The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday mounted more attacks against President Joe Biden and his family, alleging that relatives of the president engaged in business with foreign nationals as part of the panel’s investigation into the finances of the Biden family.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a memorandum Wednesday morning to Republican members of the panel about what he described as information that the committee recently received from subpoenas from four different banks. The memo said the subpoenas were “tailored to specific individuals and companies that engaged in business activities with Biden family members and their business associates.”
The memo provides limited details about the Biden family’s alleged business dealings with foreign nationals. It alleges that the Biden family and associates’ activities in Romania “bear clear indicia of a scheme to peddle influence from 2015 to 2017,” alleging that while Biden was vice president, his son Hunter received through an associate more than $1 million from a company controlled by a Romanian official accused of corruption.
The memo also says the Biden family and associates’ “activities in coordination with Chinese nationals and their corporate entities appear to be an attempt to engage in financial deception.” The memo reiterates previous allegations that Comer made against Hunter Biden in his memo released in March, in which the committee chairman alleged that the president’s son and at least two relatives were paid $1.3 million from an associate of Hunter Biden who had been wired $3 million from a Chinese energy company that was affiliated with another company Hunter Biden had been doing business with.
In response to the memo, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said 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. He has hidden information from the public to selectively leak and promote his own hand-picked narratives as part of his overall effort to lob personal attacks at the President and his family.”
“Instead of staging yet another political stunt, Chairman Comer and House Republicans should do their job, avoid default without conditions, and prevent a devastating economic crash that could cost millions of Americans their jobs,” Sams said.
Representatives for Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
As the newly minted House Oversight chairman, Comer in January renewed his request for the Treasury Department to turn over documents related to the business ventures of President Joe Biden’s family members, including “suspicious activity reports” connected to Biden’s son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden.
Comer at the time said his committee “is concerned about the national security implications resulting from President Biden’s family receiving millions of dollars from foreign nationals” and “will continue to follow the money trail and facts to determine if President Biden is compromised by his family’s business schemes and if there is a national security threat.”
In his memo released Wednesday, 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.”
Hunter Biden’s finances — specifically his tax payments to the IRS — have been under investigation by federal prosecutors in Delaware since 2018, years before his father was elected president. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
