By Ashley Oliver, Justice Department Reporter. Media: Washingtonexaminer
The House Ways and Means Committee released more than 700 pages of evidence on Wednesday that the committee said supported the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) summarized that the trove of material, provided to the committee by two IRS whistleblowers, showed Joe Biden’s “political power and influence was ‘the brand’ that Hunter Biden was selling all over the world” and that it also “suggests an effort to sway U.S. policy decisions.”
Smith highlighted a couple of items from the contents, including a WhatsApp message that he said was written by Hunter Biden to a business associate on June 6, 2017.
The message showed the younger Biden expressing to the associate that he did not want to “sign over [his] family’s brand.”
“Bulls*** James — all around bulls***. Explain to me one thing Tony brings to MY table that I so desperately need that I’m willing to sign over my family’s brand and pretty much the rest of my business life?” Hunter Biden wrote. “Read the f***ing documents people. It’s plane f***ing English. Why in gods name would I give this marginal bully the keys my family’s only asset?”
Smith observed, “That asset could only be one person, Joe Biden.”
The material also included an email written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, a top prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden. In it, Wolf wrote to federal investigators to remove mentions of “Political Figure 1” from search warrant information.

(Graeme Jennings/Washington Examiner)
Smith said “Political Figure 1” was Joe Biden, adding, “Here, we see clear as day that the Department of Justice actively interfered in an investigation to protect the current president of the United States.”
The committee first voted on releasing the otherwise confidential information in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning.
The information was given to the committee by Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, two veteran IRS criminal investigators involved in the Hunter Biden case, after they publicly testified to Congress in July, Smith said.
The chairman said the whistleblowers produced the additional information to the committee because it was the only legal way in which they could reveal private taxpayer information under section 6103 of the IRS code.
Smith had previewed the release of the information Wednesday morning before his committee’s vote, saying it “reinforces the integrity of the whistleblowers and the high regard in which they are held by their colleagues, and it brings to light new evidence that builds upon their prior testimony.”
The chairman spoke Wednesday morning and afternoon next to a board that displayed a flowchart connecting Joe Biden to the business dealings of his son and brother. Smith, who is leading the impeachment inquiry alongside Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), is investigating allegations Joe Biden inappropriately used his authority as vice president to profit from those business ventures.
A spokesperson for Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal (D-MA) did not respond to a request for comment but told Punchbowl News ahead of the information’s release that he believed it had been “cherry-picked.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell also called the material “cherry-picked” in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“No matter how often Republican leaders work with their so-called whistleblowers to dump out old and recycled, cherry-picked confidential grand jury and taxpayer materials to promote a false narrative about Hunter Biden’s finances, one thing is clear,” Lowell said. “This has been and continues to be an unprecedented, improper attempt to influence and interfere with the ongoing investigation by the U.S. attorney in Delaware.”
Discussion about this post