A congressional panel wants to know why the U.S. Department of the Treasury stopped sending Congress reports of suspicious overseas activity by U.S.-based bank accounts – right when Biden family members became the subject of the reports.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., held a March 10 hearing to examine the Treasury Department’s sudden refusal to provide “suspicious activity reports” submitted by banks involving the Biden family and their associates’ unusual foreign or high-dollar transactions.
“Biden’s Treasury Department continues to make excuses for its failure to provide the suspicious activity reports that are critical to our investigation of the Biden family’s business schemes,” said Comer in a statement.
“We are concerned the Treasury Department is acting in bad faith to produce these documents to the Oversight Committee when we know that it has already produced them to another congressional office. At next week’s hearing, a Treasury Department official can explain to Congress and the American people why the department is hiding critical information,” said Comer.
Under federal law, when banks suspect suspicious overseas activity by an account holder, it submits a “suspicious activity report” or “SAR” to the Treasury Department.
The Treasury Department would routinely share these reports with Congress until Congress requested to see hundreds of SARs involving members of the Biden family reported by banks as suspect foreign transactions. That’s when Treasury suddenly and without explanation refused to provide the reports.
“Chairman Comer wrote to Secretary Yellen on January 11, 2023, requesting access to these SARs, and Committee Republicans made multiple requests during the 117th Congress for the same,” the Oversight Committee reports.
“However, the Treasury Department has not provided any SARs to date. At the hearing, the committee will examine the justifications Treasury officials have provided the committee about its failure to produce requested documents and examine legislative solutions to ensure Congress has timely access to suspicious activity reports,” the Oversight Committee adds.