Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘contempt of Congress’

House Judiciary passes resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, setting up full floor vote


Brooke Singman By Brooke Singman Fox News | Published January 10, 2024 4:15pm EST

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-judiciary-passes-resolution-to-hold-hunter-biden-in-contempt-of-congress-setting-up-full-floor-vote

The House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena as part of the House impeachment inquiry against President Biden, setting up a full vote on the House floor in the coming days that would recommend the first son for prosecution.  

The vote at the House Judiciary Committee was 23-14. 

The House Oversight Committee also met for a markup Wednesday at 10 a.m. to consider their own resolution that recommends contempt proceedings against the first son after he refused to comply with a subpoena compelling him to appear for a closed-door deposition. 

Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell speaks after Hunter Biden walked out of a House Oversight Committee hearing
Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, listens to his attorney Abbe Lowell as they depart following a surprise appearance at a House Oversight Committee markup and meeting to vote on whether to hold Biden in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a request to testify to the House last month, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2024.  (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

The House Oversight Committee’s resolution has not yet been passed, and the panel’s mark-up meeting is ongoing. 

The House Judiciary Committee’s resolution will go to the House Rules Committee. If the House Oversight Committee passes its separate resolution, it will also go to the House Rules Committee. 

It is unclear, at this point, whether each committee’s resolution will be considered on the floor for a full vote, or if the House Rules Committee will combine both resolutions into one for consideration for a contempt of Congress vote. 

A source familiar tells Fox News Digital a full House floor vote could come as early as next week.

HUNTER BIDEN MAKES SHOCKING APPEARANCE AT HIS OWN CONTEMPT HEARING

Hunter Biden made a surprise appearance at the House Oversight Committee markup with his attorneys Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris. 

Hunter Biden (L), son of U.S. President Joe Biden, with lawyer Abbe Lowell departs a House Oversight Committee meeting on January 10, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee is meeting today as it considers citing him for contempt of Congress. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Hunter Biden, ahead of his subpoenaed deposition on Dec. 13, had offered to testify publicly. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan rejected his request, stressing that the first son would not have special treatment and pointed to the dozens of other witnesses that have appeared, as compelled, for their interviews and depositions. Comer and Jordan vowed to release the transcript of Hunter Biden’s deposition.

The first son, though, defied the subpoena, ignored the offer and delivered a public statement outside the Capitol. At the time, he said his “father was not financially involved in my business.” 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said Wednesday that Hunter Biden “blatantly defied two lawful subpoenas.” 

Hunter Biden makes surprise appearance at House hearing
Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, sits with his attorney Abbe Lowell as he makes a surprise appearance at a House Oversight Committee markup and meeting to vote on whether to hold Biden in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a request to testify to the House last month, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2024. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Comer said “Hunter Biden’s willful refusal to comply with the committees’ subpoenas is a criminal act” that “constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the appropriate United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution as prescribed by law.”

HOUSE GOP SAYS HUNTER BIDEN ‘VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW’ BY DEFYING SUBPOENA, PREPARE CONTEMPT RESOLUTION

“We will not provide Hunter Biden with special treatment because of his last name,” Comer said. “All Americans must be treated equally under the law. And that includes the Bidens.” 

During the meeting Wednesday, lawmakers acknowledged Biden was in the audience, with Democratic lawmakers asking to have Biden take questions during the session — a request Republicans rejected. 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said if the committee wants to hear from Biden, the panel should vote and “hear from Hunter right now.” 

Jordan and Comer react to Biden defying subpoena
From left, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., speak to reporters after Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, defied a congressional subpoena to appear privately for a deposition before Republican investigators who have been digging into his business dealings, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“Who wants to hear from Hunter right now, today? Anyone? Come on,” Moskowitz said. “Who wants to hear from Hunter? Yeah, no one. So I’m a visual learner, and the visual is clear. Nobody over there wants to hear from the witness.” 

WHITE HOUSE MUM ON WHETHER HUNTER BIDEN GAVE ADVANCED NOTICE HE WOULD APPEAR AT HOUSE CONTEMPT MEETING

Biden and his attorneys ultimately left the markup session before the vote on the resolution. 

