Raskin: Latest Comer subpoenas ‘further proof’ impeachment inquiry driven by Trump demands

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) fired back at GOP leaders of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday over their subpoenas of Biden family members.

The committee earlier Wednesday issued subpoenas for President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the president’s brother, James Biden. It also asked James Biden’s wife, Sarah Biden, as well as Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, to sit for transcribed interviews. The panel also asks for interviews with Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, and her sister Elizabeth Secundy. 

“These subpoenas and interview requests are yet further proof that this sham impeachment inquiry is driven only by the demands of the vengeful and prevaricating Donald Trump,” Raskin, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

The subpoenas come amid an impeachment inquiry into President Biden in the House. New Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been supportive of efforts to impeach the current president, which are being led by Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.).

“Chairman Comer has decided what he needs to jump-start this epic flop of an investigation is a big pile of subpoenas and interview requests, all to private citizens,” Raskin said in the statement. 

Raskin was an impeachment manager for President Trump’s second impeachment back in 2021 in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. He was also on the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack.

Trump has publicly called for House Republicans to impeach his successor and has privately spoken with members of the conference on the topic. The former president also suggested in an interview in September that the push for Biden to be impeached may partly be a tit-for-tat effort in response to Trump’s impeachment.

“I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them,” Trump told Megyn Kelly on her SiriusXM show.

Raskin on Wednesday also pointed to Tuesday night’s election results, in which Democrats prevailed in many key races, including the governor’s race in Comer’s home state of Kentucky. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear beat out the state’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

“Yesterday, American voters — in Chairman Comer’s home state of Kentucky and all over the country — repudiated the ideological extremism and fact-free political fanaticism that Donald Trump has implanted in the brain of the Republican Party,” Raskin said.

“Alas, today Chairman Comer demonstrates that the Republican Party is still listening to Trump and is definitely not listening to America,” Raskin continued.