The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee mounted more attacks Wednesday against President Joe Biden and his family, alleging that relatives of the president engaged in business with foreign nationals.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a memorandum Wednesday morning to Republican members of the panel, which is investigating the finances of the Biden family, about what he described as information that the committee had 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.” It does not detail a specific allegation of a crime committed by the family or relative of the president.
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, through an associate, received 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 March, in which he alleged that the president’s son and at least two relatives were paid $1.3 million by 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.
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In response to Wednesday’s 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.
During a press conference Wednesday morning, Comer detailed the Oversight Committee’s next steps after the release of the memo. Comer said he sent a subpoena to the FBI last week to provide the committee with a 1023 form, used to apply for tax exemptions, that a “whistleblower has alleged is in the FBI’s possession.”
“If they do, the committee will assess the form it has subpoenaed from the FBI. And, has been my practice, we will report to you only facts when they are verified and indisputable.”
Comer also said the committee is considering legislation “aimed at deficiencies it has identified in ethics laws and disclosure laws for immediate family members, a vice president and the president.” It is also considering legislation that would “strengthen reporting requirements related to certain foreign transactions involving senior elected officials’ family members, he said.
Additionally, Comer said the committee is evaluating the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws to “determine whether financial institutions had the available tools and support from federal agencies to thwart illegal money laundering and foreign corruption activity.”
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 Hunter Biden and the president’s 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 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 under the Trump administration, before his father was elected president. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The federal investigation of Hunter Biden has narrowed from an inquiry into his international business relationships, including any possible national security implications, to an examination of the income he earned from those ventures and a false statement he’s alleged to have made during a gun purchase, sources told NBC News last month.
Federal prosecutors have considered charging Hunter Biden with three tax crimes — including possibly two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes and a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes — and a crime related to the gun purchase, two sources familiar with the matter said.