Donald Trump may have escaped arrest on Tuesday, but even the prospect of an indictment of the former president couldn’t have come at a better time for Joe Biden, who is expected to announce he will run for president once again in coming weeks.
Leaks about the impending arrest of a former president have electrified US media, conveniently overshadowing an extraordinary series of payments which emerged last week from a Chinese company to the Biden family.
Everyone has known about Trump’s hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels since 2018. But the payments unearthed by the new Republican controlled House of Representatives oversight committee were new, real and potentially highly embarrassing or worse for the President.
It turns out less than two months after Joe Biden left office as vice-president in 2017, State Energy HK Limited, a Chinese company, sent $US3m to a company associated with John Walker, a Clinton administration official and friend of the Bidens, whose bank records have been obtained under the committee’s subpoena power. Then, over the next three months, $US1.065m was distributed in a series of small individual payments to the personal accounts of Joe Biden’s son Hunter, James Biden (the President’s brother), Hallie Biden (his daughter-in-law), and an unknown “Biden”.
“It is unclear what services were provided to obtain this exorbitant amount of money,” committee chairman and Kentucky congressman James Comer, one of the most powerful men in Washington, said last week.
Another $US1.065m was wired to a company in the Middle East associated with James Gilliar, a business partner of Hunter Biden, who referred to setting aside 10 per cent of a business deal “for the Big Guy” in emails unearthed from the junior Biden’s infamous laptop in 2020.
“We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat,” Comer added.
Where Hunter Biden’s laptop provided the smoke for allegations of impropriety, Comer’s committee appears poised to provide the fire.
After months of stonewalling, the US Treasury last week acceded to letting Comer’s committee look at as many as 150 “suspicious activity reports” related to the Biden family, which had been sent by banks to the Treasury over the years. Comer on Sunday (Monday AEDT) said the just revealed China payment was one of 12 such business deals Walker’s bank records pointed to.
The committee has insisted Walker – who, according to Comer, inauspiciously said that exposing him would “bury all of us, man” – appear for an interview by the end of this week.
And the Georges Berges Gallery, a high-end art establishment in Manhattan, is under pressure from Comer to disclose the buyers of Hunter Biden’s paintings, which are reportedly fetching from $US75,000 to $US500,000. The gallery refuses to divulge the identity of the buyers.
The White House has insisted all transactions were private, legitimate business dealings of the Biden family, unrelated to Joe Biden. Indeed, there’s nothing illegal about influence peddling, legally it’s not in the calibre of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star. But the court of US public opinion might have a different view. It would not be a good look to be on the take from a company connected to the Chinese government, the chief global adversary of the US.
Many Democrats must be hoping for a long trial of Trump in New York, as a 2024 presidential rematch between the two, written off as near impossible last year, becomes a possibility once again.
Trump had claimed at the weekend he would be arrested on Tuesday under indictment from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. But his lawyer said the comments were based on media reports and not any fresh action by prosecutors.
Some US media speculated that the grand jury hearing the case could vote to indict on Wednesday but that it may be next week before Bragg, an elected Democrat, announces any charges and Trump is arraigned before a judge.
The New York Police Department has geared up for an unprecedented arrest or self-surrender, which would see an ex-president booked, fingerprinted and possibly even handcuffed, by erecting barricades outside Bragg’s office and Trump Tower. NBC News reported that every NYPD officer was ordered to wear their uniforms and prepare for deployment starting from Tuesday.
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