After four months of investigation, House Republicans who vowed to use their new majority to uncover evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden acknowledged Wednesday that they had yet to uncover incriminating material about him, despite their frequent insinuations that he and his family have been involved in it. criminal conduct and corruption.
In a highly publicized news conference on Capitol Hill to show preliminary findings of their main investigation into Mr. Biden and his family, top Republicans released financial documents detailing how some of the president’s relatives received more than $10 million of dollars from foreign sources between 2015 and 2017.
Republicans described the transactions as evidence of “influence peddling” by Mr. Biden’s family, including his son Hunter Biden, and referred to some previously known, if unflattering, details of the relationships commercials of the younger Mr. Biden. These include an episode where he accepted a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese businessman. GOP lawmakers also produced material suggesting that President Biden and his allies had at times made misleading statements in their efforts to aggressively push back against allegations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden.
But on Wednesday, Republicans admitted they had yet to find evidence of a specific corrupt action that Mr. Biden took office in relation to any of the trade deals his son signed. Instead, his presentation underscored how little progress has been made by top GOP lawmakers to find clear evidence of questionable transactions that may tie Mr. Biden, his main political rival.
It has not prevented them from accusing the president of serious wrongdoing.
“I want to be clear: This committee is investigating the shady dealings of President Biden and his family to take advantage of Joe Biden’s public office that puts our country’s national security at risk,” said Representative James R. Comer, R-D. Kentucky and Chairman of the Oversight. committee He stressed that the president, not just his son, would be the target of his investigation, which he said would now “enter a new phase,” in which he would cite specific financial information based on material learned through bank records. .
Federal prosecutors have been looking into Hunter Biden’s international business activities as part of a criminal investigation. But the only charges they are considering, according to people familiar with the case, are unrelated to his work abroad. They include tax charges related to failing to file his tax returns for several years and a charge of lying about his drug use on a federal form he filled out to buy a gun.
So far, the committee of Mr. Comer has issued four bank subpoenas, obtained thousands of financial records and spoken to several people he describes as whistleblowers. Mr. Comer has also hired James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor who has experience investigating foreign corruption, to oversee the probe.
Here’s what we know so far.
Companies connected to Hunter Biden received more than $10 million from foreign companies, some with criminal ties.
The House Oversight Committee report focused on payments made to companies linked to Hunter Biden by companies and individuals in Romania and China. Bank records obtained by the committee show the receipt of money from a foreign company linked to Gabriel Popoviciu, who was the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution for corruption in Romania.
In 2015, Mr. Popoviciu hired Hunter Biden, who is a lawyer while his father was vice president, to help him try to defend the charges. This effort was unsuccessful, and in 2016, Mr. Popoviciu was convicted on charges related to a land deal north of Bucharest, the Romanian capital.
Mr. Comer has also focused on John R. Walker, an associate of Hunter Biden who was involved in a joint venture with executives from CEFC China Energy, a now-bankrupt Chinese conglomerate.
A Shanghai-based company, State Energy HK Limited, which was affiliated with CEFC China Energy sent millions to Robinson Walker LLC, a company associated with Mr. Walker, who then made payments. to Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family.
Hunter Biden had cultivated a business relationship with Ye Jianming, the founder of CEFC, who has been investigated by Chinese authorities on suspicion of financial crimes. In 2017, Mr. Ye gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond as a thank you for a meeting.
“Why would they bribe me? My father was not in office,” Hunter Biden said The New Yorker in 2019, adding that he gave the diamond to his associates. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea to take it. I just felt it was weird.”
CEFC had hoped to invest in a liquefied natural gas company in Louisiana, but that deal ultimately fell through.
Hunter Biden’s representatives characterized his business offering at the time as providing legal and consulting services.
The payments came at a time when Hunter Biden’s life and finances were spiraling amid his drug addiction and the death of his brother, Beau Biden, from brain cancer. Hunter Biden had begun a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow. His business partner, Mr. Walker, and his uncle James Biden were doing international business.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said in a statement that House Republicans had not disclosed anything new in their report.
“Today’s so-called ‘revelations’ are repackaged misrepresentations of perfectly appropriate meetings and business by private citizens.” said Mr. Lowell.
President Biden has falsely denied that his son had ties to Chinese companies.
None of the payments detailed in the report were to President Biden himself, nor was the investigation of Mr. Comer has not produced any evidence that Mr. Biden has ever taken a corrupt action in connection with his son’s business dealings.
But Mr. Biden has made several false or misleading statements about the matter.
During the 2020 presidential debate, Mr. Biden claimed that no one in his family had received money from China.
“My son has not made any money on this, what are you talking about, China,” Mr. Biden said, taking a swipe at his opponent, President Donald J. Trump. “The only one who made money from China is this one. He is the only one. No one else has made money from China.”
This year, Mr. Biden also claimed that it was “not true” that family members received more than $1 million from a Chinese company.
Aides to Mr. Biden said he spoke colloquially and generally dismissed claims that his administration had been corrupted by Chinese money.
Presidents’ families have long cashed in on the family name.
During his press conference, Mr. Comer acknowledged that Hunter Biden would be far from the first relative of a president or vice president to try to cash in on the family name.
He invoked Billy Carter, brother of former President Jimmy Carter, who visited Libya and received a $220,000 loan; and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Mr. Trump whose signature has received hundreds of millions from Persian Gulf nations.
“This has been a pattern for a long time,” said Mr. to eat “Republicans and Democrats have complained that presidents’ families receive money.”
However, Mr. Comer has admitted that he has no interest in investigating the conduct of Mr. Kushner.
Officials allied with Mr. Biden played a role in wrongly debunking Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The report of Mr. Comer came as a second Republican-led House committee is investigating a related issue. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released a report on a letter from 51 former intelligence and security officials in 2020 that questioned materials (substantial portions of which were later verified as authentic) from a laptop that Hunter Biden dropped off at a Delaware repair shop and suggested they might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Republicans argue the letter influenced the public to discount materials on the laptop, which contained evidence of Hunter Biden’s drug use and sex life, which they believed would hurt his father’s electoral chances against Mr Trump .
The Judiciary Committee report detailed the role played by Antony J. Blinken, now secretary of state and later a Biden campaign official, in spearheading the letter, and said a CIA employee had participated in the single request for at least one signature for it.
Intelligence officials maintain that their letter stated that they had no evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign and were merely stating an opinion.
Mark Zaid, a lawyer representing seven signatories to the letter, said on Twitter that the report only showed that “private citizens were lawfully exercising their 1st Amendment rights” and added that there was “not a single falsehood” in the letter.
“I don’t know of any signatories who retract a single word,” wrote Mr. Zaid.
