'New Phase': House Probe of Biden Family Businesses Finds More Foreign Payments

 In a press conference held by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday morning, Republican members led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY) presented new evidence related to the questionable business dealings of President Joe Biden's family through a web of associates and their companies.

    We have now established a network of over 20 companies formed by the Bidens and their associates.

    Most of these companies were LLCs and formed when Joe Biden was Vice President.
    — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 10, 2023

Speaking of an oversight investigation that began soon after House Republicans took control of the lower chamber, Comer hyped up the "astonishing progress" his committee has made in "only four months" probing President Biden and his family's "shady business deals" that capitalized on the president's positions of power in government.

Wednesday's press conference revealed additional money transfers during the time Joe Biden was vice president. According to Comer, while Biden was "lecturing Romania on anti-corruption policies," a Romanian national transferred more than $1 million dollars in payments to Biden family associates that was subsequently passed to Biden family members. Conveniently, Comer explained, payments from the Romanian national stopped flowing after Biden was no longer vice president. What's more, the Romanian national identified by the committee was under investigation and later convicted of corruption in Romania.

    The Bidens received over $1 million for the Romania deal, with 16 of the 17 payments made during Biden’s VP term.

    The money stops flowing from Romania soon after Joe Biden leaves office, establishing a pattern of influence peddling.
    — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 10, 2023

The House Oversight Committee released a detailed memo outlining its latest findings, but here's the gist:

Five weeks after Romania's president visited Washington and met with then-Vice President Biden, an entity called Bladon Enterprises Limited — reportedly Gabriel Popoviciu’s Cypriot company used to do business in Romania — started depositing funds, eventually totaling more than $3 million, into the Robinson Walker, LLC account — one of at least 15 companies created by Biden associates after Joe Biden became vice president.

After the transfers from Bladon to Robinson Walker, bank accounts owned by members of Biden's family "received approximately $1.038 million from the Robinson Walker, LLC account...while Joe Biden was Vice President." Those family members include Hunter Biden, Hallie Biden, and a still-unknown Biden bank account.

The House Oversight Committee's memo points to a previous NBC News report that explained "Hunter Biden’s work for Popoviciu in 2016 went unreported at the time, but Joe Biden’s involvement in Romania was very much public."

The Oversight Committee's memo continues:

    The Committee is investigating why the Bidens used Robinson Walker, LLC to receive money from what a news report has described as “a side pocket agreement directly with Popoviciu . . . .”After certain Bladon Enterprises deposits were made, the Biden bank accounts received over $1 million in payments via Robinson Walker, LLC. It appears from bank records the Bidens were using Robinson Walker, LLC to conceal that the source of these payments was Popoviciu.

    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. This illustrates the need for more robust financial disclosures regarding a president’s or vice president’s immediate family members who receive money from foreign companies and foreign nationals.

Wednesday's new information comes after the Oversight Committee revealed other money transfers from a Chinese energy company to Robinson Walker, LLC, payments that Republican lawmakers say, based on bank records, eventually made their way into bank accounts belonging to members of Joe Biden's family.

Naturally, Oversight Republicans want to know why associates of the Biden family would receive "significant deposits from foreign sources into their bank accounts and then transfer smaller, incremental payments to Biden bank accounts."

Those financial transactions, the GOP lawmakers say, "appear to be a concerted effort to conceal the source and total amount received from foreign companies."

To that end, Comer said the Oversight Committee's investigation "will enter a new phase" that includes even more subpoenas to banks through which the transactions at issue passed.

    .@RepJamesComer will soon issue more subpoenas to banks for specific, targeted information.

    In addition, he will provide one more opportunity for certain Biden associates—including his art gallerist and Rob Walker—to cooperate willingly with this investigation.
    — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 10, 2023

With millions of dollars making their way from foreign entities to Biden associates and apparently into Biden family accounts, the Oversight Committee added "it is not credible" that then-Vice President Biden "did not know that multiple Biden family members were committing a significant amount of their time toward and receiving millions of dollars from foreign companies in China and elsewhere," that "wealthy and politically connected Chinese nations...approached the Biden family to do legitimate work because of those family members' expertise," or that "the same Chinese nationals, whose agent was arrested and convicted in the United States for bribery of foreign leaders, money laundering, and fraud, did not intend the same corrupt objectives with the Bidens and their companies."

The latest revelations also follow the announcement from Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that a whistleblower had come forward to make protected disclosures about FBI knowledge of an alleged criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.

Comer issued a subpoena for the documents referenced by the whistleblower to FBI Director Christopher Wray, but the information has yet to be produced.  

    🚨🚨🚨@RepJamesComer & @ChuckGrassley reveal the existence of an FBI record alleging then-VP Biden engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.

    According to a whistleblower, this record details an alleged arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions.… pic.twitter.com/6yLwPLi8Hw
    — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 3, 2023