Hunter Biden’s month-to-month funds to father elevate questions of influence-peddling as probe intensifies
A House panel investigating President Biden’s involvement in an influence-peddling scheme produced new financial institution information tying him to his household’s overseas enterprise offers.
Bank information subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee present the president’s son, Hunter Biden, supplied month-to-month funds to his father from a enterprise account that funneled cash from offers made with China, Ukraine and different nations.
The recurring checks to Mr. Biden had been small — every totaling $1,380 — however House investigators say the deposits conflict with claims made by President Biden that he didn’t obtain cash from the profitable enterprise offers made by relations and their enterprise associates.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer mentioned.
The funds of $1,380 had been despatched month-to-month from the checking account of Hunter Biden’s regulation agency, Owasco PC, to Joe Biden’s checking account from September 2018 till November 2018, after Mr. Biden’s second time period as vice chairman had ended and earlier than he declared his presidential candidacy.
Republicans say the proceeds from enterprise offers with China that ended up within the Owasco checking account stemmed from transactions with Hunter Biden that originated throughout Mr. Biden’s time as vice chairman. Some had been delayed to keep away from the looks of corruption, ex-business affiliate Tony Bobulinski has testified. Additional cash from China poured into the Owasco checking account after Hunter Biden threatened a Chinese enterprise affiliate by invoking his father’s energy and affect, based on a social media message uncovered by IRS brokers investigating the president’s son for tax fraud.
The panel has uncovered extra checks to Joe Biden, despatched from his youthful brother James Biden and totaling $240,000, that look like funded by enterprise offers Mr. Biden’s highly effective identify helped to safe.
Mr. Comer, Kentucky Republican, subpoenaed each James and Hunter Biden to testify in closed-door depositions in December. Mr. Comer rejected a public bid by Hunter Biden to as a substitute present his testimony in public, the place he’s more likely to be shielded by Democrats and extended partisan bickering.
Mr. Comer, in a letter to Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, mentioned Hunter Biden should attend the deposition, scheduled for Dec. 13. The committee would videotape it and launch the transcript, Mr. Comer mentioned.
“Other Hunter Biden business associates are also cooperating with our subpoenas and not demanding a public hearing first,” Mr. Comer mentioned. “Mr. Biden seems to believe that he should be treated differently than other witnesses before the committees.”
The Oversight panel is main the House impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden.
So far, it has uncovered 20 shell firms that had been used to offer Biden relations and associates with $24 million between 2015 and 2019 from overseas enterprise offers that ex-business associates say offered Mr. Biden as “the brand.”
Hunter Biden’s Owasco regulation agency collected hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from power firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party and from companies in Ukraine, Russia and different nations.
