SHOCK: Romney Announces Decision on Bursima Subpoena

Matt Margolis | 3:48 PM on March 06, 2020

*Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, center, talks with reporters as he heads to the Senate for a vote, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)*

Senator Mitt Romney will vote to subpoena a Burisma-linked consultant as part of the Senate GOP’s investigation into Hunter Biden and the notoriously corrupt natural gas company that employed him.

PJM’s Michael van der Galien previously reported that Romney appeared skeptical of any efforts to investigate Burisma Holdings. “There’s no question but the appearance of looking at Burisma appears political. And I think people are tired of these kind[s] of political investigations,” Romney told CNN’s Manu Raju.

“We also have a lot of work to do on matters that are not related to Burisma. We probably ought to focus on those things,” Romney added.

Romney’s vote on the subpoena was more than symbolic because Republicans only have an 8-6 majority on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Romney sits on. Opposition to the subpoena would have resulted in a 7-7 tie that would have prevented the subpoena from moving forward.

“Senator Romney has expressed his concerns to Chairman Johnson, who has confirmed that any interview of the witness would occur in a closed setting without a hearing or public spectacle,” Romney spokeswoman Liz Johnson said on Friday. “He will therefore vote to let the Chairman proceed to obtain the documents that have been offered.”

Democrats had been hopeful that Romney would help give them bipartisan support for rejecting the subpoena.

With Romney on board, it is likely this investigation will proceed just as Joe Biden appears to have the momentum to win the Democratic nomination for president. The impeachment of President Trump hurt Biden in early-voting states and it wasn’t until he scored a major victory in South Carolina that things turned around for him. This investigation, in theory, will continue to air the dirty laundry of the Biden family, including raising (and hopefully answering) questions about how the younger Biden got his cushy job on the board of Burisma, making over $80,000 a month, and what kind of access to the White House they got in return. Joe Biden was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine, and his involvement in getting former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired for investigating Burisma. Joe Biden is the subject of a Ukrainian investigation on that same issue.

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis