House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday called out the White House for sending a memo to executives at news outlets asking for increased scrutiny of the House Republican’s impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Ian Sams, a spokesman for investigations at the White House, wrote the memo one day after Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, directed House committees to open the inquiry.
“It’s really concerning to me that the president, the White House is telling the press what to say. I think the press should be wanting to know the answers to, ‘Did the president know when he went to dinner with his son that he would get a Porsche?’” he said.
“Did he know when the son was selling the brand? That when he was talking and using an email address? That wasn’t his own name? So people couldn’t find it?”
Mr. McCarthy continued: “Did [Mr. Biden] know when he was talking about the president of Ukraine, was that in referring to his son serving on the Burisma board with the prosecutor coming after them?”
Mr. McCarthy said that he doesn’t have any shell companies and his son never received a free Porsche.
SEE ALSO: White House pleads with media outlets to scrutinize House GOP impeachment push
Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev wired $142,000 to Hunter Biden in April 2014 so he could buy himself a sports car. Mr. Rakishev sent the money around the same time then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with him at a Washington restaurant at Hunter Biden’s request.
The details of the gifted car were revealed by Devon Archer, a former business partner with Hunter Biden, in four hours of testimony before House investigators last month and memorialized in a transcript.
Archer said it was for the vice president’s son to buy an expensive car. Archer said Hunter Biden at first purchased a Fisker electric car and then switched to a Porsche.
Archer also told lawmakers that the Biden family “was in the business of influence peddling” and that Mr. Biden’s 20-plus phone calls into business meetings were central to son Hunter Biden’s strategy for cutting lucrative international deals.
According to his testimony, Mr. Biden was central to securing some of those deals by stopping by or calling into meetings that his son Hunter was conducting with executives from overseas firms.
One of those deals provided Hunter Biden and Archer high-paying jobs serving on the board of the now-defunct Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
SEE ALSO: House to hold first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing this month
At the time Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky wanted Mr. Biden to help oust Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company and hobbling its efforts to enter the U.S. energy market.
In a 2018 speech, Mr. Biden said that as vice president, he forced out Mr. Shokin after threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees from Ukraine.
“Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked,” Archer told lawmakers, according to notes Mr. Biggs took in the deposition. “People would be intimidated to legally mess with Burisma. Because of the Biden family brand.”
Mr. Sams’ memo lists quotes from Republicans who say they haven’t seen evidence that foreign business deals led by Mr. Biden’s son amounted to corruption or put money in the president’s pocket.
The White House memo says that Mr. McCarthy had insisted on a House vote to open an inquiry into President Donald Trump but skipped holding a vote on his own inquiry for Mr. Biden.
Mr. Sams said that shows Republicans are careening toward an impeachment based on weak evidence.
“Covering impeachment as a process story — Republicans say X, but the White House says Y — is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable,” the memo states.
“And in the modern media environment, where everyday liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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