This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Saying, "The bill has come due on the alleged Biden influence peddling," constitutional expert Jonathan Turley said the scandal "is clearly a matter for Congress to investigate."

Hunter Biden has a long history of financial deals with foreign companies and critics charge it appears he offered access to his father, first as vice president, and then as president. Those deals included payments to him from Chinese interests, where the "big guy" was to be given 10%, and Russian interests.

Even of late, Hunter Biden has been selling pieces of his amateur "art," for hundreds of thousands of dollars, without any information being released about who is buying it. Critics claim that's a wide open door for people to channel cash to the Biden family in secret.

One financial coup for Hunter was his deal to be paid tens of thousands of dollars a week to be on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company under investigation for corruption.

Joe Biden went to Ukraine as vice president under Barack Obama and threatened officials with the loss of American financial aid if they didn't fire the prosecutor doing that investigation.

He then returned to America and bragged about what he did.

Turley, in a column, warns that the decision by Hunter Biden's lawyers to refuse to provide any documents to investigators in Congress is a move "in a … precarious direction."

Counsel Abbe Lowell "has declared the oversight investigation in the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling as illegitimate and has refused to turn over records related to its investigation," Turley noted.

"The move comes after news reports of a Democratic team forming around Hunter to attack potential witnesses and adopt a scorched earth approach in litigation. Even in personal matters, Hunter appears to be dispensing with his prior cultivation of a tragic and besieged figure. Recently, Hunter moved to block one of his daughters from using his surname," he explained.

But, he said, "Lowell would have been far smarter to turn over some material to the committee in good faith while seeking to negotiate on the scope of the inquiry. A categorical refusal gives the committee ample basis to issue a subpoena. Lowell is simply wrong that there is 'no legislative purpose' in seeking information on possible influence peddling by the Biden family that could involve the president himself. Such corruption scandals have been part of congressional inquiries from the XYZ Affair to the Teapot Dome scandal to the investigation of Trump family business interests."

He said, "A court would likely support the committee’s right to such evidence for financial and communication records. While the committee will not necessarily get everything, it is likely to prevail on the threshold issue of the right to such evidence."

"While Democrats and pundits have insisted that there is no actual crime raised in such corruption, it is clearly a matter for Congress to investigate. Otherwise, the Democrats will be in a position of arguing that neither the courts nor Congress can pursue allegations of corruption and foreign influence surrounding the president and his family."