OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A leading Republican committee chairman says he has received credible allegations that President Joe Biden’s son’s legal team is threatening and intimidating potential witnesses.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) says the threats are being made against witnesses set to testify in his ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“We’ve got witnesses that are scared to death to come forward. They fear for their lives,” he told the Just the News podcast this week.
Comer said pressure was being put on witnesses from his district, adding banks that complied with subpoenas issued by his Oversight and Accountability Committee are being pressured by high-ranking officials in the Democrat Party.
Comer told the program that he was deeply concerned about legal letters and implied threats that have been sent to witnesses by supporters of Hunter Biden. According to reports, cooperating banks have received threats, and political attack campaigns have been financed in the districts of some lawmakers who are investigating allegations of influence peddling by the Biden family.
“The Hunter Biden legal team — they’re testing the limits,” Comer said. “I’ll put it like that with respect to witness intimidation. I mean, just look in my district. We’ve got dark money groups that are being funded through prominent high-ranking Democrat officials in Congress. Also the communications director for the White House continues to retweet things trying to intimidate me for having the audacity to investigate.
“We’ve got witnesses that are scared to death to come forward. They fear for their lives. I mean, you’ve got the banks that have worked with us, they’re being squeezed by attorneys, by high-ranking officials in the Democrat Party for having the nerve to work with us to comply with our subpoenas,” he added.
As lawyers for Hunter Biden met with the DOJ to discuss the possibility of criminal charges, the case has heated up. Additionally, an IRS whistleblower received permission from the House Ways and Means Committee to testify to lawmakers about political interference in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax affairs.
“As the actions play out, there are growing questions in Washington whether the DOJ probe is narrowly focused on tax transactions from 2018 forward instead of earlier deals dating to 2014 that involved Russia, China and Ukraine,” Just the News reported.
During the past two years, congressional investigators have had access to an email from Hunter Biden’s business associate, Eric Schwerin, in which he warned Biden that he had failed to pay taxes on $400,000 in income received from Ukraine energy company Burisma Holdings, dating back to 2014. Schwerin is now cooperating with Comer’s investigation, according to the Kentucky Republican.
“In 2014 you joined the Burisma board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income,” Schwerin wrote in a Jan. 16, 2017 email that was found on the hard drive of a laptop turned over to the FBI and Congress. “That is approximately $400,000 extra so your income in 2014 was closer to $1,247,328.”
Although the email about the failure to pay taxes dating back to 2014 has been publicly known, reports about the DOJ discussions suggest that they may involve smaller amounts from more recent years. That has raised concerns among lawmakers and experts about whether the DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to expire or whether they reached any agreements to extend the legal deadline for indictment, such as “tolling agreements.”
Comer was asked during the interview if he believed that the DOJ’s probe was too narrowly focused.
“Look, his tax problems go back to at least 2014,” he began. “He owes a lot more in taxes than what I’ve heard they’re wanting to indict him on. At the end of the day, if you look at all the potential charges and all the potential wrongdoing that Hunter Biden has done over the past decade, tax evasion for one or two years is a drop in the bucket.
“It wouldn’t even be in the top five things that I think the DOJ could charge him with. This is another example of a two-tier system in justice, of justice in America. This is another example of a privileged Democrat getting away with things that no average, working, taxpaying American could get away with,” he said.
