Hunter Biden plea: Comer to praise IRS whistleblowers in Oversight hearing while Raskin targets Trump
Reese Gorman
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In his opening statements during the hearing, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) will hit President Joe Biden’s family on their foreign business dealings and praise the two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers testifying.
To the contrary, Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) will accuse former President Donald Trump and House Republicans of political interference in the case and conducting an assault on the rule of law, according to excerpts of his opening statement obtained by the Washington Examiner.
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IRS whistleblowers — supervisory agent Gary Shapley and an anonymous whistleblower whose identity will be revealed during the hearing — will testify before the full Oversight Committee and the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith (R-MO) at 1 p.m. today.
“Today, we have two brave and credible IRS whistleblowers who have risked their careers to come forward and provide important testimony,” Comer will say, according to excerpts obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Their testimony about the DOJ, FBI, and IRS’s investigation of Hunter Biden confirms the committee’s findings. That there is nothing normal about the Biden family’s business activity.”
The whistleblowers first testified to the Ways and Means Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction. They alleged that the DOJ interfered in Biden’s criminal investigation by blocking David Weiss, the lead U.S. attorney on the case, from bringing charges in the jurisdiction of his choice and denied his request for special counsel status.
Comer will also talk up his committee’s investigation and how fast they have uncovered information about “the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.”
“In just six months, we have obtained thousands of pages of financial records. What these records reveal is astonishing,” he will say. “[W]hat were the Bidens’ selling? Nothing but influence and access to the Biden network. This is an influence peddling scheme to enrich the Bidens. We need to know whether Joe Biden is compromised by these schemes and if our national security is threatened.”
Raskin, on the other hand, will attempt to discredit the whistleblowers’ testimony, claiming they will describe their “disagreements and frustrations with their supervisors” and clarify that their disagreements were with a “Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney” in David Weiss who led the Hunter Biden investigation and Trump’s own Department of Justice and IRS.
“We will also hear about the apparent confusion and misunderstandings which embittered them toward Mr. Weiss as he reviewed the evidence and then made the ultimate decision about how, when, and where to charge Hunter Biden,” Raskin will say. “But make no mistake, the only political interference at play in this case is taking place right now with Donald Trump and our GOP colleagues who continue their full-scale assault on the rule of law and our independent justice system.”
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The hearing will be focused on the IRS whistleblowers’ past testimony to the Ways and Means Committee, as well as getting their thoughts on information the Oversight Committee has found and released to the public, Comer said.
Also likely to be addressed during the testimony are the allegations of retaliation against the two IRS whistleblowers. Once it was revealed that they were making protected disclosures to Congress, they were removed from the Biden investigation, and Shapley also claimed he was passed over for a promotion.