House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is demanding that the U.S. Treasury Department turn over any suspicious activity reports (SARs) it has relating to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden sat.
On June 28, Comer sent a letter (pdf) to Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, demanding she turn over all SARs filed with the Treasury since April 2014 relating to Burisma and its various corporate affiliates and subsidiaries. His request also covered SARs related to Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, his daughter Karina Zlochevska, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, and Alexander Kotlarsky—a business recruiter who allegedly connected Hunter Biden with Burisma.
Comer also called for Yellen to release SARs pertaining to Serbian politician Vuk Jeremic and the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development—a think-tank based in Belgrade, Serbia.
This effort to collect SARs comes as Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma have long been a topic of curiosity, especially for Republican officials. Earlier this month, Republicans obtained a copy of an FBI FD-1023 form describing an alleged bribery scheme involving a Burisma executive who claimed then-Vice President Joe Biden solicited and received a bribe in exchange for certain actions. According to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Burisma hired the younger Biden in 2014 to help bring about an end to an investigation by then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability has reviewed government documents that allege President Biden, while serving as Vice President, solicited and received a bribe from a foreign source in return for certain actions,” Comer wrote to Yellen on June 28. “These allegations are consistent with the Committee’s ongoing investigation of the Biden family’s foreign business transactions—transactions that subpoenaed bank records have revealed allowed Biden family members and associates to profit over $10 million from foreign sources.”
In 2018, the elder Biden explained during an appearance at a Council of Foreign Relations conference how he pressured Ukrainian leaders to remove a prosecutor from office while he was serving as Vice President.
The elder Biden has insisted his actions in Ukraine as Vice President were entirely appropriate despite his son’s involvement with Burisma. In a 2020 presidential debate with then-President Donald Trump, the elder Biden insisted, “I did my job impeccably” and “I carried out U.S. policy” with regard to Ukrainian policy and his son’s ties to Burisma, adding, “Not one, single, solitary thing was out of line.”
Along with his letter to Yellen, Comer noted that an IRS whistleblower recently provided testimony (pdf) to Congress that the FBI FD-1023 form describing the alleged Biden bribery scheme was never shared with IRS investigators looking into the younger Biden’s taxes. Last week, the younger Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax violations.
“The FBI has been sitting on allegations for years that Joe Biden solicited and received a bribe while he was Vice President of the United States,” Comer said Wednesday. “We have no confidence that the FBI did anything to verify the allegations contained within this record and may have intentionally withheld it during the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax evasion. In fact, an IRS whistleblower said that this critical evidence was withheld from tax investigators who have since revealed they had potentially corroborating evidence during the investigation.”