Here’s what the Biden family business scandal impeachment inquiry could look like
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry Tuesday into President Biden — turbocharging congressional power to acquire documents and testimony about Biden’s role in his family’s foreign business dealings while he was vice president.
House Republicans already have issued an array of demands to executive branch agencies relating to Joe Biden’s involvement with first son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden’s international dealings — in many cases setting September deadlines that could soon escalate into litigation.
An Oversight Committee-led investigation this year found that the Biden family and their allies brought in at least $20 million from foreign sources, including Hunter Biden’s business associates in China, Russia and Ukraine.
However, an impeachment inquiry would give congressional investigators greater legal authority to access Biden family financial records and to go to court to enforce subpoenas for records held by the executive branch.
Republicans are also pressing for more information that clarifies why Joe Biden interacted with his scandal-scarred son’s business partners while he was vice president.
“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said at the Capitol Tuesday when announcing the historic proceedings ahead of the 2024 election.
A poll released last week by CNN found that 61% of the American public believes Joe Biden was involved with his son’s dealings, despite his blanket denials — and 42% believe he acted illegally.
A Harvard-Harris poll in May similarly found that 53% of the public believes Joe Biden “was involved with his son in an illegal influence peddling scheme.”
Major questions that will be pursued by congressional Republicans include:
What’s in Joe Biden’s vice presidential emails?
While vice president, Joe Biden used the pseudonyms “Robert L. Peters” and “Robin Ware” to communicate with staff members — leaving a paper trail of nearly 5,400 written records.
The House Oversight Committee demanded those communications from the National Archives with an Aug. 31 deadline, but a source tells The Post the agency did not comply.
Biden used the official account Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov as well as private email accounts registered to fake names. His then-aide John Flynn cc-d Hunter on 10 emails containing his dad’s daily schedule between May 18 and June 15, 2016, prior disclosures show.
A president’s own words can be especially damning during impeachment inquiries. Former President Richard Nixon, for example, resigned in 1974 only after a smoking gun tape confirmed he was involved in a coverup of the Watergate break-in.
What do Hunter Biden’s bank records show?
Congressional Republicans are preparing to issue subpoenas to banks for accounts held by Hunter and James Biden — after previously subpoenaing some of their associates’s bank records.
The statements could show if money was transferred to Joe Biden from his relatives’ foreign income streams and also whether they covered a substantial portion of his expenses. It’s possible the House will later seek the president’s bank records.
Hunter wrote in a message retrieved from his abandoned laptop that he had to give “half” of his income to his dad and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) in May described nine Biden family members who allegedly received foreign income. There’s evidence Hunter paid at least some of Joe’s bills, including for phone service.
“The Oversight Committee will soon pursue Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records,” a panel spokesperson told The Post.
McCarthy said last month that the president should voluntarily “give us his bank statements,” but Biden laughed off the notion when asked by The Post if he would.
Other sources of Joe Biden’s income may become targets for subpoenas, such as records for S corporations through which the first couple routed more than $13 million in income in 2017 and 2018 to avoid Medicare taxes, and funding sources for Joe Biden’s roughly $1 million pay for an alleged “no-show” job at the University of Pennsylvania after his vice presidency and the costs of his ritzy DC office provided by the school.
Are there tapes backing up a $10 million Burisma bribe allegation?
Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, allegedly told a paid FBI informant in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $10 million in bribes to the Bidens in exchange for VP Biden’s help ousting Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, who was canned by a vote in Kyiv’s parliament in March 2016.
Zlochevsky allegedly kept two audio tapes of Joe Biden, 15 tapes of Hunter Biden and incriminating financial records, according to an FD-1023 FBI file released in July by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
The tipoff was reviewed by the Pittsburgh FBI office in 2020 and referred to the Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ office for further review. Weiss has refused to provide information on the allegation to congressional Republicans, saying in July that it’s part of an “ongoing investigation.”
President Biden snarked in June, “Where’s the money?”
It’s unclear what Weiss or the FBI did to further investigate. House Republicans have looked into the 2016 creation of a Maltese bank account for Hunter by Burisma and Grassley chose not to redact from the file the name of an alleged witness, Alexander Ostapenko, who might be able to corroborate the claims.
