House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released a third memo Wednesday about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings, producing bank records purporting to show that Hunter Biden and his business associates received millions in payments from Russian and Kazakhstani oligarchs when his father was vice president.
The 19-page memo, which provides screenshots of redacted bank records, says millions in payments came from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, as well as Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina and Kazakhstani oligarch Kenes Rakishev, and that then-Vice President Biden attended dinners with Baturina, Rakishev and a representative from Burisma.
“Then-Vice President Biden met—in person, for significant periods of time—with those individuals or their representatives,” the memo states. “Then-Vice President Biden joined approximately 20 phone calls on speakerphone with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates and attended dinners with foreign oligarchs who paid huge sums of money to Hunter Biden. Joe Biden, ‘the brand,’ was the only product the Bidens sold.”
The “Third Bank Records Memorandum” follows two previous memos tying Biden family members to payments linked to entities in China and Romania. The committee says the foreign payments to the Biden family now total over $20 million.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky, left, and Hunter Biden, right. (Mandel NGAN/AFP, Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“During Joe Biden’s vice presidency, Hunter Biden sold him as ‘the brand’ to reap millions from oligarchs in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine,” Comer said in a press release announcing Wednesday’s memo.
The third bank memo, the result of subpoenas of several banks not belonging to members of the Biden family, specifically discusses three of the many firms founded by Hunter Biden: Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC; Rosemont Seneca Thornton, LLC; and Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The committee provided screenshots of bank records they say demonstrate that Baturina, the widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton on Feb. 14, 2014.
Then, a total of $2,752,711 was transferred to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, which Hunter co-owned with Archer, according to Archer’s statements to Congress last week.
The memo said Biden attended a dinner in the spring of 2014 with Baturina, Hunter, and others at Café Milano in Washington, D.C. During his congressional interview last week, Archer said former Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov and Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev and “possibly” Luzhkov were also in attendance.
Earlier this year, Massimov was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for his reported role in an attempted coup.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden joined by Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden attend their granddaughter Maisy Biden’s graduation from the University of Pennsylvania at Franklin Field on May 15, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Fox News previously reported that one year after the first dinner, Biden attended a second dinner on April 16, 2015, that included Baturina, Luzhkov, Hunter, Archer, and Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma Holdings, on the guest list at Café Milano.
The memo Wednesday says the records provided show that on April 22, 2014, Rakishev, whose father-in-law was the mayor of the capital city of Astana at the time, used his Singaporean entity, Novatus Holdings, to wire $142,300 to the same Rosemont Seneca Bohai bank account, and that the next day, the exact same amount was wired out to a car dealership in New Jersey for a Fisker sports car for Hunter.
Joe Biden (L) and Hunter Biden (R) pose for a photo on Thursday, April, 28 2016. (Marco Polo) (Marco Polo)
The memo also showed that payments from Burisma for both Hunter and Archer were wired to Rosemont Seneca Bohai.
According to the bank records, Hunter and Archer each received 83,333.33 per month from Burisma, totaling $3,321,379.49 from 2014 to 2015.
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“It appears no real services were provided other than access to the Biden network, including Joe Biden himself. And Hunter Biden seems to have delivered,” Comer said Wednesday. “This is made clear by meals at Café Milano where then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with oligarchs from around the world who had sent money to his son.”
Comer said the committee would continue to seek witness testimony to determine whether Biden knowingly allowed his son to sell his “brand” abroad.
A spokesperson for the minority staff on the committee called the third memo “empty” and said it doesn’t implicate President Biden in any wrongdoing.
“James Comer has said over and over that this is an investigation of Joe Biden,” the spokesperson said. “Yet, none of the bank records he has released show any payments to Joe Biden. None of the SARs he reviewed alleged, or even suggested, any potential misconduct by President Biden, nor did they show President Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s financial or business relationships.”
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
