The White House cried foul Tuesday on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, accusing the California Republican of lying about President Biden on Fox News and caving to “far-right” members on an impeachment inquiry against the president.
Mr. McCarthy appeared on Monday night’s “Hannity” program, where he spoke about an increasing interest in pursuing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over accusations that the president was involved in a pay-to-play bribery scheme through his son Hunter Biden’s former employer, Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“This isn’t about Hunter Biden, it’s about ‘paying-to-play’ with the Biden family,” Mr. McCarthy said.
Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House, accused Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday of lying.
He said that the speaker made a “series of plainly false, widely debunked attacks” to continue pushing for an impeachment inquiry that “even some members of McCarthy’s own caucus are expressing concerns about pursuing.”
Mr. Sams contended that Mr. McCarthy lied about the Biden administration obstructing House Republican investigations by comparing the Biden administration to the Nixon administration in shutting down House Republicans whenever they had a question.
Mr. Sams said that the claims were “demonstrably false,” particularly because the Treasury Department provided access to records, and the FBI provided the House Oversight Committee with an FD-1023 form, which contains raw, unverified information from human sources.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, accused the Treasury Department of stonewalling requests for suspicious activity reports, or SARs, related to Hunter Biden’s business dealings earlier this year, having to go so far as to threaten a hearing over the matter.
Mr. Comer also had to start proceedings to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for withholding the FD-1023 document. Mr. Wray only relented almost immediately before the ball would have been set in motion, and allowed the committee access to the document.
The document was still not made public until Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, released it last month.
The FD-1023 contains information that Republicans say links Mr. Biden to a pay-to-play bribery scheme through the president’s son with Burisma.
Mr. Sams pointed to testimony from Hunter Biden’s business associate Devon Archer, who testified that he “disagreed with the allegations in the form” about Burisma executives planning to pay the Bidens $5 million each.
Mykola Zlochevsky, the former owner of Burisma, also denied any contact with the elder Mr. Biden, who was then the vice president.
“Speaker McCarthy has decided the truth should not get in the way of his and House Republicans’ relentless efforts to smear the President,” Mr. Sams said. “They are prioritizing their own extreme, far-right political agenda at the expense of focusing on what really matters to the American people: Working together to make their lives better.”
