Secretary of State Antony Blinken lied to Congress when he denied knowing President Biden’s son Hunter Biden held a lucrative job on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, two Republican senators said in a letter delivered to the nation’s top diplomat Tuesday morning.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa wrote to Mr. Blinken and his wife to demand they produce all records referring or relating to Hunter Biden, who is the subject of a congressional probe into foreign business deals that paid millions to Biden family members.
The lawmakers accuse Mr. Blinken of providing false testimony to the Senate during a transcribed interview in December 2020, when he said he was not aware of any association Hunter Biden had with Burisma, which was paying Hunter $1 million to sit on its board.
Emails discovered on Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop computer document that Mr. Blinken and his wife, Evan Ryan, had frequently exchanged messages with Vice President Biden’s son in an effort to connect Mr. Blinken with Burisma’s U.S. lobbying firm, Blue Star Strategies.
At the time, Mr. Blinken was serving as President Obama’s deputy secretary of state, and his wife, according to the emails, was trying to connect Mr. Blinken to Burisma’s lobbyists.
The two lawmakers called Mr. Blinken’s 2020 testimony “inaccurate” and said it was “highly unlikely” that Mr. Blinken had no idea that Hunter Biden was working for Burisma, contrary to his statements while under oath.
The charges from Mr. Johnson and Mr. Grassley follow Mr. Blinken’s recent denial that he orchestrated a letter from 51 intelligence officials to discredit the validity of the laptop in the days before the November 2020 presidential election.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell told two House committees last month that Mr. Blinken “played a role in the inception” of the 2020 letter, which called the laptop data Russian disinformation. The laptop contained a litany of photos of Hunter Biden and his drug use and sexual escapades, as well emails and other documents detailing the Biden family business schemes.
“The public recently learned through congressional testimony from former CIA official Michael Morell that you allegedly were the catalyst of an October 2020 information operation aimed to deceive Americans about the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Mr. Johnson and Mr. Grassley wrote to Mr. Blinken Tuesday. “It is now evident that your apparent willingness to deceive the public continued through December 2020 when you failed to tell the whole truth to congressional investigators about your contacts with Hunter Biden.”
The letter gives Mr. Blinken and Ms. Ryan until May 15 to produce the records and tells Mr. Blinken, “At the start of that interview, our staff reminded you of the statute that makes it a crime to lie to Congress. You acknowledged your understanding of that statute and stated that there is no reason you would be unable to provide truthful answers during the interview.”
The State Department did not immediately provide a response to a request for a comment about the letter.
