“He will therefore vote to let the chairman proceed to obtain the documents that have been offered,” Romney spokeswoman Liz Johnson said in a statement.
Romney joined Democrats last month in voting to convict President Trump for abuse of power based on his dealings with Ukraine; the president was acquitted on the impeachment counts. On Thursday, Romney said Johnson’s probe had the appearance of being politically motivated to target Trump’s potential general-election rival.
“I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body,” he said.
The subpoena vote, set for Wednesday, comes as President Trump and his Republican allies refocus their attention on Biden’s connections to Ukraine after his sudden surge in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump said in a Wednesday Fox News Channel interview that he planned to make those connections a “major issue” in the presidential race should Biden win the nomination.
“I will bring that up all the time,” he told host Sean Hannity.
The key circumstance surrounds the service of son Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm — a sinecure that paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time when Joe Biden was engaged in diplomacy in Ukraine as vice president on behalf of the Obama administration.
Trump and his allies have alleged, with no direct evidence, that Biden corruptly pushed to remove Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to protect his son’s financial interests. In fact, Biden moved to remove the prosecutor, Victor Shokin, in concert with Obama administration policy and the anti-corruption efforts of multiple U.S. allies.
In fact, in a 2016 letter to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Johnson joined Republican and Democratic senators in seeking similar reforms to the prosecutor’s office that Biden had sought.
In the Senate investigation, Johnson has pushed for more information on Hunter Biden’s activities — requesting, for instance, Secret Service records last month pertaining to Hunter’s travel during his father’s vice presidency.
The subpoena Johnson is pursuing seeks documents and testimony from Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat who worked for Blue Star Holdings, a firm that represented Burisma in the U.S. The top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.), objected to the subpoena last month, forcing the vote.
“Quite frankly, the Homeland Security Committee should be focusing on issues related to homeland security,” Peters said Thursday.
With every Democrat expected to oppose it, Romney’s opposition could have blocked the issuance of the subpoena.
Another GOP senator serving on the committee, Rob Portman of Ohio, said Thursday that he was undecided on authorizing the subpoena. On Friday, he told reporters in Cleveland that he wanted to learn more about the subpoena but is “inclined to support the chairman on getting more information.”
“I just want to understand it better, just what the information is likely to be and why it’s important,” Portman said, according to a transcript provided by his office.
Johnson said Thursday that he hopes to put out a report in the coming months — amid the thick of the presidential campaign — that details what is known and what is unknown about Ukrainian entanglements in U.S. politics, including with the Bidens.
He denied any political motivations. “It’s about getting information,” he said. “Congressional oversight is all about informing, for example, public policy, but also informing the public.”
In an interview Thursday night on Fox News, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled his support for Johnson’s effort.
“I think it’s worth taking a look at,” McConnell said.