Who did Hunter call in DC with Burisma partners in December 2015?
Hunter stepped away from a December 2015 meeting at the Four Seasons in Dubai to “call DC” with Zlochevsky and Burisma board advisor Vadym Pozharskyi, the first son’s former business partner Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee on July 31.
“Listen, I did not hear this phone call, but he — he called his dad,” Archer said.
There may be records that establish whether Joe Biden took the call. Democrats, meanwhile, say that Hunter may have been calling DC to communicate with lobbyists hired by Burisma.
In addition to the alleged bribes, Burisma paid Hunter up to $1 million per year to serve on its board, beginning in April 2014 when his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Why did US policy shift toward Shokin?
The Oversight Committee, which is leading the impeachment inquiry alongside the Judiciary and tax-focused Ways and Means Committees, on Tuesday demanded that the State Department share records on Joe Biden’s role steering Ukraine policy under President Obama — including his apparently sudden decision to demand Shokin’s ouster in exchange for $1 billion in US loan guarantees.
Obama-Biden administration emails published last month by Just the News indicate officials were surprised that Biden was pushing for Shokin’s ouster as a condition of receiving foreign aid.
“Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them on Tuesday,” National Security Council aide Eric Ciamarella alleged wrote in a Jan. 21, 2016, email, adding that “we were super impressed with the group” from Shokin’s office that visited DC.
Biden has publicly claimed credit for forcing Shokin from office and he spoke on the phone four times in February and March 2016 with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and once with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk as he pushed for Shokin’s ouster.
Comer’s latest request seeks from the State Department all “transcripts and notes (handwritten or
otherwise)—made in the course of phone calls between then-Vice President Biden and Ukrainian officials from January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2016.”
Why did Joe Biden meet with Hunter’s Chinese business partner on a 2013 trip to Beijing?
Hunter Biden cofounded the Chinese state-backed investment fund BHR Partners in December 2013 shortly after arriving aboard Air Force Two in China’s capital, where he introduced his vice-president father to BHR’s incoming CEO Jonathan Li.
Joe Biden had coffee with Li during the trip — rather than a handshake as previously reported — Archer told the Oversight Committee.
Archer said that Biden greeted Li on speakerphone during a subsequent Hunter Biden trip to China.
Joe Biden also wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s two children.
What happened to Hunter’s 10% stake in a Chinese investment fund?
BHR was registered in 2013 just 12 days after the Bidens arrived in China, the Wall Street Journal reported, and Hunter held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his dad’s first year as president.
The terms of his alleged 2021 divestment have not been disclosed by the White House or Biden family.
Hunter Biden’s “paid-in capital” to establish BHR Partners was $425,000, according to corporate registration records, the Journal reported. It’s unclear how much he received for his stake or from whom, though purported leaked records show Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris may now control the shares.
The investment prompted GOP allegations of Biden having conflicts of interest on matters such as pressing China for answers on the origins of COVID-19 and demanding an end to fentanyl exports causing a surge in US overdose deaths.
BHR Partners played an important role in foreign acquisitions for Chinese firms, including facilitating the transfer of a Congolese cobalt mine from US and Canadian companies to a Chinese one in 2016. Cobalt is an important component of electric car batteries.
Why did Joe Biden dine twice with Hunter’s Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani business partners?
Archer revealed that as sitting vice president, Joe Biden dined not once but twice at DC’s Cafe Milano restaurant with Hunter’s Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani business partners.
The first meal allegedly occurred in the spring of 2014 and featured a Kazakhstani delegation and the former first lady of Moscow Yelena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million that February to a corporate entity controlled by Archer and Hunter.
A different source told The Post that Baturina also attended the subsequent April 2015 dinner.
Burisma exec Pozharskyi’s thank-you note to Hunter for the opportunity to meet with Joe Biden formed the basis of The Post’s explosive first report on Hunter Biden’s laptop and directly contradicted the president’s longstanding claim he “never” discussed business with his relatives.
