Republicans on the House Oversight Committee who are investigating the dubious foreign business dealings of certain members of President Joe Biden's family long ago requested access to the Treasury Department's collection of "suspicious activity reports," also known as SARs, related to Biden's family members and associates.
That was finally achieved, and the members who viewed some of those reports of suspicious financial transactions are now raising the alarm about what they saw, the Daily Wire reported.
The outlet noted that only Republican members of the committee took advantage of the opportunity to personally view the reports held by Treasury, as all of the Democrats have sharply criticized and worked to counter the committee's ongoing probes into the Biden family.
On March 14, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) issued a statement to announce that an agreement had been reached with the Treasury Department to make the requested SARs available for viewing after lengthy negotiations and threats of subpoenas.
At that time, Comer said, "After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions. It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request."
The chairman noted that the Biden administration had "changed the rules" on SARs availability to members of Congress as well as that suspicious financial activities had already been uncovered via bank records provided by a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
"We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat," Comer added at that time. "If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance."
Fast-forward one month to a press release issued on Monday by the House Oversight Committee to announce that some of its members had finally been able to view the requested reports.
"Thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family, their companies, and associates’ business schemes were made available to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which confirm the importance of this investigation," Comer said. "The Biden family enterprise is centered on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family."
"We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine," he continued.
"The Oversight Committee will continue to pursue additional bank records to follow the Bidens’ tangled web of financial transactions to determine if the Biden family has been targeted by foreign actors and if there is a national security threat," Comer added. "We will soon provide the public with more information about what we’ve uncovered to date. The American people need transparency and accountability, and the Oversight Committee will deliver much-needed answers."
Suspicious activity reports, or SARs, stem from the responsibility of financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act to report to federal authorities any suspicious banking activity that could signal potentially criminal activity.
Given how the Treasury Department had stonewalled the House Oversight Committee in regard to providing access to the reports, however, Fox News reported that the committee has quietly issued subpoenas for certain financial records related to the Biden family with a number of banks and institutions that included "Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC USA N.A.," as well as another former associate of Hunter Biden named Mervyn Yan.
For what it is worth, both President Biden and his son have repeatedly insisted that they've done nothing wrong, and Fox News noted that requests for comment on this recent development were declined or ignored by the Treasury Department and White House.
