If Republicans retake control of the House after the 2022 midterms, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., vows to bring in the intelligence officials who allegedly knew of Hunter Biden's shady foreign business deals.
"They should come in and talk to us," McCarthy told the New York Post in an exclusive interview. "You'd want to ask these individuals what did they know and when."
The intelligence officials can either appear voluntarily before a Republican-led House oversight investigation, or face the demand to appear under subpoena.
"People can come in and talk to us and answer the questions; if that's not the case, there are times we will use the subpoena as well," McCarthy added to the Post.
The allegations go back to Joe Biden's serving as vice president under former President Barack Obama, and the alleged business deals are suspect on ethics if not criminal impropriety, Republicans have argued for years.
Also, during the 2020 presidential election, 51 former intelligence agency officials boldly claimed – without evidence – the allegations stemming from Hunter Biden's laptop was "disinformation pushed by Russia" – effectively pushing a narrative to support Biden's candidacy.
"The arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden's son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," the 51 intelligence officials' letter claimed just 14 days before the presidential election's final vote.
"Our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case. If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."
Members of the Obama administration orchestrated the timely letter during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, including James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"You would want to ask these individuals first of all, 'Would you still sign the letter today, and who asked you to sign the letter and why did you sign the letter, and what information did you have prior?'" McCarthy told the Post. "Why did you feel comfortable — especially with your own reputations — that you would sign that letter? Was it someone from the [Biden] campaign who asked, or was it people in the intel community?
"I think these questions have to be answered. You cannot allow an intel community to utilize their name in an improper way without correcting."
Since Biden was elected, many of the news outlets that held up the intelligence experts' narrative denouncing the laptop as Russian disinformation have now acknowledged its authenticity, including The New York Times and The Washington Post – a pair of major media organizations that endorsed Biden over then-President Donald Trump.
It was this timely use of allegations – known as an "October surprise" in presidential election politics – that spurred those same intelligence officials to claim Trump's campaign was coordinating with Russian officials to impact the 2016 presidential election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's expensive and expansive investigation could not find evidence to support the Obama-era narrative against Trump.
Now, Republicans will seek to investigate whether those Obama intelligence officials effectively succeeded in the 2020 election cycle at suppressing the Trump campaign and New York Post allegations of impropriety of the Biden family's overseas business dealings.
"We have a responsibility of oversight," McCarthy vowed to the Post.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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