GOP Investigator Suspects Biden Family Dozen Part Of ‘Influence Peddling Scheme’ | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Daniel Chaitin.

    At least a dozen members of President Joe Biden's family may be taking part in an "influence peddling scheme," a leading Republican investigator said on Sunday.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) shared on Fox News some takeaways from a visit last week to the Treasury Department, where he said members viewed "thousands of pages of documents" concerning the Bidens.

    "I can tell you that there were more suspicious activity reports than had been previously reported, and many more Biden family members that were involved in the influence peddling scheme," he told anchor Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures."

    So far, Comer says nine Bidens are tied to shady business dealings uncovered by his panel. But, he predicted, "in the end, that number will be at least 12."

    "This was the Biden family influence peddling scheme," Comer said. "And when people say, well, they were involved in ventures around the world, I haven't found a legitimate business on the Biden end, Maria."

    Comer and other GOP members announced they had paid a visit to the Treasury Department on Monday following a breakthrough agreement allowing access to suspicious activity reports (SARs), which financial institutions can use to flag possible criminal behavior, for the Biden family and their associates' business transactions.

    The chairman left with deep suspicions about more than a dozen limited liability companies, or LLCs, that he suggested were part of a scheme with links to multiple countries that at the very least appears to circumvent rules requiring foreign agents to register with the U.S. government and ethics standards.

    "China was probably the most reputable country that the Biden family was dealing with. And the question remains, what were these family members doing to receive this money?" Comer said on Sunday. "There's no rhyme or reason for some of these Biden family members to receive any type of payment from our adversaries around the world, much less the number that we have uncovered."

    Democrats did not join their GOP colleagues on Monday but do have access to the same SARs documents, a committee aide told The Daily Wire.

    In a statement reported by The Daily Mail, Democrats accused Republicans on the panel of continuing to "mischaracterize Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) as evidence of misconduct or criminality, instead of calling them what they are: unsubstantiated tips that rarely result in any follow-up by law enforcement."

    Multiple members of the Biden family are already known to be of interest to GOP investigators.

    Comer announced last month that subpoenaed financial records dating back to Biden's time as vice president showed $1 million in indirect payments from a Chinese energy company to Biden's adult son Hunter Biden, brother James Biden, daughter-in-law Hallie Biden, and an unknown "Biden," adding fuel to concerns about influence peddling and business schemes.

    A spokesperson for Hunter Biden pushed back on the "baseless right-wing conspiracy," telling CNN that the president's son "received his portion of good faith seed funds" as part of a joint venture and then shared this money "with his uncle, James Biden, and Hallie Biden, with whom he was involved with at the time, and sharing expenses." President Biden, who has sought to distance himself from the business dealings of his family members, also rejected the GOP's findings.

    Comer said there are several reasons to believe the president played an instrumental part in delegating unsavory payments to his kin.

    "There are six specific decisions that Joe Biden made either as vice president or president that are very concerning to us that we believe could potentially lead back to payments that were made to these LLCs that were then laundered down to the Biden family members," he said. "So you have to look at the number of the LLCs and look at the transactions and look at the limited bank records that we have to realize the great lengths to which this family went to try to disguise the sender of the money and then deceive the IRS."

    The chairman also posited that, based on the information he has gathered, Hunter Biden should not be the only member of the Biden family under criminal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    "When we hear about the Biden family lawyers are meeting with the DOJ to talk about a potential indictment of Hunter Biden, I want to be very clear, Maria," Comer said. "It would be impossible for the Department of Justice to just cherry-pick Hunter Biden for an indictment and not do anything to the eight other Biden family members, because they were essentially doing the same thing and receiving the same types of payments from our adversaries around the world that Hunter Biden was doing."

    He added later: "There's not going to be anybody left for a Christmas picture if the DOJ did their job and went in there and indicted everyone that has any type of fingerprints involved in this influence peddling scheme."