republicans in the House Oversight Committee sent a formal request to Hunter Biden on Thursday for information and records related to their businesses.
The panel is also seeking records on James Biden, the younger brother of President Joe Biden, and Hunter’s business partner, Eric Schwerin.
Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have targeted Hunter Biden for years, but have increased scrutiny after taking control of the House this year.
The committee gave the trio until February 22 to respond before deciding whether to issue a subpoena.
CBS was the first to report the news..
in a statement On Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said the panel is investigating whether the president was involved in his family’s business and has “compromised national security.”
“The American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden family’s influence peddling,” Comer said. “The Oversight Committee is committed to exposing the waste, fraud and abuse that has taken place at the highest levels of our government. Documents, records, and communications from Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Eric Schwerin are critical to this investigation.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The committee also held a hearing Wednesday to investigate Twitter’s role in suppressing a New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Comer accused the company of participating in a “coordinated campaign by social media companies, the mainstream media, and the intelligence community to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and security, said the company was concerned that the story “at first glance had many similarities to the 2016 Russian hack and leak operation against the DNC. We had to decide what to do. And at that point, with limited information, we made a mistake.”
Republicans have long accused the president’s son of using his father’s political connections for personal gain. Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma led to Trump’s first impeachment trial after he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens.
