OPINION:
President Biden isn’t interested in settling questions about his problematic financial interactions with family members. When asked Wednesday to explain payments flowing between him, his son Hunter and his brother Jim, he fired off a stern denial before shuffling away from the White House press pool.
“It’s just a bunch of lies,” the president said. “They’re lies. I did not. They’re lies.”
Reporters were inquiring about the discovery of bank records confirming that Hunter Biden’s business entity Owasco PC made small, regular deposits into the elder Biden’s bank account. That’s the same Owasco that received millions in payments from Chinese state enterprises.
The president has consistently denied awareness of Hunter’s financial dealings. Friends of the administration go on to defend the transactions, explaining them as a dutiful son making payments on his father’s Ford Raptor while the son was using that pickup truck. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer isn’t buying that story.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement.
New documents also reveal Mr. Biden sent at least 54 emails to Hunter’s business partner Eric Schwerin. The then-vice president’s messages were concealed under aliases including “Robin Ware” and “Robert L. Peters.” That’s a curious thing for someone not involved in the business to do.
Mr. Comer joined House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, in giving Hunter Biden until Dec. 13 to appear before the committees to explain what’s going on in a deposition, threatening contempt of Congress proceedings should the president’s son fail to appear pursuant to a subpoena issued last month.
It remains to be seen whether new House Speaker Mike Johnson will pursue contempt proceedings as ferociously as Rep. Nancy Pelosi did when she wielded the speaker’s gavel. Both Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, former top aides to former President Donald Trump, are fighting unprecedented criminal contempt convictions at the hands of Democratic-appointed judges and Trump-hating juries.
As for Mr. Johnson, he announced that the full House would vote next week to continue the formal impeachment inquiry against President Biden.
“The House Democrats cheapened impeachment,” the Louisiana Republican argued. “What you’re seeing now is the opposite of that, a very deliberate investigation uncovering and following the facts — that’s what the Constitution requires the House to do.”
With Mr. Comer having identified $24 million in cash pouring into 20 different shell companies linked with the Bidens and their associates, the big guy has some explaining to do. Imaginations run wild in the absence of a credible response, which is why the last thing the president and his son should do is continue stonewalling.
Recall that the FBI opened a full inquiry into then-candidate Trump — using foreign-agent surveillance authority — based on a secondhand report of the sozzled ramblings of a low-level campaign aide talking to a diplomat in a London bar.
As Mr. Biden’s current defenders cheered the latter investigation, surely they will urge the president and his family to cooperate fully in this inquiry.
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