A top House Republican investigator released new financial records from his investigation into “the Biden family’s influence peddling and business schemes” by highlighting bank records related to Hunter Biden-linked business deals in Romania and China.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, released a 36-page memo on Wednesday, noting his committee had subpoenaed four banks and received thousands of records. The report argues the bank records show that “the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million” from companies belonging to foreign nationals, with Republicans identifying payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as vice president under former President Barack Obama and after Joe Biden left public office in early 2017.
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“The transactions in Romania and China show related but separate issues identified by the Committee that raise serious questions about financial disclosures and risks to national security,” Comer’s new memo alleged.
Comer said that “the Romanian transactions show evidence of influence peddling and a correlation between Biden family and their business associates’ work and then Vice President Biden’s responsibilities while in office.”
The Kentucky Republican added that his committee “is also providing additional information about the Biden family’s troubling receipt of payments from China, particularly the individual Ye Jianming and his company, CEFC, to show what was from 2015 to 2018 a growing interest by people closely tied to the CCP in cultivating a relationship with the Biden family.”
Comer’s new memo follows a subpoena he sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking information about an alleged bribery scheme tied to the then-vice president and an unnamed foreign national.
The new GOP memo does not detail any foreign payments going directly to Joe Biden. The Washington Examiner reported last year that Hunter Biden spent over $30,000 on escorts, many of whom were linked to “.ru” Russian email addresses and worked with an “exclusive model agency” called UberGFE during a 3 1/2 month period between November 2018 and March 2019. He managed to do so thanks in part to Joe Biden committing to wiring him a total of $100,000 to help pay his bills from December 2018 through January 2019.
Comer had revealed new Biden family financial details in March after he obtained them through a subpoena of Hunter Biden associate Rob Walker’s financial records at Bank of America. The House Oversight Committee chairman revealed that “from 2015 through 2017, Biden family members and their companies received over $1.3 million in payments” from accounts tied to Walker.
Comer said more than $1 million was sent in incremental payments to Hunter Biden, his uncle and Joe’s brother James Biden, and Hallie Biden, the widow of the president’s deceased son, Beau Biden, with whom Hunter was having a romantic relationship in 2017 following his brother’s death, shortly after Walker received a $3 million wire from a Chinese company called State Energy HK.
Joe Biden denied these details, which Comer considers facts backed by clear evidence.
Hunter Biden’s legal team had indeed seemingly confirmed, and defended, the payments in a March statement.
During an October 2020 debate with then-President Donald Trump, then-candidate Joe Biden also incorrectly claimed that his son never made money from China.
Shortly before the March 2017 Chinese wires from State Energy HK occurred, Ye, the now-former CEFC leader, met with Hunter Biden on Feb. 14, 2017, in Miami, Florida. It was there that Ye reportedly gifted Hunter Biden with a 3.16-carat diamond allegedly valued at $80,000.
Comer said on Wednesday that State Energy HK “appears to be Ye’s vehicle, at least in part, to launder money and purchase lucrative gifts.” The memo said that “the purported Chinese energy company made over $23 million in purchases from a retail diamond/jewelry business” in 2016 and 2017, including “$2 million in purchases from the Diamond Business” in late 2016 and early 2017. Comer said that “these transactions align with when Ye sent a large diamond to Hunter Biden in Miami.”
Biden White House oversight spokesman Ian Sams said Wednesday that Comer “is loudly and proudly broadcasting a press conference today to continue his long pattern of making absurd claims that President Biden has made governing decisions not in the interest of America but of the Chinese Communist Party, using baseless claims, personal attacks, and innuendo to try to score political points.”
The new GOP memo also said Wednesday that prior to the wire from State Energy HK, Walker and Hunter Biden associate James Gilliar, as well as Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden, “received payments from a Romanian source, and many of the payments were made while Joe Biden was Vice President and working directly on the U.S.’s official policy in Romania.”
The memo argued that actions in Romania taken by the Biden family and its associates “bear clear indicia of a scheme to peddle influence” from 2015 to 2017, arguing that “while Vice President Biden lectured Romania on corruption and ethics, Hunter Biden received — through Biden associate Rob Walker — over a million dollars from a company controlled by a Romanian individual accused of corruption (Gabriel Popoviciu).”
Comer released bank records showing “the Biden family’s receipt of money from a foreign company reportedly controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu, the subject of a criminal probe and prosecution for corruption in Romania.” The payments came around the same time frame that the then-vice president delivered speeches and met with Romanian leaders in 2014 and 2015 regarding corruption in the country. Comer said his committee “is concerned about the Biden family’s pattern of courting business in regions of the world in which the then Vice President had an outsize role and influenced U.S. policy.”
Joe Biden gave a May 2014 speech to Romania’s government leaders in which he declared that “corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy.”
“The Committee strongly agrees that corruption poses a national security risk,” Comer wrote. “At the time of Vice President Biden’s speech, one of the most high-profile corruption prosecutions in Romania revolved around Gabriel Popoviciu. Romanian prosecutors charged and convicted Mr. Popoviciu with a bribery related offense, and there has been subsequent litigation in the United Kingdom related to this matter.”
Joe Biden as vice president also welcomed Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to the White House in September 2015, during which the two discussed anti-corruption efforts.
Comer wrote that within five weeks of that meeting, Bladon Enterprises, which is “reported to be Gabriel Popoviciu’s Cypriot company” that he used to conduct business in Romania, “began making deposits into Robinson Walker LLC’s bank account.” Comer said Blandon Enterprises paid Robinson Walker LLC “over $3 million” from November 2015 to May 2017 and that “Biden family accounts received approximately $1.038 million from the Robinson Walker LLC account after Bladon Enterprises deposits.”
The new memo said 16 of those 17 payments were made while Joe Biden was still vice president and that the money was then sent to Gilliar, Hunter Biden, Hallie Biden, Hunter Biden-linked businesses such as Owasco P.C. and RSTP24 II, and to “an unknown Biden bank account.”
Hunter Biden reached out to former FBI Director Louis Freeh in 2016 to see if he could help Popoviciu.
“It appears from bank records the Bidens were using Robinson Walker LLC to conceal that the source of these payments was Popoviciu,” Comer wrote. “The Committee is further concerned that while Vice President Biden advocated publicly for anti-corruption policies in Romania, bank records show Biden family members and business associates were simultaneously reaping in significant amounts of money from a Romanian individual at the center of a Romanian corruption scandal.”
Hunter Biden and his associated businesses are also believed to have received at least $5 million in payments from Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC in 2017 and 2018, and Ye deputy Patrick Ho also agreed to pay Hunter Biden a $1 million retainer. Hunter referred to Ho as “the f***ing spy chief of China” in a May 11, 2018, voice recording.
“The Committee is investigating the corrupt conduct of Ye — and others with ties to the CCP — who used CEFC and Chinese companies to entice Biden family members with millions of dollars in exchange for influence and legitimacy in the United States and abroad,” Comer’s new memo said.
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Comer wrote CEFC deputy Gongwen Dong formed CEFC Infrastructure in Delaware in May 2017 and that Hudson West V, a company directed by Dong that received a $24 million wire from Ye and formed a partnership with Hunter Biden, was the sole equity member of CEFC. A week later, the memo said Hudson West V “assigned 100 percent of its interest” to the Chinese company Shanghai Huaxin Group. Shanghai Huaxin “funded the CEFC Infrastructure bank account with a significant injection of $10 million from China” in June 2017, Comer said, and then CEFC Infrastructure wired $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s Owasco P.C. on Aug. 4, 2017.
“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,” Comer wrote on Wednesday.
