House Oversight Chair James Comer said Tuesday that the guilty verdict reached against Hunter Biden on three felony gun charges is a "step toward accountability," but still called on the Justice Department to launch a full investigation into his father, President Joe Biden and the rest of his family as well.
"Until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens' corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden," the Kentucky Republican, one of the congressmen leading the impeachment inquiry against the president, said in a statement, reported Politico.
The Republicans' inquiry has largely focused on Hunter Biden and the president's brother, James Biden, and their business deals and whether the president was involved.
Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., last week forwarded criminal referrals to the Department of Justice recommending that Hunter and James Biden face criminal charges of lying to Congress during the ongoing House impeachment investigation into the president, and have said they hope if former President Donald Trump defeats Biden in November the referrals can come up again next year.
Congressional Democrats and Biden attorneys denounced the referrals and accused the chairs of misconstruing testimony from Hunter and James Biden, and were trying to boost the impeachment inquiry, which has largely become stalled.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaking out in a Washington Post opinion piece last week calling for attacks on the DOJ to stop, said decisions on criminal investigations are made based on facts and law, not a person's "last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less."