A party line vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a subpoena to Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic public-relations firm that did consulting work for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company whose board Hunter Biden sat on.
The chairman of the committe Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says the focus of the investigation is on whether Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma brought influence to the Obama State Department matters.
“The question I would ask is, what is everybody worried about?” Johnson said. “If there’s nothing there, we’ll find out there’s nothing there. But if there’s something there, the American people need to know that.”
Democrats are objecting to the probe, referring to the Republican led mudfest as a Russian misinformation campaign in an election year, amid a national public health crisis.
“At a time when Americans need us to work together, this extremely partisan investigation is pulling us apart,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee. “This is not a serious bipartisan investigation in the tradition of this committee. And I do not believe we should be going down this dangerous road.”
Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Joe Biden’s campaign said, “Senator Johnson should be working overtime to save American lives — but instead he’s just trying to save the president’s job.”
See Politico and the Washington Post.