Hunter Biden investigation: Raskin blasts inquiry as ‘quest for something that doesn’t exist’
Ashley Oliver
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House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) accused Republicans of pursuing nonexistent crimes during his opening remarks at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
The high-profile Democrat claimed Oversight Republicans had produced faulty evidence in their investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings and President Joe Biden’s alleged role in them.
“We can conclude that this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that doesn’t exist has turned our committee into a theater of the absurd, an exercise in futility and embarrassment,” Raskin said.
Raskin noted that one of the Oversight Committee’s multiple witnesses, Gal Luft, had recently been federally indicted on eight charges, including failure to register as a foreign agent and arms trafficking.
Republicans’ “long-promised star witness turns out to be a fugitive from American justice,” Raskin said of Luft.
The Maryland Democrat then proceeded to detail a 10-page letter he and Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) received Tuesday from Lev Parnas, who, like Luft, was federally indicted on several charges a few years ago.
Parnas was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2021 for campaign finance and wire fraud charges, but Raskin nevertheless summarized during the hearing Parnas’s letter detailing an alleged Trump campaign “crusade” to “smear” Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
Raskin also advocated summoning Parnas as a congressional witness in the Biden inquiry.
“Let’s hear about that crusade that they were on to smear President Biden by promoting the same baseless conspiracy theories that this committee serves up as moldy leftovers every day,” Raskin said.
He also accused committee Republicans of using “failed SARS reports, bank records, [and] form 1023,” the now-infamous FBI form Republicans obtained that contained an allegation of Biden partaking in a bribery scheme when he was vice president.
An Oversight GOP spokesperson responded to Raskin’s opening remarks, saying he had “lied about the FD-1023 form, and he’s willing to lie about everything else as he aids in covering up for the Bidens.”
Raskin reviewed the form, called an FD-1023, in June with Comer in a secured briefing room and emerged from the room by dismissing the form as an item no longer under federal investigation.
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“What I know is that the FBI, Department of Justice team under [Former Attorney General] William Barr and Scott Brady in the Western District of Pennsylvania terminated the investigation,” Raskin said at the time.
However, Barr told the Federalist of Raskin’s claim, “It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down. On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”