WASHINGTON (AP) — Intelligence officials had gathered to brief select members of Congress about future threats to the U.S. election when a key lawmaker in the chamber, No. 3 House Republican Elise Stefanik of New York, refocused the discussion on a new topic. to move: Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Stefanik, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, asked officials at the April 1 briefing if they had any evidence of Russian involvement in the release of Biden’s laptop to the news media in the fall of 2020 — a possibility raised by senior officials. former government officials in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. Intelligence officials told Stefanik that the question would be better answered by the police.
Stefanik’s question, shared with The Associated Press by a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting, reflects a widespread feeling in the GOP that questions about President Joe Biden’s son’s financial dealings remain unanswered. And they say they intend to do something about it.
As Republicans prepare for a possible return to power amid mounting hopes of winning the House and Senate in the November elections, they are laying the groundwork to make Hunter Biden and his business dealings a central target of their investigative and supervisory efforts.
Republican lawmakers and associates have talked about analyzing specific messages and financial transactions found on the laptop and have also discussed issuing congressional subpoenas to foreign entities involved in paying Hunter Biden, according to people known. are with the case and who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Talks are at an early stage but include talks about bringing in Republican attorneys and former Justice Department officials to lead the investigation, the people said.
The White House, in turn, is preparing to defend the president against all charges of misconduct, arguing that Republicans are driven by expediency. Democrats are likely to point out that Republicans have not investigated President Donald Trump’s own business pursuits in Russia and China or the foreign dealings of his children and son-in-law while they held key campaign or White House roles.
It all raises the possibility of a messy, politically explosive showdown between a GOP-controlled Congress and the White House, one that could delve deep into the affairs of the president’s family and outline the race of 2024 at the White House.
Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign affairs are already the subject of federal investigation, with a Delaware grand jury hearing testimonies in recent months. Although he never held a position in the presidential campaign or in the White House, Hunter Biden’s membership of the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to close deals in China have long raised questions about whether he traded in his father’s public service, including reported references in his emails to the “great man.”
Joe Biden has said he has never spoken to his son about his foreign affairs. And there is no indication that the federal investigation involves the president in any way. The White House declined to comment and a lawyer for Hunter Biden did not respond to an email.
Republican leaders see Hunter Biden as a unifying force that can bring together different factions of the GOP and potentially appease those who call for more dramatic action. Some members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus have said the first order of business for a Republican majority should be impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden in retaliation for Trump’s two impeachments.
There is also growing debate among Republicans about urging the Justice Department to appoint special counsel, people familiar with the case said.
“Hunter Biden’s fair game because I believe Hunter Biden is a national security risk,” said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who lines up to take over the House Oversight Committee if Republicans win the House. “Hopefully we’ll take it a step further when I get the hammer.”
In preparation, Comer’s oversight staff has already started submitting document requests and archived information related to the president’s son.
The New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had received from Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a laptop hard drive that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a computer repair shop in Delaware and never recovered.
The story was met with skepticism over questions about the laptop’s origins, including Giuliani’s involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was denigrating Joe Biden ahead of the November election. The Kremlin had also meddled in the 2016 race by hacking into Democratic emails that were subsequently leaked.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee now want to investigate the origin of a widely circulated letter from 50 former intelligence officials released a week after the New York Post story. The letter claimed the laptop bore “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation” and suggested that “the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email affair”.
Joe Biden said in the second presidential debate, in response to Trump’s reference to the “laptop from hell,” “there are 50 former national intelligence officers who said that what he is accusing me of is a Russian factory.” That statement went beyond the letter, although it was immediately and widely reported that the laptop was being labeled as disinformation. Trump and many Republicans accused Biden of enlisting Russia to avoid control over his son.
Since then, no evidence of Russian connections to the laptop or the emails has been found. A declassified US intelligence assessment of the 2020 election alleged that Russian leader Vladimir Putin allowed multiple efforts in support of Trump. Russian state media bolstered “disparaging content” about Biden “including stories about his son,” according to the review, which also claims Putin had “competence” over the activities of a Ukrainian lawmaker whom Giuliani met.
Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, called allegations that the Russians were behind the laptop “absurd.” Stefanik said in a statement that “any alleged attempt by the intelligence community or the intelligence community leadership to portray the facts surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop as misinformation should be investigated and prosecuted.”
Meanwhile, GOP-sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who released a 2020 report on Hunter Biden and his work on behalf of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, recently made a presentation on the Senate floor with allegations the media say have been ignored, but the Justice Department and Congress should investigate.
“The Biden administration has been totally unresponsive to our requests for oversight,” Grassley said.
For now, the Biden administration and many top Democrats are not publicly commenting on Hunter Biden. But the White House has already reassigned communications personnel to prepare for Hunter Biden’s ROP investigations and other likely targets, including the origins of the coronavirus and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Democrats are expected to argue that Hunter Biden is ultimately a distraction for most voters concerned about domestic affairs. Current Speaker of House Oversight, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, gave an example of that argument in a statement responding to Comer, her Republican counterpart.
Maloney said, “I hope my colleagues across the aisle would be more focused on delivering for the American people than on false outrage.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
