Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) warned Thursday that Senator Ron Johnson’s (R., Wis.) probe into the Bidens and Burisma “appears political,” and would not comment whether he would vote for a subpoena that Johnson is planning.“There's no question that the appearance of looking into Burisima and Hunter Biden appears political. I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations,” Romney told reporters, adding that he needs to meet with Johnson to “see what information he has” before deciding on a vote.But he suggested he was uncomfortable with the probe, implying that it was not within the purview of the
Senate Homeland Security Committee — which Johnson chairs and Romney serves on.“I would hope that there’s something of significance that needs to be evaluated that would be done perhaps the
FBI or some other agency, although it's not as political as perhaps a committee of our body,” he said. “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.”Johnson, who has been looking into Burisma since November, wants to vote next week on a subpoena to compel the testimony of former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a consultant for Blue Star Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm that Burisma hired to combat accusations of corruption. Blue Star tried to leverage the Biden name to secure meetings with the State Department during its campaign to rehabilitate Burisma's image.Johnson told
Fox News that his probe was not politically motivated on Wednesday, and was simply to let “the
American people see what this possible corruption is.” He added that probe had unearthed a document which showed Blue Star apologizing to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office for a “misinformation campaign” against Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin, who
Joe Biden bragged about getting fired.Johnson also told
CNN that he thinks he has enough votes to bring the subpoena, although Romney’s opposition could scuttle the effort.