The three House GOP chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry into President Biden hit Attorney General Merrick Garland with a subpoena Tuesday for records of the special counsel investigation of Mr. Biden’s mishandling of documents.
They request transcripts, notes, video and audio files, including those records from special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Mr. Biden.
The subpoena is in response to the Justice Department’s failure to turn over documents that Congress first requested on Feb. 12.
Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer and Ways and Means Chair Rep. Jason Smith issued the subpoena.
The Republican lawmakers said they are “concerned” that Mr. Biden may have kept documents related to specific countries involved in his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.
The House impeachment inquiry launched in September is looking into Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s hugely profitable foreign dealings and potential influence peddling. More than a dozen witnesses and thousands of pages of documents and bank records have been examined.
While Republicans maintain that there is plenty of evidence of potentially impeachable offenses by the president, Democrats call the probe political and say the lack of evidence is clear.
In the new subpoena, the congressmen said the Justice Department didn’t provide the documents by the due date because it was reviewing the materials for classification and confidentiality interests, but never offered them a timeline for when the review would be over.
“Special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents made two things clear: there’s a double standard of justice in this country and Joe Biden isn’t fit for office,” Mr. Jordan said in a statement.
Mr. Comer said the report “outlined that classified documents Joe Biden stashed for years relate to countries where his family cashed in on the Biden brand.”
“While the Special Counsel may have declined to charge the president citing his memory problems, Congress and the American people do not consider ‘elderly and well-meaning’ a defense for corruption,” Mr. Smith said.
The subpoena comes after Mr. Hur released his report earlier this month that said Mr. Biden did retain documents but no charges would be brought against the president due to his mental state.
During the interview, according to Mr. Hur’s final report, the 81-year-old Mr. Biden was unable to recall important information, including when his son, Beau, died, and when he was vice president.
Mr. Hur said he could not charge the president because his “memory was significantly limited.”
“It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” the report said.
Mr. Biden and the White House insist that he is physically and mentally fit for a second term.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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