James Comer, the head of the House Oversight Committee, announced that his team has discovered a transaction in 2018 wherein Joe Biden purportedly received a $200,000 payment from his brother, James Biden, and his sister-in-law, Sara Biden. He urges the president to clarify any financial ties with his relatives.
Since the start of the year, Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, has been scrutinizing the business activities of the Biden family, attempting to determine if the president had any role in these affairs or gained any financial advantage from them.
In a recent development, Comer, in September, demanded extensive financial records from both Hunter Biden and James Biden through the issuance of three subpoenas.
In a video shared on a platform previously recognized as Twitter, Comer revealed his committee’s findings, highlighting a specific transaction made by James Biden to President Biden, described as a “loan repayment,” while also raising concerns about its timing.
“According to documents procured by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, there was a $200,000 transaction from James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden, documented via a personal check,” explained Comer.
He further detailed that in the same year, James Biden had procured $600,000 in loans from Americore, a struggling rural hospital operator, under the pretense that his Biden surname would facilitate influential connections, and that he promised significant Middle Eastern investments due to his political ties.
“On the first day of March in 2018, a $200,000 loan was transferred to James and Sara Biden’s personal account, not their business one,” Comer elaborated. “Subsequently, on that very day, a check of $200,000 was written from this account to Joe Biden by James Biden.”
This transaction was labeled as a ‘loan repayment’ by James Biden, according to Comer.
He further emphasized the problematic nature of these transactions, given that Americore was financially unstable when it extended the loan to James Biden, who then transferred these funds to Joe Biden.
Comer also questioned the president about the specifics of this so-called loan repayment, querying if there were similar transactions with other family members and if President Biden was aware that the funds originated from a financially distressed company.
Comer assured that the investigative efforts would continue, promising further revelations stemming from these financial records.
In contrast, White House oversight spokesperson Ian Sams responded to these allegations by outright denying any misconduct on President Biden’s part, referring to the investigation as a distraction lacking in concrete evidence.
He criticized the Republican committee members for their inability to address more pressing national concerns, instead focusing on baseless allegations. He asserted that despite extensive review of private banking records, there was no indication of any inappropriate activity by the president.
Sams emphasized that the investigation has only served to prove President Biden’s innocence, urging House Republicans to refocus their efforts on substantial issues and cease their political theatrics.
The White House’s stance is that the records simply illustrate a brother helping another during a time of need, with nothing suggesting any wrongdoing by the president.
Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland and the committee’s Ranking Member, also criticized the investigation’s scope and lack of results, underscoring that even witnesses selected by Republicans found no evidence of illegal activity or grounds for impeachment. He described the subpoenas as excessively invasive and irrelevant to any legitimate congressional investigation.
Despite these criticisms, Comer continues his investigative efforts, part of an impeachment inquiry he’s conducting with other House members, including Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, both Republicans. He claims that their investigation has uncovered substantial payments to Biden family members from foreign entities, arguing that the family profited extensively by marketing Joe Biden’s name internationally between 2014 and 2019.
