House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is scheduled to question Treasury Department official Jonathan Davidson on Friday about the department’s refusal to comply with requests to hand over suspicious activity reports filed against the Biden family business.
🚨@USTreasury says that they are cooperating with my Biden family investigation but all we’ve seen is obstruction. @GOPoversight is done with the excuses.
I’m calling on Assistant Secretary Jonathan Davidson to answer questions under the penalty of perjury next week. https://t.co/msS9Etevtu
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) March 7, 2023
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requires financial institutions to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) “no later than 30 calendar days after the date of initial detection of facts that may constitute a basis to assist U.S. government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering.”
This suspicious activity being reported may signal criminal activity, such as money laundering or tax evasion.
Comer previously demanded that an official from the Treasury Department appear in front of the Oversight Committee on March 10 to testify about withholding the 150 SARs filed against the Biden family business.
“Given the amount of time that has passed since our initial request and Treasury’s inability to provide a projected timeframe when the SARs will be produced, the committee believes Treasury may be delaying its production to hinder our investigation and operating in bad faith,” the Oversight Committee chairman wrote. “Treasury’s excuses and delay tactics are unavailing given you have known about our request since last year and previously produced relevant SARs to others.”
The Treasury Department is obstructing our investigation into the Biden family’s business schemes.
We are done with the excuses.
@RepJamesComer is calling on @USTreasury to testify on March 10 about the department’s failure to produce documents. pic.twitter.com/H7TQ1Hole4— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 27, 2023
The Oversight Committee is specifically investigating business dealings and bank records of President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the president’s brother James Biden. Obtaining these SARs would provide much insight into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
🚨 @IngrahamAngle is exactly right. The Biden admin is clearly worried about my investigation into the Biden family's influence peddling operation.
Just this past week, @GOPoversight spoke to multiple whistleblowers connected to Biden business schemes.
We'll gather the facts. pic.twitter.com/aJCNR4HOxO
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) March 4, 2023
Many have argued that the Treasury Department is refusing to provide these records because they are trying to protect the president.
“The Treasury Department’s longstanding practice was to provide these reports to Congress, but the Biden Administration has restricted access to them,” the Oversight Committee wrote in a January 11 announcement.
Davidson, who will testify in front of the committee on Friday, is more than just a Treasury Department official. The well-connected, partisan political operative worked for Biden’s transition team in 2020 as the head of the Economic Nominations Confirmation team. Davidson was later nominated to the Treasury Department by Biden.
Before working on the Biden-Harris transition team, Davidson worked for Democrats on Capitol Hill for over 20 years. He served as chief counsel to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and chief of staff for Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) office — where he was reportedly instrumental in helping include a tax credit in Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus package that experts have argued was a major driver of the president’s 40-year-high inflation.
Bennet previously praised Biden’s nomination of Davidson to the Treasury.
“President Biden could not have made a better choice than selecting Jon to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Treasury Department,” Bennet claimed.
