House Republicans on Thursday question a former business associate of Hunter and James Biden who told Congress last year that he had “no professional contact” with President Joe Biden, according to a letter obtained by CNN .
The letter is the latest example of a witness denying Republican allegations related to their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The investigating committees subpoenaed Mervyn Yan in November, saying he may have known whether the president had been involved in his family’s business dealings, an unproven allegation that is at the heart of their investigation.
But Yan’s lawyer wrote to Congress in May that his client was a private citizen who had never worked with the president.
“He is not a public official and he himself is not a valid target for investigation. He has had no professional contact or communication with President Biden at any time,” Yan’s lawyer, Soumya Dayananda, wrote to House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican.
“Mr. Yan has no information about an alleged connection between President Biden and the business activities of Hunter and Jim Biden. He has no records in his possession or any information demonstrating misconduct by President Biden” , added Dayananda.
Further distancing Yan from the Biden family, Dayananda wrote that Yan had “only a tangential connection” to James and Hunter Biden.
Yan, who is affiliated with a China-backed energy company, worked with the president’s son Hunter and James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, on a joint venture that dissolved in 2018, when Joe Biden was not in function. Hunter Biden began “investigating potential infrastructure projects” with China-backed energy company CEFC in 2015, when Joe Biden was vice president, according to the recent indictment against the president’s son.
An aide to the House Oversight Committee told CNN that Republican members of the panel are concerned about the veracity of the letter sent by Yan’s lawyer based on the facts and information obtained during the investigation and this is why Yan is being cross-examined on the allegations contained in the letter.
Republicans continued to look into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and raised concerns about transactions resulting from the joint venture with Yan.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
The-CNN-Wire
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