House Republicans, thwarted in their quest to obtain key records for their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, want the archivist of the United States to explain at a public hearing why she has not turned over emails, speeches, flight logs and other records from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president.
Lawmakers sent a letter Friday to Archivist Colleen Shogan, asking her to testify about the matter at a Jan. 31 public hearing.
Ms. Shogan is the gatekeeper to Mr. Biden’s records from his vice presidency. She has not turned over email correspondence lawmakers are seeking in which Mr. Biden disguised himself through the use of various pseudonyms.
She also blocked the efforts by Congress to obtain Air Force Two flight logs as well as drafts from a speech he delivered to the Ukrainian Rada in December 2015. Lawmakers are seeking the records to determine the extent Mr. Biden participated in business deals that his son Hunter Biden brokered in Ukraine, Russia, China and other foreign countries.
Evidence acquired separately by impeachment investigators show Mr. Biden communicated through various pseudonyms with Biden family business associates while vice president and Hunter Biden traveled aboard Air Force Two on his father’s foreign trips as he conducted business in those countries.
The request seeking Ms. Shogan’s appearance was signed by the chairs of the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees, which are conducting an impeachment inquiry into whether Mr. Biden helped family members secure millions of dollars from foreign business deals while he was vice president.
“The Committees are concerned that the White House has permitted NARA to release only Vice-Presidential records that the White House finds either innocuous or flattering towards the President,” lawmakers wrote to Ms. Shogan. “The Committees seek to understand if NARA’s failure to produce these documents is because of White House obstruction or because certain emails were not turned over to NARA at the end of the Obama-Biden Administration that would be classified by law as Vice-Presidential records.”
The National Archives and Records Administration is limited in what records it can provide Congress from previous administrations if Mr. Biden opposes the release of the information.
The Washington Times reported in July that the National Archives released a White House scheduling email sent to one of the vice president’s alias email addresses on May 26, 2016, ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
The email recipients also included Hunter Biden, who had a $1 million-a-year post on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm seeking the elder Mr. Biden’s help in shaking off a state-run corruption investigation, according to witnesses.
Mr. Comer is pursuing that specific email from the National Archives and unredacted versions of several others that were copied to Hunter Biden, including a scheduling card. Those emails were only partially disclosed by the archives.
Mr. Comer is also seeking all of Mr. Biden’s official vice presidential emails and documents copied to Hunter Biden’s then-business associates, Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin, as well as all documents or communications using pseudonyms for Vice President Biden.
The 2016 email about the Poroshenko call was sent to Mr. Biden under the pseudonym Robert L. Peters.
Mr. Biden is known to have used other pseudonyms, including Robin Ware and JRB Ware.
In the May 2016 call, Mr. Biden urged Mr. Poroshenko to continue reforming Ukraine’s prosecutor general office. It’s unclear whether Hunter Biden was involved in the call outside of getting looped in on his father’s email about it.
The call coincided with Hunter Biden’s time on the board of Burisma. Witnesses say Burisma hired Hunter Biden to help dodge charges from Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Mr. Shokin was fired in March 2016. Mr. Biden bragged on camera in 2018 that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Ukrainian officials fired Mr. Shokin.
A National Archives spokesperson said it has been working closely with the Oversight panel on their request.
“We are reviewing the hearing request sent today and will respond to the Chairman as requested in his letter,” a spokesperson said.
House Democrats on the Oversight panel accused Republicans of spreading misinformation about the National Archives and said it has produced tens of thousands of documents so far.
“What’s been communicated to the committee is that the Archives is following the process laid out in law to respond to the document requests in good faith. The agency has even shared that they’ve tripled their staff to respond to Chairman Comer’s multiple letters,” a senior Democratic aide told The Washington Times.
“Despite receiving the documents that they themselves prioritized, Republicans are desperately spreading disinformation because they have failed to uncover any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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