Facing growing pressure to show progress in their investigations, House Republicans on Wednesday detailed what they say are concerning new findings about President Biden's family and their finances. The smoking gun, according to the GOP, is recently obtained financial records connected to the president's son Hunter Biden, brother James Biden, and a growing number of associates who received millions of dollars in payments from foreign entities in China and Romania, the AP reports. House Republicans suggested, without evidence, that the payments were part of a wide-ranging scheme to profit off the family name.
Congressional Republicans relied on more than 150 suspicious activity reports as a roadmap to follow what they call the Bidens' complicated financial money trail. The confidential reports, called SARs, are often routine, with larger financial transactions automatically flagged to the government. The filing of a SARs report is not evidence on its own of misconduct. But Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee leading the probe, said Wednesday that other types of financial records obtained through congressional subpoenas and lawsuits have now become the focus of the investigation.
The White House dismissed the whole investigation as “yet another political stunt." “Congressman 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,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement. Republicans vowed after winning the House majority last year that they would use their subpoena power to investigate foreign entities that did business with the family during Biden's time as vice president and during the Trump administration, including a specific focus on his son Hunter.
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Hunter Biden's taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation, with a grand jury in Delaware reportedly due to make a charging decision in the next few months. And while Hunter Biden never held a position on the presidential campaign or in the White House, his membership on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to strike deals in China have long raised questions about whether he traded on his father's public service, including reported references in his emails to the "big guy." Joe Biden has said he's never spoken to his son about his foreign business. And there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way. An attorney for Hunter Biden on Wednesday slammed years of Republicans' investigations as "chasing conspiracies." (More House Republicans stories.)
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