Biden family and associates were paid ‘over $30 million’ from foreigners: GOP

Bank statements indicate foreign entities including Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs made the payments while Joe Biden was vice- president.

Hunter Biden at the official State Dinner in honour of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the White House. Picture: AFP.

The Biden family and business entities related to the President’s son Hunter received over $30 million ($US20m) in payments from foreign entities, including from Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, during his time as vice-president according to a Republican-controlled Congressional committee.

The House of Representatives Oversight Committee released fresh bank records on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) laying out millions of dollars of payments to Biden family and related bank accounts from foreign entities, increasing the chance of a congressional impeachment inquiry into the president’s financial affairs.

“It’s clear Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings and allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family while he was vice-president of the United States,” Republican Oversight committee chairman James Comer said in a statement.

“No one in the Biden administration or in the minority has explained what services, if any, the Bidens and their associates provided in exchange for the over $20 million in foreign payments,” the memo, the third this year in a series delving into the Biden family’s finances, stated.

Ian Sams, a senior White House adviser to the president, slammed the release as “another memo full of years-old ‘news,’ innuendo, and misdirection – notably missing, yet again, any connection to President Biden”.

“House Republicans can’t prove President Biden did anything wrong,” Mr Sams said in a statement, reiterating Democrats’ argument that Republicans would need to show direct payments to Mr Biden himself to prove anything improper.

The latest 19-page memorandum detailed a $US3.5 million payment made in February 2014 by Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, then the richest woman in Russia, to a set of companies with the prefix ‘Rosemont Seneca’, which were controlled at least in part by Hunter Biden and his then business associate Devon Archer.

Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, after testifying to the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill. Picture: Getty Images

In April 2014 a Kazakhstani oligarch Kenes Rakishev wired US $142,300 to one of the Rosemount Seneca accounts a day before Hunter Biden purchased a Porsche of the same value in New Jersey, it also revealed.

Ms Baturina (who was among a small group of Russian oligarchs not sanctioned last year by the US after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) later dined with Joe Biden and Ukrainian business executives at least twice throughout 2014 and 2015 at Washington’s upscale Cafe Milano.

“Then-vice-president Biden met — in person, for significant periods of time — with those individuals or their representatives,” Mr Comer said.

“President Biden’s defenders purport a weak defence by asserting the Committee must show payments directly to the President to show corruption”.

Companies can violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act “if they give payments or gifts to third parties, such as an official’s family members, as an indirect way of corruptly influencing a foreign official”, the memorandum pointed out.

Since winning control of the House of Representatives last November Republicans have investigated alleged influence peddling by the Biden family after emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop suggested Hunter Biden had a complex web of financial relationships with foreigners, including a potential 10 per cent kickback to “the big guy”, allegedly Joe Biden.

The two earlier memorandums revealed payments from Romanian and Chinese businesses worth over $US8 million, where payments were similarly made to shell companies and later forwarded on in full or part to Hunter Biden or other Biden family members, including the president’s brother.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last month floated the possibility of a congressional ‘impeachment inquiry’ into Joe Biden to determine whether a formal impeachment might be warranted, following various strands of evidence including from the FBI, IRS whistleblowers, that suggest the Biden family, may have breached legal or ethical guidelines.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer speaks to reporters. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

In testimony before congress last week Mr Archer said Hunter Biden had put his father on speaker phone “about 20 times” in front of Hunter’s foreign business partners, which Republicans said undermined Joe Biden’s repeated claims to have no knowledge of his son’s business dealings.

“Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the (Biden family) brand attached to it,” Mr Archer said, referring to the Ukrainian company that had been paying Hunter $US1 million a year, claiming “people would be intimidated to mess with (the Bidens) … legally.”

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had said repeatedly that the president had “no knowledge” of his son’s business dealings, reflecting language Mr Biden himself had used to brush off questions about his son’s business dealings on the campaign trail for president in 2020.

More recently, the White House has said Joe Biden “was not in business with his son”.

The memorandum said the House committee had not yet issued any subpoenas for the bank accounts of Joe Biden or immediate family members.