“Hunter chose a hearing where Republicans could not distort manipulate, or misuse that testimony,” his attorney Abbe Lowell said, calling the move to consider a resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress “unprecedented” in light of his offer to “publicly answer all their proper questions.” 

“The question there is, what are they afraid of?” Lowell asked, before departing the Capitol. 

Meanwhile, the White House refused to answer questions on whether it was told in advance that Hunter Biden would attend the House Oversight’s mark-up session on Wednesday. 

“So here’s what I’ll say. And I’ve said this many times before: Hunter, as you all know, as a private citizen, he’s not a member of this White House,” Jean-Pierre said. “He makes his own decisions like he did today about how to respond to Congress.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on January 03, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

She went on to refer “any further questions, any additional questions about this process” to Hunter Biden’s attorneys.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

When pressed again on whether the White House was informed in advance, Jean-Pierre said: “I don’t have anything — we don’t have anything else to share beyond that.”

President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, US, on Thursday, Dec. 14 2023. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, expanded their investigation to probe whether President Biden was involved in his son’s “scheme” to defy his subpoena for deposition earlier this month, which, they say, “could constitute an impeachable offense.” 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.  

Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Comer Not Satisfied With Wray’s Subpoena Response, Contempt Charge Looms


By Eric Mack    |   Wednesday, 31 May 2023 04:36 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/us/james-comer-oversight-fbi/2023/05/31/id/1121882/

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., held a call with FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday on a refusal to hand over an FBI whistleblower document to Congress, potentially setting the stage for a historic contempt of Congress charge.

“On my call with FBI Director Wray, the FBI finally confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-VP Joe Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme,” Comer tweeted Wednesday after the call. “Anything short of producing these documents to @GOPoversight is not in compliance with my subpoena.”

Comer’s statement detailed the call with Wray, including the first time confirmation of FD-1023 form alleging Biden’s “criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national.” 

“However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee,” Comer’s statement continued. “While Director Wray – after a month of refusing to even acknowledge that the form existed – has offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI headquarters, we have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena.

“If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.”

A source told Newsmax congressional correspondent Kilmeny Duchardt on  Newsmax‘s “American Agenda,” the call did not go well and will ultimately force Comer and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to call for a vote on holding Wray in contempt of Congress.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime whistleblower advocate working with Comer, condemned the FBI for treating Congress like “second-class citizens” while leaking other information to the media.

“While the FBI has apparently leaked classified information to the news media in recent weeks, jeopardizing its own human sources, it continues to treat Congress like second-class citizens by refusing to provide a specific unclassified record,” Grassley wrote in a statement. “Director Wray confirmed what my whistleblowers have told me pursuant to legally protected disclosures: the FBI-generated document is real, but the bureau has yet to provide it to Congress in defiance of a legitimate congressional subpoena. This failure comes with consequences.”

Comer said Tuesday he was moving forward with holding Wray in contempt of Congress because the FBI missed the deadline to turn over the FBI record on Biden and his family’s foreign business dealings.

“The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable,” Comer wrote in a statement.

In response, the FBI said in a Tuesday statement it remained committed to cooperating with lawmakers in “good faith,” and “any discussion of escalation under these circumstances is unnecessary.” The FBI said it offered to give the Oversight committee “access to information responsive to the committee’s subpoena in a format and setting that maintains confidentiality and protects important security interests and the integrity of FBI investigations.”

The bureau called that offer “an extraordinary accommodation.”

The offer was reportedly repeated to Comer on Wednesday, but House GOP members believe it has oversight authority that should force the FBI to turn that document over the Congress without a secure viewing alternative.

Calls to move forward with contempt were elevated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier Tuesday, who said he had personally called Wray to urge the release of the document to Congress.

“If he does not act, he’s not above the law,” McCarthy said. “He’s not above Congress. And we will hold him in contempt. Now I want to be very clear about that.”

Comer subpoenaed Wray earlier this month seeking a specific FBI form from June 2020 that is a report of conversations or interactions with a confidential source. These reports are routine, contain uncorroborated and unvetted information and do not on their own establish any wrongdoing.

In a May 3 letter to Wray with Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Comer said that “it has come to our attention” that the bureau has such a document that “describes an alleged criminal scheme” involving Biden and a foreign national “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” when Biden was vice president and includes “a precise description” about it.

