(The Daily Signal) — A powerful House committee wants previously shielded information from the National Archives regarding Joe Biden’s communication with family business associates when he was vice president.
In an letter Thursday to the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, the committee’s chairman asked for Biden’s vice presidential records that included pseudonyms and communications with his son Hunter Biden and with Biden family business associates.
“Many of these records have been redacted for publication” under federal law, House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., wrote to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.
“To further our investigation, it is essential that the committee review these documents in their original format,” Comer wrote to Shogan.
In his letter, Comer specifies redactions of some information allowed by the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
“The committee seeks unrestricted special access under the PRA to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled ‘Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,’ which has been published on [the National Archives’] website,” the Kentucky Republican’s letter to Shogan continues.
Comer’s letter refers to a documented 9 a.m. phone call on May 27, 2016, between then-Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. However, the document was sent to “Robert L. Peters” — identified by the committee as a pseudonym for Biden — and the vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, who was copied on the documentation of the phone call.
Among documents requested by the committee are any in which a “pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware,” the letter to the National Archives chief says.
Comer wrote that his House committee also seeks any document or communication “in which Hunter Biden, [business associate] Eric Schwerin, or [business partner] Devon Archer was included either as a sender, recipient, copied, or was included in the contents of the document or communication.”
Comer’s letter deepens the House investigation of what Republicans say is evidence of influence peddling by Biden and his family in countries such as China, Ukraine, and Romania.
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as vice president, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” Comer said in a written statement, adding:
“We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption.”
The White House did not immediately reply to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Fred Lucas
Fred Lucas is chief national affairs correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of "The Right Side of History" podcast. Lucas is also the author of "Abuse of Power: Inside The Three-Year Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump."
