House GOP Signals New Probe of Biden Family: How Joe Biden’s Pardons of His Sister, Brothers and Their Spouses Could Backfire
They would no longer have the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment if called to testify in civil, criminal, or congressional proceedings
President Biden’s last-minute pardons of his family and other administration officials may backfire on him as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday said they all can now be compelled to testify before Congress.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Rep. Jim Jordan said “everything’s on the table.”
“OK, here’s the big question: Is this over?” Mr. Hannity said. “Because my understanding, Alan Dershowitz’s understanding, is, once you get a pardon, you no longer have the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. If they go before your committees, every one of these pardoned family members, don’t they have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God?”
“There’s a number of things we want to look at. Everything’s on the table,” Mr. Jordan said.
Famed attorney Dershowitz said during an episode of “The Dershow” that Mr. Biden opened his family to a slew of issues with his pardons.
“One of the reasons the president gave [for the pardons] is he doesn’t want his relatives and friends and people, who are good people in his view, to be subject to the expenses of massive investigation. Duh, you didn’t stop that. Congress can still investigate all these people,” he said. “In fact, they’ve lost their Fifth Amendment privilege. So, now, if Congress subpoenas them, they have to testify, they can’t claim the Fifth Amendment. So, your brother and all the others can be called in front of the Republican-controlled Senate committee or House committee.”
On his last day in office, Mr. Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, and members and staff of the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. While he was on the dais at the inauguration ceremony with just minutes left in his presidency, the White House announced he had also pardoned members of his family — James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden.
Rep. James Comer said his months-long investigation as chairman of the House Oversight Committee found an incredible amount of money moving to Biden family members.
“The family took in $27 million from our adversaries around the world,” the Kentucky Republican told Mr. Hannity on Tuesday. “They never could say, even when we brought them in for depositions and interviews, what they actually did to receive the money. Then we found, going through their bank records, that they had another $8 million in loans that they never paid back, never paid any interest on, or anything. So that’s 35 million.”
“What we said in our investigation was that we found 10 different Biden family members, including Joe Biden, profited from the influence-peddling schemes. The money would come from a wire from a foreign adversary, usually a foreign oligarch,” said Mr. Comer, who has said repeatedly he believes the greater Biden family has engaged in widespread criminal conduct.
“The money would then go through a series of shell companies. Then it would be laundered down, and then the 10 different Biden family members would receive incremental payments. And ironically, six of the pardons came from family that received payments that had been laundered,” Mr. Comer said, noting that “this isn’t my word, Sean. These are the words of six different banks.”
Any new investigations may actually be made easier because of the pardons, Mr. Dershowitz said on the “Glenn Beck Show.”
For instance, Mr. Dershowitz said Dr. Fauci “can’t claim the Fifth Amendment. He has to go in front of congressional committees, and they are controlled by Republicans now. And he can be asked [for] a disclosure of all of his records. He can’t destroy records. They’re not his records. They’re the records of, you know, government health agencies.”
“And we can have a full and complete and total noncriminal investigation of Fauci and everybody else. And that’s what our system is all about. And I would like to see investigations,” he said.
The Biden family members face other legal dangers as well. Renowned attorney Jesse Binnall, who called the pardons “great news,” said in an X post that “No one who was just pardoned will be able to refuse to testify in a civil, criminal, or congressional proceeding based upon the 5th Amendment,” he wrote in a post on X.