Earlier this year, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) previously blasted a Democratic congressman, Jamie Raskin (D-MD), over the seemingly different standards that the Biden family and Trump family are respectively held to. The context of the conversation pertained to the prior investigation into Hunter Biden’s defiance of a congressional subpoena amid an investigation from the House Oversight Committee.
Waltz called out the supposedly “false narratives” his fellow congressmen were spinning up about Hunter Biden. “I watched yesterday as committee Democrats continued to fall spend false narratives, several of which went out just yesterday as interviews were ongoing with Hunter Biden’s art dealer, which is rich in and of itself, that Congressman Goldman on the other side of the aisle went to the press during the interviews and spun a narrative while it was going on, but he conveniently admitted that 70% of the art buyers were Biden donors,” he said.
In light of Hunter Biden defying congressional subpoenas, the Florida Republican brought up the “precedent” set forth by the Trump family, who abided by the requests for them to appear before the nation’s legislative body. Waltz particularly cited Donald Trump Jr., who appeared before Congress on multiple occasions to answer questions in relation to his father.
Waltz continued, “But let’s talk about precedent for a moment of a president’s son abiding by lawful subpoenas of the Congress Donald Trump Jr, came before this body. He came before the House Intelligence Committee, he came before the House Judiciary Committee. He came before the Senate Intelligence Committee twice. He came before the so called Jan. Six committee, all behind closed doors where lawyers can sit down both sides of the aisle and have a conversation, go through documents, all under oath, which is the precedent for any committee. Don Jr came before committees and came before this body five times, behind closed doors.”
Therefore, the GOP representative questioned why Hunter Biden would not obey a congressional subpoena. Waltz also directly called out Raksin, pulling out comments he made on CBS in 2022 that suggest Hunter Biden is being held to a different standard than those the Democratic-led January 6 Committee was investigating.
“What is Hunter Biden afraid of? What won’t he do? And ranking member Raskin, you’re going to reap what you sow, my friend. I mean, you insisted on depositions for those who appeared before the Jan Six committee when Steve Bannon agreed to testify publicly, you argued, sir, that he should have to sit for a closed door interview just like every other witness. Quote, the way we have treated every single witness is the same. They come in behind closed doors, they talk to the committee there, you said on an interview in front of CBS in 2022 but now that Republicans are doing the same process, following house rules, doing the investigating, somehow Hunter Biden, because he’s a Biden, should be held to a different standard,” Waltz said.
Watlz then addressed the questionable international business dealings of Hunter Biden and the possible implications then-Vice President Joe Biden being allegedly entangled in them. The representative maintained that, in the spirit of upholding the laws of the United States, Congress has a duty to investigate the matter. Watch Waltz below:
“At the end of the day, we had a government official in the president of the United States, a vice president, set up 30 shell companies. Why? What product did those companies sell nothing? Vice President Biden was charged with two countries in his portfolio, China and Ukraine, while the vice president’s son, traveled on official business on Air Force Two, and received massive monetary contributions afterwards, we have laws in place colleagues that prevent foreign powers from influencing government officials were policies changed as a result of the dinners, the calls, the text messages that we know President Biden engaged in through His Son. We have a duty to get to the bottom of it,” he concluded.
Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Waltz_(53300869616).jpg
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