House Republicans say they have uncovered bank wires obtained by subpoena that allegedly reveal Hunter Biden received payments originating from Beijing that listed President Joe Biden’s Delaware residence as the beneficiary address, an announcement Hunter Biden’s attorney denounced as “lies to support a premise.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee wrote, “What did the Bidens do with this money from Beijing?”
Rep. James Comer said the alleged bank wires to the president’s son included more than $250,000 in payments from three individuals in the summer of 2019. Comer asserted the Delaware address on the wire transfers compounded questions about what Joe Biden may have known about his son’s overseas business dealings. And he said any past Biden financial entanglements in China heightened national security concerns.
“Americans demand and deserve accountability for President Biden and the First Family’s corruption,” Comer said, adding that his probe will continue.
President Biden has long maintained he had no involvement in his adult son’s business dealings. And Tuesday, Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell told CBS News that the announcement from congressional Republicans was just the latest example of a finding of purported wrongdoing “that evaporates in thin air the moment facts come out.”
In his statement, Lowell said the bank transfers resulted from loans Hunter Biden received from a private individual, and they referenced his father’s Delaware address because it was on his personal driver’s license at the time.
Lowell said Hunter Biden borrowed the funds while making “a substantial investment” in a partnership called BHR Partners.
“We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda,” Lowell said in his statement.
The White House called Comer’s statement “half-baked innuendo and conspiracy theories.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams said the findings “show no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, just more discredited personal attacks on him and his family.”
House Oversight and Accountability Committee investigators initially requested records from Hunter Biden, including documents, financial statements and communications in February, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into whether President Biden had any role in foreign and domestic businesses brokered by the Biden family.
At the time, Lowell said the probe lacked “a legitimate legislative purpose,” and he said he proposed a meeting with committee members to further discuss the request but received no response.
This latest subpoena comes ahead of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee’s first hearing of impeachment inquiry into President Biden, scheduled for Thursday, focusing on the alleged “constitutional and legal questions surrounding the President’s involvement in corruption and abuse of public office,” according to a committee spokesperson.
Hunter Biden’s foreign business affairs have been a central focus of the investigations led by congressional Republicans. Comer released a series of memos earlier this year alleging bank records suggested millions in payments received by Hunter Biden and his associates from foreign entities during and after Joe Biden’s vice-presidency. Comer went further, claiming the president was aware of his son’s business dealings and “allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family.”
The latest disclosures are for wire transfers that occurred in 2019, during the time period when Mr. Biden was not in office but was campaigning for the White House.
In closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee in July, Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business associate who served with Biden on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company said Hunter Biden sought to use the Biden brand for leverage in his business dealings, but he said he had no knowledge of President Biden having any direct involvement with Burisma. Archer testified that Hunter Biden placed President Joe Biden on a speaker phone call during a dinner with an associate in Beijing, but Joe Biden did not discuss business.
Earlier, Sams called the pending impeachment inquiry “extreme, partisan politics” and said congressional Republicans were “wasting time attacking President Biden with debunked conspiracies instead of trying to avoid the calamitous consequences of the House Republican government shutdown.”
