, it is unlawful to ‘corruptly … endeavor to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any investigation or inquiry is being had by … any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress.’
“Likewise, any person who ‘aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures’ the commission of a crime is punishable as a principal of the crime.”