Comer and Grassley said those “disclosures” demand further investigation, and they want to know whether the FBI investigated and, if so, what agents found. The subpoena seeks all so-called FD-1023 forms and accompanying attachments and documents.

Democrats on the Oversight committee called Comer’s narrative of the FBI obstructing “a radical distortion of the situation.” And they accused the chairman of stonewalling them from the call with Wray on Wednesday.

“This subpoenaed document, by definition, reveals nothing more than an unverified and unsubstantiated tip made to Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which presumably led to no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement late Tuesday.

The lawmakers used the word “alleged” three times in the opening paragraph of the letter and offered no evidence of the veracity of the accusations or any details about what they contend are “highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures.”

The White House has called the subpoena effort further evidence of how congressional Republicans long “have been lobbing unfounded, unproven, politically motivated attacks” against the Biden family “without offering evidence for their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.”

A contempt of Congress charge would require a full committee vote before going to the House floor. If the House were to approve a contempt resolution against Wray, the decision about whether to prosecute him would fall to prosecutors in the Justice Department, where Wray works.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Related Stories:

© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Republicans to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress over Biden document


Brooke Singman

By Brooke Singman | Fox News | Published May 30, 2023 4:48pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-oversight-committee-taking-steps-to-hold-fbi-director-wray-in-contempt-of-congress-over-biden-document

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is taking steps to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress after the Bureau notified the panel it will not comply with its subpoena related to a possible criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Comer, R-Ky., has subpoenaed the FBI for a document that allegedly describes a criminal scheme involving Biden and a foreign national and relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. The document is an FBI-generated FD-1023 form.

FBI Director Christopher Wray
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a news conference on Aug. 10, 2022, in Omaha, Nebraska. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Comer first subpoenaed the document earlier this month. The FBI did not turn it over and instead explained that it needed to protect the Bureau’s confidential human source program.

FBI CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS DEADLINE LOOMS AS COMER DEMANDS KEY BIDEN DOCUMENT

Comer set another deadline last week, giving Wray until Tuesday, May 30 to turn over the document. After the deadline was set, Wray set up a call with Comer for Wednesday, May 31. However, the FBI notified the panel it would not provide the document to the committee by the Tuesday afternoon deadline. 

“Today, the FBI informed the Committee that it will not provide the unclassified documents subpoenaed by the Committee,” Comer said Tuesday. “The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable.” 

President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden speaks at the LSU Tigers Championship Celebration event at the White House in Washington D.C., United States on May 26, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“While I have a call scheduled with FBI Director Wray tomorrow to discuss his response further, the Committee has been clear in its intent to protect Congressional oversight authorities and will now be taking steps to hold the FBI Director in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena,” Comer said. 

COMER THREATENS TO HOLD FBI IN CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS IF IT FAILS TO RELEASE KEY BIDEN DOCUMENT

He added: “Americans deserve the truth, and the Oversight Committee will continue to demand transparency from this nation’s chief law enforcement agency.”

Comer in front of billboard of New York Post Hunter Biden frontpage
Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023.  (Photographer: Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The document is being sought after a whistleblower approached Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, alleging that the FBI and the Justice Department were in possession of it, and that it would reveal “a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.”

Comer attempted to “narrow the breadth of the subpoena” in response to FBI staff criticisms, the committee determined “additional terms based on unclassified legally protected whistleblower disclosures that may be referenced in the FD-1023 form.” The terms included “June 30, 2020” and “five million.”

WHISTLEBLOWER ALLEGES FBI, DOJ HAVE DOCUMENT REVEALING CRIMINAL SCHEME INVOLVING BIDEN, FOREIGN NATIONAL

The back-and-forth came after Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley notified Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland this month about the “legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO).  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Comer and Grassley said that based on “the alleged specificity within the document, it would appear that the DOJ and the FBI have enough information to determine the truth and accuracy of the information contained within it.”

“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people. Releasing confidential source information could potentially jeopardize investigations and put lives at risk,” the FBI said in a statement. “The FBI remains committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests on this matter and others as we always have.”

The White House has maintained that the president never spoke to his son about his business dealings and has continued to say that the president was never involved in them. Officials also say the president has never discussed investigations into members of his family with the Justice Department.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud