The investigation was launched in 2020.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Treasury Department is allowing the House Oversight Committee to have access to suspicious activity reports (SARs) connected to the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
- “After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in an online statement.
- “It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request. For over 20 years, Congress had access to these reports but the Biden Administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight,” the statement continued.
- The new rule reportedly required majority consent in Congress to obtain a SAR. Comer claimed the law was implemented to protect Biden.
- Comer added, “We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat. If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance.”
- Comer has called for the release of SARs numerous times, the latest being in March.
- On March 7, Comer requested a Treasury Department official appear for a transcribed interview to explain why the department had not provided the desired information.
- “Now that the Treasury Department is providing in camera access to the suspicious activity reports, the Oversight Committee’s transcribed interview with Jonathan Davidson, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, is postponed,” according to the House Oversight Committee press release.
PREVIOUS RESPONSE FROM TREASURY DEPARTMENT:
- The Treasury Department’s Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Jonathan Davidson wrote a letter to Comer on March 3, stating, “The Department has been working to complete all necessary review, including consultation with law enforcement agencies.”
- “These processes ensure that sensitive material extraneous to the Committee’s inquiry is not inadvertently disclosed and that law enforcement sensitive material is identified and handled appropriately,” the letter continued, noting that reviewing the material is a “standard aspect of the process of providing Congress with access to BSA-protected information.”
- “As you know, appropriately safeguarding this information is critical to law enforcement efforts to investigate money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit financial activity,” Davidson wrote.
BACKGROUND:
- American Faith reported that James Comer recently obtained documents proving the Bidens were receiving money from the Chinese Communist Party.
- “The banks would look at this like they must be laundering money or something. I don’t necessarily think they were laundering money, Maria [Bartiromo],” Comer said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures. ”It looks to me like they were trying to hide the source of that money and the source was the Chinese Communist Party.”
- “If you’re conducting legitimate business activities, why so many transfers? Why are you trying to hide the source of that money,” Comer asked.
