By Steven Nelson
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer has invited President Biden to testify in the Republican impeachment inquiry investigating him for alleged corruption.
Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to Biden that evidence shows that he has “been repeatedly untruthful” by claiming he had no interactions with his son Hunter and brother James’ overseas patrons during and immediately after his vice presidency.
“I invite you to participate in a public hearing at which you will be afforded the opportunity to explain, under oath, your involvement with your family’s sources of income and the means it has used to generate it,” Comer wrote Thursday in a seven-page letter to the president.
“The Committee is open to accommodating your schedule but proposes April 16, 2024, for the hearing to occur.”
Biden, 81, has repeatedly denied any role in his relatives’ dealings — saying this month that “I did not interact with their partners” — despite evidence that he did meet with associates from two Chinese government-backed ventures and their contacts from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
Republicans argue that Hunter, now 54, and James, now 75, sold access to their powerful relative in countries where he held sway over US policy.
Comer also asked Biden Thursday to answer in writing 10 specific questions about his links to his family’s foreign business associates.
“The public is left with two irreconcilable narratives. The first — asserted by you — is that you did not engage in influence peddling in exchange for payments to your family,” Comer wrote.
“The second — asserted by witnesses and a body of evidence … is that you were indeed involved in these pay-for-influence schemes and that you have been repeatedly untruthful regarding a matter relevant to national security and your own fitness to serve as President of the United States.”
Hunter Biden contradicted his father’s denials by confirming several interactions during his own Feb. 28 testimony before the impeachment inquiry.
Joe Biden, while vice president, dined at Washington’s Café Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015 with his son’s Kazakhstani, Russian and Ukrainian partners, Hunter Biden confirmed.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter a $1 million annual salary beginning in 2014 as his father spearheaded US policy toward Kyiv, attended the 2015 dinner.
His thank-you email to Hunter for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” was revealed in The Post’s initial October 2020 bombshell report on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter confirmed the dinners also included Russian billionaire and former Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina, who reportedly transferred $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to a company jointly owned by Hunter and business partner Devon Archer, and Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who purchased Hunter a $142,000 sports car.
In 2013, Biden met in Beijing with Jonathan Li — the incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed fund BHR Partners, in which Hunter held a 10% stake until recently — the first son testified, confirming prior reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
Hunter claimed he could not recall his father’s alleged meeting in early 2017 with the top figure in a second Chinese government-linked venture.
Joe Biden met CEFC China Energy Chairman Ye Jianming at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington just weeks after he left office as vice president, former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified Jan. 26.
Walker said that Joe Biden met Ye shortly before CEFC transferred $3 million in March 2017 to a consortium of Biden family associates, with about a third going to Hunter and James Biden.
The Bidens later cut out their other partners with CEFC, with Hunter invoking his father in a shakedown text message in July 2017 warning a Chinese associate to transfer an agreed upon $5 million, which was done within 10 days of the message.
James Biden, who shared the haul with nephew Hunter, confirmed last month to Congress that he paid Joe Biden $40,000 on Sept. 3, 2017 from funds he received from CEFC. He said he was repaying a short-term loan.
Republicans note the lack of loan documents and say the fact that the initial alleged loan came from a law firm rather than directly from Joe Biden clouds the picture, and say that even if James was repaying a loan, it shows Joe Biden benefited from foreign income.
Hunter claimed in his impeachment deposition that he mistakenly sent the threatening message, in which he wrote he was “sitting here with my father,” to a BHR associate rather than his intended CEFC colleague and that he learned his error when he spoke the following day with the CEFC partner.
IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler provided Congress with the message and said that investigators were barred from determining by acquiring cellphone geolocation data whether Hunter truly was sitting with his father.
Ziegler and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, testified to Congress last year that Justice Department officials blocked them from investigating Joe Biden’s apparent role in foreign dealings.
Changing their story
Hunter Biden carefully claimed that his dad was not “financially involved” in his foreign influence peddling — a change in the previous denials. Joe Biden has said before he knew “nothing” about his son’s business. That has changed to wasn’t “involved” and now “financially involved.”
- “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses.” — Joe Biden, Aug. 28, 2019
- “He wasn’t given tens of millions of dollars [from foreign entities]. That was totally discredited.” — Joe Biden, Sept. 29, 2020
- “The president was never in business with his son.” — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, July 24, 2023
- “My father was not financially involved in my business.” — Hunter Biden, Dec. 13, 2023
Biden is likely to turn down the invitation to testify, in part because an under-oath appearance would open him to charges of perjury and potentially be used to justify articles of impeachment.
White House spokesman Ian Sams tweeted: “LOL… Comer knows 20+ witnesses have testified that [Biden] did nothing wrong. He knows that the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he’s received have refuted his false allegations.
“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment. Call it a day, pal.”
The Oversight Committee’s Democratic minority tweeted, “The GOP couldn’t find an impeachable offense, the evidence has been comically distorted and twisted, and now even right-wing media is calling out all the acrobatic contortions and comic evasions.”
Republicans have discussed impeachment counts against Biden such as abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and have alleged that the president’s role in his family’s dealings could constitute unregistered foreign-lobbying while putting him adjacent to alleged tax fraud and money laundering.
The Democratic minority added: “The GOP impeachment inquiry has been a circus. Time to fold up the tent.”
The invite comes as the impeachment inquiry seeks additional records, including credit card receipts for members the Biden family, and records from special counsel Robert Hur, who found evidence that Biden willfully mishandled classified information after his vice presidency but concluded last month that no jury would convict him of doing so because he would present himself as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Comer’s prompts for written answers from Biden include:
1. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Jonathan Li of Bohai Industrial Fund and/or Bohai Harvest Rosemont?
2. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Ye Jianming of CEFC?
3. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Henry Zhao of the Harvest Fund?
4. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Vadym Pozharskyi of Burisma Holdings?
5. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Mykola Zlochevsky of Burisma Holdings?
6. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Kenes Rakishev of Novatus Holding?
7. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Yelena Baturina?
8. Have you met, spoken to, or otherwise interacted with Yuriy Luzhkov?
9. Did you ever ask your brother James Biden about the source of the funds he used to pay or repay you?
10. Did Eric Schwerin have insight into all your bank accounts until December 2017?
The invite was delivered as unexpected early retirements from House Republicans reduce the party’s already slim majority, making it more difficult to mount a successful impeachment vote.
The GOP’s five-vote edge will be reduced to four on April 19 when Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) resigns, and likely to three following an April 30 special election in New York’s heavily Democratic 26th District.
Two Republican-leaning districts — in California and Ohio — will have special elections before the end of the House term, possibly bringing the Republican majority back to five seats, but even that margin would leave very little room for defections.
Gallagher designed his resignation to occur 10 days after the deadline for a special election, meaning his seat will remain empty, hobbling fellow Republicans who had criticized him for opposing the ultimately successful impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.