The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed telecommunications company AT&T for 13 years of phone records for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
The committee’s Democrat minority first revealed the subpoena in a memo between the minority members on Tuesday. Republican majority staff confirmed the AT&T subpoena in an email to NTD News on Wednesday.
The subpoena comes as Republican House investigators continue an impeachment inquiry into allegations President Biden facilitated influence peddling through his family’s various business dealings throughout his political career. Witnesses in their impeachment inquiry have alleged the elder Biden ended up on the phone during multiple business meetings involving his son.
Devon Archer, a businessman who worked with Hunter Biden on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, has also claimed company executives urged Mr. Biden to “call D.C.” at a time when the company was facing pressure from Ukrainian government investigations. Mr. Archer testified that Mr. Biden may have “called D.C.”—potentially alluding to then-Vice President Joe Biden—during a business trip to Dubai on or around Dec. 4, 2015. According to a Republican timeline, then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine just days after the Dec. 4 call and communicated a request that Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin be removed from office.
Mr. Comer noted Mr. Archer’s testimony in his March 6 subpoena cover letter to AT&T.
Mr. Comer’s records request may also cover a personal phone line that President Biden used during his time as the Vice President.
“The Oversight Committee has identified payments made by Hunter Biden for what appear to be bills associated with his own use, and a cellphone line for his father’s use,” Mr. Comer’s May 6 letter reads. “Based on records reviewed by the Committees, the total amount paid by Hunter Biden for his father’s use appears to be over $15,000, which was for a personal line Joe Biden utilized while Vice President.”
Mr. Comer said Eric Schwerin—whom he described as a “close confidant” of the president and his son—testified to cutting a check from President Biden to Mr. Biden to repay his son for the phone bill.
The subpoena calls on AT&T to turn over records since Jan. 1, 2011, of customer accounts in Hunter Biden’s name and in the names of three of his known business entities: Owasco P.C., Rosemont Seneca Paitners, LLC, and Rosemont Seneca Advisors, LLC. The subpoena gives the telecommunications company until March 20 to produce these records.
Democrats Say Subpoena ‘Outrageously Broad and Invasive’
Committee Democrats have routinely insisted their Republican counterparts have little to no evidence to support the ongoing investigation into the Biden family. The minority side reiterated those conclusions in their latest memo addressing the AT&T subpoena.
“Rather than acknowledging the collapse of their allegations and failure of this investigation, Chairman Comer has instead decided to issue a subpoena, in secret, to compel AT&T to produce over 15 years’ worth of “account information, communications, and payment history of all AT&T accounts affiliated with Robert Hunter Biden,” the March 12 minority memo states.
Committee Democrats continued to cast these latest Republican investigative steps as unduly intrusive and faulted the majority for citing Mr. Schwerin’s testimony in their subpoena despite not releasing the full transcript from Mr. Schwerin’s Jan. 30 congressional testimony.
“Chairman Comer’s justification for this outrageously broad and invasive subpoena is flimsy at best. In the cover letter accompanying his subpoena to AT&T, Chairman Comer points to testimony from Eric Schwerin,” the minority memo reads. “. . .Mr. Schwerin’s statements during his transcribed interview—a transcript that Chairman Comer has refused to release publicly—makes clear that this payment was pedestrian and innocuous.”
Democrats provided an excerpt of Mr. Schwerin’s transcribed interview in which he described the AT&T account Mr. Biden paid for as a multi-line “friends and family account” for which “Hunter would pay the full bill and his dad would reimburse him for his line.”
According to the testimony excerpt, Mr. Schwerin said the monthly phone bill was about $100 to $120, and President Biden reimbursed his son for a period of about six months. The apparent reimbursements Mr. Schwerin describes in this testimony excerpt do not add up to the “over $15,000” figure Mr. Comer alleged Mr. Biden paid in total over the years to cover his father’s phone bill. NTD News reached out to Republican staff for clarification on the apparent discrepancy in the phone payments but did not receive a response by press time.
Committee Republicans are pressing on with their investigation into the Biden family, despite the pushback coming from Democrats.
Last week, the Republican majority extended an invitation for Mr. Biden to testify again, this time in a public setting along with other past witnesses in the investigation. Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has since formally rejected the invitation.
Mr. Lowell said his client has a court hearing in California the following day, but also said the scheduling conflict is the “least of the issues” with the invite. Hunter Biden’s attorney went on to describe the Republican hearing invitation as an “obvious attempt to throw a Hail Mary pass after the game has ended.”
