CHICAGO — President Biden committed impeachable offenses by helping his family bank millions of dollars from lucrative foreign and domestic business deals and then conspired to hide the evidence and obstruct an investigation by Congress, House lawmakers concluded in a report.
Three House committees released their findings on Monday after a nearly yearlong investigation of the president. Lawmakers made the report public just hours before Mr. Biden was to be feted at the Democratic National Convention. He will hand off leadership of the Democratic Party to Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced him as the nominee for president.
Despite its findings, the Republican-led House is unlikely to vote to impeach Mr. Biden, who is not running for a second term.
The report, issued by the Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees, casts a shadow over Mr. Biden as he serves out the remainder of his term.
The 291-page report outlines evidence from more than a dozen witnesses and thousands of banking records and other documents. Combined, they show that Mr. Biden, dubbed the “big guy,” engaged in a pattern of swooping in to help his family, particularly his son Hunter Biden, score profitable business deals with Ukraine, Russia, China and other countries dating back to his time as vice president.
Sometimes, it was a phone call to a gathering of potential business associates arranged by his son. Other times, Mr. Biden popped in at a meeting.
DOCUMENT: Report of the impeachment inquiry of President Biden
By sitting down just long enough to exchange pleasantries or phoning in to talk about the weather, Mr. Biden helped secure millions of dollars in profits that fanned out across his family, the report said.
According to bank records cited in the report, foreign business partners paid $18 million to the Biden family from 2014 through 2023. The funds were traced to bank accounts of Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s younger brother James Biden, James Biden’s wife, Sara Biden, Mr. Biden’s daughters-in-law, Hallie Biden and Melissa Cohen Biden, as well as the president’s nieces and grandchildren.
Bank records show that Mr. Biden also took in some of the profits in the form of two checks provided by his brother in 2018 labeled loan repayments totaling $240,000.
James Biden sent the money to his brother after receiving a big payment from executives at an American hospital venture. He had promised them “access to a future Biden administration and the highest levels of government.”
Mr. Biden denied involvement or profiting from any family business deals.
The report counters the president’s denial by laying out evidence showing a pattern of his participation.
“The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the committees is egregious,” lawmakers wrote in the Republican-led report. “President Joe Biden conspired to commit influence peddling and grift. In doing so, he abused his office and, by repeatedly lying about his abuse of office, has defrauded the United States to enrich his family.”
Mr. Biden helped his son Hunter Biden rake in millions of dollars, they said, often by phoning into his meetings or stopping by in person.
Although Mr. Biden did not talk business, witnesses said, his mere presence burnished Hunter Biden’s value as a business partner and helped him clinch several significant deals and a high-paying position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
In one instance detailed by former business partner Devon Archer and included in the report, Hunter Biden connected Burisma officials with Vice President Biden in a phone call from Dubai on Dec. 7, 2015.
The Burisma officials were seeking help from Washington in shaking off Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin’s investigation into their company. Mr. Shokin had frozen or confiscated some assets of the company and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.
Three days after Hunter Biden and Burisma executives called Mr. Biden, the vice president changed State Department plans to give Ukraine a desperately needed $1 billion loan.
Under terms set by Mr. Biden as he flew on Air Force Two to Kyiv, it was decided that the U.S. money would be provided only if Ukrainian leaders fired Mr. Shokin.
Mr. Shokin was ultimately fired, and Mr. Biden later bragged about his role in his removal.
Lawmakers say in the report that before the call from his son and the Burisma executives in Dubai, there “was no indication that Vice President Biden would condition a loan guarantee on Prosecutor General Shokin’s firing.”
In a May 4, 2014, incident reported to lawmakers by former business associate Jason Galanis, Mr. Biden phoned into a business luncheon Hunter Biden was holding with Russian real estate magnate Yelena Baturina and her husband, Yuri, a former mayor of Moscow. Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone, and Mr. Biden spoke to guests, urging them to “be good to my boy.”
After the call, according to the report, Ms. Baturina committed to investing $10 million to $20 million in a private equity venture co-founded by Hunter Biden.
The report detailed evidence against Mr. Biden that went beyond alleged influence peddling.
Lawmakers say Mr. Biden, during his time as vice president, attempted to shield his son from prosecution for tax fraud and gun charges.
According to the report, the committees found evidence, reported by a pair of Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers, that the Justice Department “deviated from standard investigative practices” and gave favorable treatment to Hunter Biden. The actions included slow-walking the investigation so that the statute of limitations would lapse on serious felony charges related to Hunter Biden’s failure to pay taxes and failure to register as a lobbyist for a foreign country.
The Justice Department also prohibited a deeper inquiry into Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s lucrative deals that were suggested in text messages IRS investigators uncovered during the tax fraud probe.
After a judge rejected a sweetheart deal, Hunter Biden was convicted of felony gun charges in June. He faces a September trial in California on federal tax fraud charges.
The report separately gathered evidence lawmakers say shows that Mr. Biden used the presidency to hide his mishandling of classified documents that he improperly removed as vice president and dating back to his time in the Senate.
The case was reviewed by special counsel Robert Hur, who found that Mr. Biden willfully retained the classified material and provided it to a ghostwriter for a memoir that garnered Mr. Biden an $8 million advance.
Mr. Biden was not charged in the matter, but Mr. Hur’s report found the president had “significant” memory problems. Mr. Hur’s assessment of the president’s cognitive decline helped spur the internal effort by Democrats that ultimately pushed Mr. Biden off the 2024 ticket.
House Democrats did not participate in the impeachment investigation or the report.
They have denounced it all as a sham investigation and argued that Republicans have failed to provide solid evidence Mr. Biden committed any wrongdoing. They have accused Republicans of using their authority to pursue a political witch hunt.
In June, House Republicans sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department for James and Hunter Biden’s lying to Congress and impeding an investigation. The two are unlikely to be prosecuted by the Biden administration.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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