Attorneys for Hunter Biden are refuting claims from House Republicans that several direct monthly payments from a corporation owned and controlled by Hunter Biden to President Biden indicate the president’s involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings.
Instead, the younger Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, says the three $1,380 payments that occurred between September and November 2018 were just repayment for a 2018 Ford Raptor truck that President Biden purchased and Hunter Biden was using.
“There Chairman Comer goes again — reheating what is old as new to try to revive his sham of an investigation,” Lowell said in a statement. “The truth is Hunter’s father helped him when he was struggling financially due to his addiction and could not secure credit to finance a truck. When Hunter was able to, he paid his father back and took over the payments himself.”
The salesman at Bayshore Ford Truck Sales in Wilmington who sold President Biden the truck in June 2018 told the Wall Street Journal that the president bought the truck for $67,000 for his son whose credit “wasn’t worth spit.”
Salesman Jim Keen said Hunter Biden traded in two other vehicles at the time. A document on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop confirms the deal and supports Lowell’s claims about the repayments, according to the Wall Street Journal.
After 18 months, President Biden contacted the dealership and asked if they would buy the truck back, Keen said. The dealership bought the truck back though it was in bad condition, with “considerable mileage and cosmetic damage” and in need of “extensive repairs,” the report said.
At the time the payments were made, Hunter Biden bought the firearm that is at the center of his federal prosecution on felony gun charges. Biden is accused of lying about his drug use on a federal form required to purchase the gun.
When House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer released bank records showing the monthly payments from Hunter’s Owasco PC to President Biden, he said the payments established a direct benefit Biden received from his family’s foreign business dealings, despite Biden’s claims that he has never benefitted from or been involved in his son’s ventures.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer said in a new video detailing the findings. “At this moment, Hunter Biden is under an investigation by the Department of Justice for using Owasco PC for tax evasion and other serious crimes.”
Comer said the payments “are part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes.”
“As the Bidens received millions from foreign nationals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan, Joe Biden dined with his family’s foreign associates, spoke to them by speakerphone, had coffee, attended meetings, and ultimately received payments that were funded by his family’s business dealings,” the committee added in a press release.
Comer refuted the claims that the payments were a car loan repayment.
“They assume the majority of Americans at the end of the day are going to be financially illiterate. People know that if you make a loan, you receive a loan repayment, you should have a copy of the check that you made the loan to,” he said during an appearance on Newsmax.
“I mean they’re just not being honest with the American people. They want to say, ‘Well the president’s son couldn’t qualify for a truck loan’ for what, $40,000, but then China loans him $5 million, Russia loaned him $3.5 million, the list goes on and on. But he cant even get a car loan? It makes no sense,” he said.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the committee, dismissed Comer’s claims.
“As a private citizen, Joe Biden made car payments for his son, who paid him back,” Raskin said. “If Chairman Comer had any actual evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, he would not repeatedly resort to distorting the facts.”
But just last week, the committee released an email from a bank money-laundering investigator who expressed serious concerns about a transfer of funds from China that ultimately trickled down to President Biden in the form of a $40,000 check from his brother, James Biden.
Biden received a $40,000 personal check from an account shared by his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in September 2017 — money that was marked as a “loan repayment.” The alleged repayment was sent after funds were filtered from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with the Chinese energy firm CEFC, through several accounts related to Hunter Biden and eventually down to the personal account shared by James and Sara Biden.
Northern International Capital sent $5 million to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong on August 8.
On the same day, Hudson West III then sent $400,000 to Owasco, P.C., an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. Six days later, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James and Sara Biden. Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group on August 28 and then deposited the funds into her and her husband’s personal checking account later that day.
On September 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000.
An unidentified bank investigator sent an email on June 26, 2018 to colleagues raising concerns about money sent from Hudson West III to Owasco P.C. The email said the $5 million in funds sent from Northern International Capital to Hudson West III were primarily used to fund 16 wire transfers totaling more than $2.9 million to Owasco PC. The wires were labeled as management fees and reimbursements.
“We find it unusual that approximately 58 percent of the funds were transferred to the law firm in a few months and the frequency of payments appear erratic,” the investigator wrote in the email, which the committee shared with National Review.
The investigator said Hudson West III “does not currently have any investment projects at this time, which raises further concerns as millions in fees are being paid but does not appear to have any services rendered by Owasco PC.”
The email also points to news at the time that indicated China had been targeting children of politicians and purchasing political influence through “sweetheart deals.”
“Specifically, Hunter Biden’s $1.5 billion dollar deal with the Chinese-State to establish a private-equity firm in which they manage the funds over time and make huge fees,” the email said.
“The management company’s purpose is to invest in companies that benefit Chinese government,” it adds. “Thus, the activity on the account appears unusual with no current business purpose and along with the recent negative news … may require re-evaluation of [redacted] relationship with the customer.”