Comer says Treasury will allow Oversight Committee to review certain bank activity reports related to Biden family and business partners
By Sara Murray, Annie Grayer and Alayna Treene, CNN
House Oversight Chairman James Comer said in a statement Tuesday the US Treasury Department will allow him to review certain bank activity reports related to members of the Biden family and their business partners.
“After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” Comer said in the statement.
The Kentucky Republican has been seeking the bank records, known as Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), as part of his probe into the Biden family business dealings. He also recently fired off a subpoena to Bank of America for additional bank records for three former associates of Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. Comer has claimed — without offering any evidence — that financial records, particularly those involving foreign business deals, could show improper influence over Joe Biden.
“After five years of the same old, disproven conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden and his family, Rep. Comer’s political obsession comes at the high cost of time and money that could be spent actually improving the lives of Americans,” Abbe Lowell, counsel for Hunter Biden said in a statement, adding, “Rep. Comer knows all too well that SARs reports are not uncommon.”
The White House has previously dismissed Comer’s probe as politically motivated. Biden has previously said he was not involved in any of his son’s overseas deals.
“We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat,” Comer said in the statement. “If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance.”
According to the press statement, Treasury has granted the committee an “in camera” review of the documents, which means there will be certain restrictions on how Comer and his team can view and access the documents. A person familiar with the matter said that review could begin as early as this week.
House Oversight Republicans and the Treasury Department have been in communication for months and have been going back and forth over these statements. Treasury has said it needed time to confer with law enforcement partners to identify law enforcement conflicts or sensitivities in order to process Comer’s requests.
Comer had sought the bank activity reports for a handful of Biden family members, including Hunter Biden, and the president’s brother and sister-in-law, James and Sara Biden. Comer had also asked for reports related to Hunter Biden’s former business partners — John “Rob” Walker, Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer, as well as any corporate entities linked to them.
A representative for James and Sara Biden declined to comment.
While Comer has previously suggested the suspicious activity reports could point to problematic behavior by Biden family members or associates, such reports are not conclusive and do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing. Financial institutions file millions of suspicious activity reports each year and few lead to law enforcement inquiries.
The news that the committee will be allowed to access the bank activity reports comes after Comer had scheduled a transcribed interview with a Treasury official later this week about why the department was not complying with Comer’s demands for bank records. That interview has now been postponed.
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