President Joe Biden’s brother James Biden has agreed to a transcribed interview with House Republicans in February.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed James as part of its presidential impeachment inquiry and investigation into Hunter and President Biden.
Multiple Biden family members have denied involvement in Hunter’s business dealings, most notably the president himself, who said in 2019 that he “never discussed with my son, or my brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses, period.” The committee has deposed James in hopes that he can reveal knowledge of the president’s involvement with Hunter’s business dealings.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” Oversight chairman James Comer said in November. “Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence. Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family’s business schemes, bank records don’t lie. These records reveal how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around to the world to benefit the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself, to the detriment of U.S. interests.”
House Republicans discovered two “loan repayment” checks James and his wife Sara Biden sent to Joe Biden. One of the money transfers, the committee says, filtered through Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC China Energy.
“James Biden maintained a business relationship with Hunter Biden, and the two engaged in several business deals, including a deal with Chinese energy company CEFC China Energy (CEFC), which was closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party through its founder, Chairman Ye Jianming,” the committee said in its subpoena request. “Indeed, your client informed federal investigators that Hunter Biden told him ‘Chairman Ye was a protégé of President Xi.’ On November 1, 2023, the Oversight Committee released a Fourth Bank Records Memorandum revealing that Sara Biden—your client’s wife—issued a $40,000 check from a James and Sara Biden personal bank account to Joe Biden, originating from China and demanded by Hunter Biden as part of the CEFC deal.”
Text messages from Hunter Biden to CEFC associate Raymond Zhao, in which Hunter claimed that he was “sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” demanded a $10 million payment. Zhao responded that “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family,” at which point, House Republicans say, “$5,000,000 flowed in from a Chinese affiliate of CEFC. Over the following three weeks, Biden family members made a series of complicated financial transactions to hide the source of the China money.”
“There is nothing more to those transactions, and nothing wrong with them,” James’s attorney, Paul Fishman, said in November. “And Jim Biden has never involved his brother in business dealings.”
Biden family-friend John “Rob” Walker dispersed a million-dollar payout to Biden family members, including James, after Walker’s company received a $3 million payment from a CEFC-affiliate. In 2021, Walker told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service that the payment was a “thank you” from CEFC for “introductions on behalf of CEFC,” the committee reported. Walker also told the FBI in 2020 that Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden and officials from CEFC China Energy.
“Without his family peddling his name and his son threatening a CEFC associate with consequences that he said Joe Biden knew about, James wouldn’t have had the money to write the $40,000 check to his brother Joe,” Comer said last year. “It’s also worth remembering that Biden family efforts to secure millions from this Chinese company began when Joe Biden was still Vice President.”
Hunter Biden will appear before the committee just one week after his uncle James for a private deposition.