CBS’ Catherine Herridge reported Thursday that over 150 financial transactions tied to Hunter Biden and James Biden were “flagged as concerning” by banks in the United States.
“CBS News has learned more than 150 financial transactions involving either Hunter or James Biden’s global business affairs were flagged as concerning by U.S. banks for further review. Some of those concerns included large wire transfers,” Herridge tweeted early Thursday morning along with a link to her report.
CBS News has learned more than 150 financial transactions involving either Hunter or James Biden's global business affairs were flagged as concerning by U.S. banks for further review. Some of those concerns included large wire transfers. https://t.co/zURiLL4zt3
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 7, 2022
Herridge reported that critics have largely kept the focus of investigations on President Joe Biden’s embattled son Hunter and his allegedly shady international business dealings — but that further scrutiny has linked the president’s brother, James Biden, to a number of transactions that banks flagged as “concerning.”
“We have people with the Biden name, dealing with Chinese business people that have a relationship to the Communist Party. I think James Biden was very much a part of this,” Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Herridge.
From Herridge’s report:
Bank records released by Republican senators this week indicate James Biden’s company, the Lion Hall Group, received payments from a Chinese-financed consulting group in 2018, before his brother Joe announced he was running for president. Grassley says that same year James Biden and the president’s son, Hunter, received monthly retainers totaling $165,000 — $100,000 to Hunter and $65,000 to James.
Grassley said his team obtained the records directly from the bank where the consulting group did business. He has spent three years investigating and described James and Hunter Biden’s business dealings as “very concerning.”
Grassley has been investigating foreign business dealings involving several members of the Biden family for several years, and he released a report in 2020 along with fellow Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) alleging that James Biden and his wife Sara Biden “tapped into a line of credit Hunter set up with a Chinese business executive to purchase more than $100,000 in airline tickets, hotels and restaurants.”
The most recent records released by GOP lawmakers appear to confirm that Hunter Biden and the Chinese executive signed off on a line of credit for $99,000 in 2017.
“CBS News has also learned more than 150 financial transactions involving either Hunter or James Biden’s global business affairs were flagged as concerning by U.S. banks for further review. Some of those concerns included large wire transfers,” the report continued, clarifying that being flagged for review did not necessarily point to either guilt or innocence. “Such banking reviews could point to deeper problems — or they could prove innocuous. Information shared with CBS News does not indicate the outcome of the banking reviews.”
CBS also noted that, according to a New York Times report, transactions tied to former President Donald Trump and his family members had been flagged for similar reviews several years earlier.