Republican lawmakers laid out in damning detail Wednesday their evidence that at least nine members of President Joe Biden’s family took in as much as $10 million from operatives in China and Romania while Biden served as President Obama’s vice president.
The lawmakers, all members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, revealed subpoenaed bank records showing payments from foreign companies to Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The evidence unveiled Wednesday, first in a memo and then during a news conference, raises more questions about President Joe Biden’s past claims that he “never” discussed Hunter Biden’s business dealings with his son.
“President Biden has claimed since the 2020 election that his family has not received money from China,” Committee Chairman James Comer, (R-KY), said during a press conference announcing the memo Wednesday. “That was a lie in 2020 — and he continues to lie to the American people now.”
The House Oversight presser just began with Chair James Comer announcing "astonishing" findings from the last four months of investigation including the transfer of money to the Biden family, including during the period when Joe Biden was Vice President.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 10, 2023
Lawmakers took turns laying out the evidence against the Biden family.
“Every time we turn over a rock, there’s more evidence,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). “This could be the most corrupt scheme in American politics, where a sitting vice president… where we saw members of his family, nine of them so far, there may be more, that were enriched from countries all over the world.”
Mace said the money was moved through a series of shell companies she believes were designed to cover the Biden family’s tracks. Some 20 companies affiliated with Biden family members were set up after Biden became vice president in 2009, creating a complicated web of cut-outs and pass-throughs, lawmakers alleged.
Those companies, including Owasco P.C., Hudson West III, LLC, Robinson Walker, LLC, and Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC, took in millions of dollars from foreign companies while delivering no apparent services, the committee said.
Comer revealed that payments totaling $1 million from Romania went to the Biden family while the then-vice president was working on Romanian issues. The lawmaker also claimed that’s committee has uncovered millions of dollars sent to the Bidens from an array of Chinese companies and through multiple banks, which he described as a web designed to conceal the transfers.
“The transactions in Romania and China show related but separate issues identified by the Committee that raise serious questions about financial disclosures and risks to national security,” Comer’s memo alleged.
Comer released a 36-page memo prior to the news conference revealing that the Biden family allegedly set up more than 20 companies to take in foreign money, possibly in exchange for influencing policy. The committee subpoenaed records from four banks linked to “specific individuals and companies that engaged in business activities with Biden family members and their business associates,” the memo said.
Republicans also alleged that Hunter Biden used his family name to set up a 2016 meeting between a Serbian running for United Nations Secretary-General and then-national security adviser to the vice president Colin Kahl.
Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-OH), said the committee has reviewed nearly 200 Biden family-linked Suspicious Activity Reports, bank-generated documents compiled to flag dubious international transactions. The Biden Department of Treasury initially blocked the committee from receiving the reports.
Comer again said his committee “plans to gather additional bank records in the near future and continue following the money trail” as part of its commitment to “rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse that exist at the highest level of the federal government.”
White House spokesperson Ian Sams told CNN “Comer has a history of playing fast and loose with the facts and spreading baseless innuendo while refusing to conduct his so-called ‘investigations’ with legitimacy.”
Hunter Biden is under investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, reportedly for income tax evasion. Last week, Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA), revealed that a “highly credible” whistleblower has told them that the FBI has long been in possession of a form allegedly containing evidence showing that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national.
“It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice and FBI, demanding that the record be turned over. “Based on the alleged specificity within the document, it would appear that the DOJ and the FBI have enough information to determine the truth and accuracy of the information contained within it.”
Comer and Grassley both expressed skepticism that the DOJ and FBI, which are increasingly seen by conservatives as partisan, could be trusted to investigate the Biden family. Rep. Byron Donalds, (R-FL), said at Wednesday’s news conference that he also had little faith the federal agencies would take the Oversight Committee’s revelations about the Biden family’s dealings seriously.
“It’s interesting that the Department of Justice has been investigating Hunter Biden for quite some time, and we seem to never get anywhere,” Donalds said. “I wonder what’s going on at the Department of Justice. The bottom line is there is no real business here. None.”