Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday urged the inspectors general (IG) of four federal agencies to open investigations into Republican lawmakers’ probe of Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden. Murphy accused the agencies of applying a partisan “double standard” to congressional investigatory requests.
Murphy compared the manner in which several federal agencies swiftly produced documents relating to the GOP’s investigation into Biden and his work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma while stonewalling inquiries regarding President Donald Trump.
“I am deeply concerned that the National Archives and the Departments of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security may not be applying a consistent test regarding inquiries made by Congress, choosing to comply with request that are designed to damage the president’s political opponents, but refusing to comply with requests into the activities of the president,” Murphy wrote in a letter to all four agencies’ IGs. “This double standard threatens to make these agencies agents of the president’s political campaign, in contravention of federal law.”
The Treasury Department last month provided GOP Senators with highly sensitive financial documents relating to Biden and Burisma.
The State Department has already given Republicans with approximately 2,800 documents and is expected to hand over more, while the National Archives is set to turn over 10,000 documents, according to an NBC News report.
Murphy’s letter was sent just hours before the Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote on a subpoena for former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko and a Washington-based consulting firm Burisma that briefly represented Burisma in the U.S., Blue Star Strategies, LLC, over an alleged scheme to influence the U.S. State Department. The subpoena is expected to be approved by the committee.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Telizhenko worked at Kyiv’s embassy in Washington from December 2015 through June 2016 and has been a prominent figure among right wing activists promoting the contentious narrative that the Ukrainian government worked with Democrats to try and sabotage the 2016 Trump campaign.
Despite months of investigation and no proof of wrongdoing, Senate Republicans have continued to pursue their investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma, despite Democrats’ protesting that the GOP’s renewed interest in Hunter Biden coincides with his father’s recent surge to the forefront of the Democratic presidential primary race.
“I am troubled that President Trump may be weaponizing the executive branch in advance of the 2020 elections by directing agencies to comply with congressional investigations designed to hurt his political opponents while stonewalling legitimate oversight investigations into the actions of this own administration,” Murphy wrote. “It is critical that executive branch agencies remain apolitical and not be made agents of a president’s political operation or reelection campaign.”
Read Murphy’s full letter to the inspectors general below:
Sen. Murphy IG Letter Letter by Law&Crime on Scribd
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