The Treasury Department has granted a request from Senate Republicans for financial documents related to Hunter Biden’s relationship with a Ukrainian gas company, according to Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, who criticized the move.
Senator Chuck Grassley, chair of the Finance Committee, and Senator Ron Johnson, chair of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, obtained the sensitive financial records as part of their continuing investigation into former vice president Joe Biden’s son’s possible conflicts of interest involving his lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
“Applying a blatant double standard, Trump administration agencies like the Treasury Department are rapidly complying with Senate Republican requests — no subpoenas necessary — and producing ‘evidence’ of questionable origin,” said a spokeswoman for Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee. “The administration told House Democrats to go pound sand when their oversight authority was mandatory while voluntarily cooperating with the Senate Republicans’ sideshow at lightning speed.”
The Republican committee chairmen, along with Senator Lindsey Graham, chair of the Judiciary Committee, are moving forward with their probe even after President Trump was acquitted by the Senate Wednesday, ending his impeachment trial.
They have requested records on Hunter Biden as well from the State Department, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Archives and the Secret Service.
“It’s unfortunate that Democrats whom we’ve kept in the loop on our investigations would recklessly seek to interfere with legitimate government oversight,” a spokesman for Grassley said.
Hunter Biden’s position on the board of the Ukrainian company became a focal point of the impeachment inquiry. House Democrats launched a formal impeachment probe after Trump appeared to suggest in a July phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that he wanted Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden over allegations that the elder Biden leveraged his position as vice president to benefit his son. As vice president, Biden was in charge of addressing corruption in Ukraine at the time.
In the meantime, the White House temporarily froze $391 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine intended to help the country ward off Russian aggression, prompting suspicion of a quid pro quo scheme in which Trump is accused of making the aid contingent on the Ukrainian president’s promise that Biden’s conduct would be investigated.