(CNN) Residence Oversight Chairman James Comer has quietly subpoenaed Bank of America asking for records relating to 3 of Hunter Biden’s enterprise associates, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, disclosed in a letter sent to Comer on Sunday.
The subpoena was broad and referred to as for “all economic records” spanning 14 years, starting in 2009, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN. Bank of America has because turned more than a considerable quantity of components in compliance with the subpoena, a supply familiar with the communications told CNN.
The subpoena especially targets US citizen John Robinson “Rob” Walker and other associates of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who formed a “a joint venture” with executives of CEFC China Power, a now-bankrupt Chinese power conglomerate, according to the letter.
Bank of America declined to comment. CNN has also reached out to an e mail related with Walker.
The sweeping subpoena marks an escalation in Comer’s investigation into the Biden family’s enterprise dealings. The Kentucky Republican has mentioned accessing economic facts for the Biden household and its enterprise associates is a leading priority as he seeks to investigate alleged influence peddling, specifically surrounding any of the family’s foreign enterprise bargains. The president has denied any involvement in his son’s overseas enterprise dealings.
A Residence Oversight GOP spokesperson told CNN in a statement that the objective of Raskin’s letter was to “get ahead of the facts the Oversight Committee is getting in its investigation of the Biden family’s influence peddling.”
The move comes soon after attorneys for Hunter Biden not too long ago embraced a much more aggressive technique to push back against attacks from Republicans. Final month, his attorneys fired off a spate of letters urging state and federal agencies to investigate various people involved in disseminating the contents of his laptop, which has been the basis for a slew of GOP attacks.
A spokesperson for Hunter Biden’s legal group mentioned Monday, “Rep. Comer continues to pursue far-fetched and currently-disproven conspiracy theories about the Biden household,” and accused Comer of “carrying out the bidding of former President Trump.”
Raskin criticizes Comer in the letter for not providing Democratic members normal notice just before the subpoena was issued, arguing they had been only offered visibility a couple of hours prior rather than the normal committee practice of alerting the minority of a subpoena 48 hours in advance.
The Maryland Democrat also characterizes the subpoena as a “roving congressional inquisition into the affairs of at least 1 private American citizen,” offered that it referred to as for the production of “thousands of pages of Mr. Walker’s private economic facts, such as statements of his and his wife’s joint checking account for a decade” — one thing Raskin argues goes “nicely beyond any enterprise deal with Hunter Biden or CEFC.”
Claims about Oversight GOP and Trump’s counsel
Raskin also claims in his letter that committee Democrats are increasingly studying about new levels of cooperation among former President Donald Trump’s counsel, Patrick Strawbridge, and oversight Republicans concerning a selection to cease pursuing facts and components relating to foreign spending at Trump-owned properties.
In April 2019, the Residence Oversight Committee — run then by Democrats — subpoenaed Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA for economic facts relating to the Trump Organization. The investigation especially was focused on regardless of whether foreign governments had been spending dollars at Trump-owned properties in order to curry favor with the administration.
That investigation was ongoing although Democrats had been in the majority. Nonetheless, on January 19, 2023, soon after Republicans took manage of the Residence and the Oversight panel, Strawbridge allegedly emailed Mazars’ counsel informing the firm that GOP committee members had offered the Trump organization assurances that the panel would cease its requests for documents, according to a direct quote from the e mail integrated in Raskin’s letter.
“I do not know the status of Mazars [sic] production, but my understanding is that the Committee has no interest in forcing Mazars to total it and is prepared to release it from additional obligations below the settlement agreement,” Strawbridge’s e mail study, according to Raskin’s letter.
Raskin writes that Strawbridge later told Mazars that “this path had been offered to him, twice, by the Acting Basic Counsel of the Residence of Representatives, in his capacity as counsel to the Committee.”
“The accusation by Ranking Member Raskin is entirely unfounded and untrue. There has been no coordination or discussion with anybody from the Committee’s majority with anybody about the Mazars documents,” a Residence GOP committee spokesperson mentioned.
CNN has reached out to Mazars and Strawbridge, the Trump lawyer, for comment.
Raskin argues in his letter that the selection to cease asking Mazars to continue generating documents in relation to its investigation into the Trump Organization’s ties to foreign governments is at odds with Comer’s selection to subpoena Bank of America as aspect of its investigation into Hunter Biden.
“You seem to have engaged in these efforts to stop the production of proof of former President Trump’s misconduct in the course of his time in workplace although simultaneously issuing an invasive and overbroad subpoena to private people as aspect of an investigation targeting the enterprise dealings of household members of President Biden who have never ever held public workplace,” Raskin writes.
This story has been updated with further developments.
Kara Scannell contributed to this report.