House Republicans are wasting little time jumping headfirst into probes involving the business dealings of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the Biden family if they win a majority in next week’s midterm elections.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, the panel set to lead the probes if the GOP formally takes control of the chamber next year, are planning a press conference about their investigation into the Bidens the week after the election.
Their goal is to question whether President Biden’s leadership has been impacted by his family’s business dealings — and to steer clear of the more salacious content on the infamous hard drive that belonged to Hunter Biden, a recovering drug addict.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee who is likely to chair the panel in a GOP majority, has long been preparing for hearings and advancing investigations into the Biden family businesses. Republican staff members on the panel have a copy of Hunter Biden’s hard drive and have been poring over it for months.
Comer, in a statement to The Hill, blasted the Biden family for alleged influence peddling and raised concerns about the deals conflicting with U.S. interests.
“If Joe Biden is compromised by his family’s business schemes, it is a threat to our national security,” Comer said.
The White House declined to comment on the House GOP probes, but the Biden campaign in 2020 said the then-candidate “has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever.”
Hunter Biden and Biden family business activities have been a longtime focus of Republicans on Capitol Hill, the right-wing media and former President Trump, whose request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine led to Trump’s first impeachment.
There has also been longtime interest in Hunter Biden across the Capitol.
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has made several floor speeches about Biden family business dealings, and has sent letters alleging that he has received information from whistleblowers about the family’s business activities.
Democrats on the Hill have dismissed the GOP probe as part of a larger obsession with the Biden family. House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y) has previously called GOP efforts “nakedly partisan.”
But in a House GOP majority, Republicans would have more power to probe new lines of interest about the family’s business matters, and potentially put them on public display if the panel holds hearings as Comer has promised.
At the top of the GOP to-do list on the matter is obtaining suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department connected to transactions from the president’s son and his associates.
CBS News reported in April that U.S. banks flagged for review more than 150 financial transactions related to the business affairs of either Hunter or James Biden, the president’s brother.
The reports do not necessarily mean illegal activity occurred, as Republicans have sometimes suggested, and only a small percentage of the millions of reports from banks filed each year lead to law enforcement investigations.
Banks are required to file suspicious activity reports about transfers of amounts of at least $5,000, or $2,000 for money services businesses, if there is reason to suspect the funds came from illegal activity. They must also file currency transaction reports for any transaction exceeding $10,000.
But Republicans on the House Oversight Committee argue more information on the transactions are needed to know whether President Biden financially benefited from his family’s business transactions, alleging that the possibility could create national security concerns.
Meanwhile, few, if any, House Republicans have…
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