What happened to Baturina’s $3.5M? And how has she escaped Biden sanctions?
It remains unclear how much of the $3.5 million from Baturina may have flowed to Hunter — and how it is that Baturina has avoided President Biden’s sanctions against Russia’s business elite over the war in Ukraine.
Another Russian billionaire associated with Hunter Biden, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, has also avoided sanctions.
The Oversight Committee has charted the flow of $3.5 million from Baturina to some extent. The initial recipient Rosemont Seneca Thornton transferred $750,000 to Archer on March 11, 2014, and another $2,752,711 the same day to Rosemont Seneca Bohai.
Archer testified that Rosemont Seneca Bohai was held 50:50 by himself and Hunter Biden. On March 25, most of that money was in turn transferred to a different Rosemont Seneca Bohai account — with two transfers for $2,246,111 and $200,000 on the same day, the committee said in a recent report.
Archer said he didn’t know the reason the money was transferred, but that Baturina invested more than $100 million in a real estate fund he controlled.
The extent of Yevtushenkov’s financial dealings with Hunter are even murkier, though laptop records show they met twice while discussing real estate investments.
A former Yevtushenkov associatetold The Post that the billionaire, who until recently controlled Russian military contractors, expressly said he was seeking out a quid pro quo amid a long-running Justice Department investigation of his cellphone provider for bribing Uzbek officials.
The case was later settled with an $850 million fine by the Trump DOJ.
“He made it very clear to me that … ‘I think it would be good to have a good relationship with this guy … maybe he can do a favor for us and we can do a favor for him,’” the source said. “I told him that’s not the way it works in America, [but] he basically laughed at me and told me I was so naïve.”
What about the ‘big guy’ references?
Biden was penciled in for a 10% cut as part of a venture with Chinese government-linked CEFC China Energy, according to a May 2017 email, and his family earned roughly $6 million through that venture.
He also was referred to as the “big guy” in the Burisma informant file created in June 2020, despite the nickname not being public knowledge at the time.
The president told The Post in June it was a “dumb question” to ask why he was referred to ask the “big guy” in the Ukraine file after more famously being given the nickname in the CEFC deal, in which Hunter’s partner James Gilliar wrote the proposed distribution.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski met with the FBI in late 2020 after claiming he met twice with Joe Biden about the CEFC deal. Bobulinski may be called to testify to the House about what he knows.
Did Hunter talk to his dad after meeting a Romanian client?
Hunter earned more than $1 million working for corrupt Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu from November 2015 to May 2017 as his vice-president father campaigned against corruption in Romania.
Hunter referred Popoviciu to former FBI director Louis Freeh to challenge a corruption case against him. Freeh called Hunter Biden in July 2015 just two hours before Hunter was scheduled to meet with his dad, according to abandoned laptop records.
Hunter flew to Romania on Nov. 15, 2016, for a two-day trip to represent Popoviciu before the National Anticorruption Directorate. Hunter had a “breakfast with dad” two days after his return.
Was Joe Biden present for Hunter’s Chinese shakedown?
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who led the tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden for more than three years, provided the House Ways and Means Committee a WhatsApp text message in which Hunter demanded money from a Chinese government-linked businessman by threatening his father’s wrath.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter allegedly wrote.
“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
“I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” Hunter reiterated.
Within 10 days, $5.1 million flowed from CEFC to the Biden family, according to transfers reported in a 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees.
Shapley said tax investigators were barred by the Justice Department from determining if geolocation data placed the two men together, though photos from Hunter’s laptop show he was at his dad’s Wilmington, Del. home that day.
Who paid for Hunter’s art?
Hunter Biden sold at least $1.3 million in novice artworks since his father took office, according to a recent report by Business Insider — after Manhattan gallerist Georges Berges refused House Oversight Committee demands for a list of buyers, citing influence-peddling and money laundering concerns.
Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real-estate investor and philanthropist, reportedly bought one of Hunter’s works. Naftali also was able to score many visits to the Biden White House and a presidential appointment to a prestigious board.
An unknown buyer bought 11 artworks for a total of $875,000, Business Insider reported.
