Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told Newsmax Wednesday night that the White House is obstructing a House investigation into the events surrounding the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin and the role President Joe Biden might have played when he was vice president.
House Republicans earlier Wednesday called on the Biden administration to immediately permit the National Archives and Records Administration to provide all drafts of a speech Biden gave while he was vice president to Ukraine's Parliament in December 2015. In his speech, Biden called for the firing of Shokin, who was investigating Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings Ltd. Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden was serving on Burisma's board of directors at the time.
"We need this information," Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "The National Archives has responded to us, saying that they would love to provide us the information, but the White House will not allow them to do it. That is evidence of obstruction, and that's why we're getting everything lined up to take this to court."
During an appearance with the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018, Biden in a video bragged about withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless they fired Shokin. "I said, 'You're not getting the billion dollars, and I'm going to be leaving here in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money,'" Biden said in the video. "Well, son of a b****, he got fired and they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
Comer, who is leading the impeachment inquiry into allegations of influence peddling and corruption involving the president and members of his family, said, "We expect this information, and the fact that the White House continues to obstruct and not want to be transparent with this shows that they have a lot of viability on this issue.
"I think the American people can see right through what happened with Joe Biden doing the quid pro quo, withholding foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for getting a prosecutor off his son's back."
Comer, along with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chair of the Ways and Means Committee, wrote a letter Wednesday to White House counsel Edward Siskel demanding all drafts of Biden's speech — from Nov. 1, 2015, to Dec. 9, 2015, the day he spoke to Ukraine's Parliament — be delivered before Feb. 7 or "the Oversight Committee will consider the use of compulsory process to require the White House's production of the speeches."
"Name me one other time in the history of our country when anyone, much less the vice president of the United States, has demanded a prosecutor in another country be fired and tried to withhold foreign aid in getting the termination," Comer said. "That's never happened before. Joe Biden, since he's been president, hasn't called on any country to get rid of any corrupt person — just the one guy that was investigating his shady son."
Newsmax reached out to the White House for comment.
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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