Another update of Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House
Oversight Committee and his investigation aimed at the entire Biden family on
charges of financial corruption that this “new” GOP is hunting for like I said:
“Searching for zebras in the forest” and oh, BTW: “Zebras don’t live in the
forest!!!”
This latest from Yahoo.news and it supplements
all that follows in my recent post here on this same
wild-goose chase by Comer.
The headline:
“Where
the GOP's investigations into President Biden's family members stand”
Main points from this
update:
Congressional Republicans on the House Oversight Committee
released new details this week about business dealings by PresidentBiden’s brother James Biden and son Hunter Biden during
his vice presidency. Republicans say the records provide “indications of
influence-peddling by Biden’s relatives.
The Biden White House said the report is “Nothing more than innuendo and insinuation.”
The report says that James
and Hunter Biden were paid over $10 million by companies associated with
foreign countries or governments when Joe Biden was vice president.
It does not provide proof
of decisions made by then-Vice President Biden that were influenced by his relatives.
The key details thus
far:
Comer said: “The Biden business dealings risked our country’s national security.”
To prove that, Republicans know they need to give proof that President Biden made decisions or took actions as an elected official that were influenced by his brother’s or son’s financial deals.
Comer has yet to prove that, but
insists there is smoke.
Hunter Biden, for example, was hired
as a lawyer to advise Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu,
who was under investigation for bribery related to a land deal at a time then
when Joe Biden as Vice President was traveling to that country to speak against
corruption.
(I add to that point and the next two and ask: So, what?)
1. The Oversight report says: “The Biden family accounts received approximately $1.038 million between 2015
and 2017 from a legal entity that was reported to be Gabriel
Popoviciu’s Cypriot company.”
2. Hunter Biden also received over
$1 million from someone with links to a Chinese energy company in 2017.
These stories are years old.
Comer had predicted that
this week’s report would advance the story by providing new information about
the president’s connections to these business dealings.
The lack of any real new developments has opened Comer to
criticism that he is using government resources to rehash old stories in an
attempt to influence the 2024 presidential election.
Hunter Biden has said in the past that he showed “poor
judgment” in some of his business dealings. His statement can be read as an
acknowledgement that, at the very least, it’s not a good idea for the relatives
of politicians to make large sums of money advising clients who need help from
politicians.
Trump’s family (3 children
and son-in-law) conducted massive business overseas with
clients who could benefit from government action, which also drew criticism at
the time.
Synopsis of the Trump
family dealings: Here’s what to know about the conflict-of-interest
questions that have been raised by the foreign business dealings of Trump
family members, and how they compare to what’s known about Hunter Biden’s
ventures.
Donald Trump Jr: While
his father was in office, Trump Jr. traveled to Asia to promote the Trump
Organization’s projects.
1. On a business trip to India in 2018, he appeared
with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and flirted with giving a policy speech,
but ultimately decided not to as his father faced criticisms that his family’s
business dealings overseas could affect his foreign policy approach.
2. On a trip to Indonesia in 2019 to tout two
planned Trump-branded luxury resorts, Trump Jr. defended his continued involvement
in the family business amid allegations of conflicts
of interest.
3.A year before, Jr.’s business partner, Hary
Tanoesoedibjo, announced that their conglomerate was receiving a half billion dollars
from an arm of the Chinese government to build a theme park. Tanoesoedibjo,
himself the leader of an Indonesian political party, said the Trump resorts
were unconnected and not backed by Chinese funding.
Even before his father was elected President, Trump Jr. was
a focus of controversy for his decision to take part in an infamous meeting
with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower, which his father later was
intended to help the campaign get dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Note: It is illegal for campaigns to accept help from a foreign
government or from foreign nationals. Special counsel Robert Mueller later
investigated that meeting, and wrote in his report on his investigation that
“the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was
unlawful.”
Eric Trump: Also served as a Trump Organization executive while his father was in office. He also attended campaign and official events. As allegations about Hunter Biden swirled in 2019, Eric said: “Our family got out of all international business.”
That is not true. That same year (2019), Eric issued a celebratory tweet for a “new phase of development at a Trump property in Scotland.”
Ivanka Trump: She served as an adviser to the president and she had a West Wing office. Yet she continued to own her own clothing brand for a year and a half while serving in the White House before shutting it down in 2018.
The company depended on a foreign workforce, with production done in countries
like China and Indonesia.
Before shutting down, she had received several trademarks for
businesses in China and for voting machines around
the same time her father said he was working to help protect jobs at a Chinese
telecommunications company.
Experts told the New York Times in 2018 that the
timing did not seem to be unusual, but suggested that her famous name may have
benefitted her in the process.
Jared Kushner (Ivanka’s
husband and Trump’s son-in-law): Like his wife, Kushner also served as a
senior adviser to Donald Trump during his presidency. He was deeply involved in
the administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East, befriending the crown
prince of Saudi Arabia (MBS) and attempting to broker peace in the region.
Kushner was also involved in business deals in the region
during this period. In 2017, his family’s real estate company got $30 million from Menora Mivtachim,
one of Israel’s largest financial institutions. It was just one of the deals
the company made with connections to the region.
The same year, Kushner’s
sister promoted her family’s NJ building
while in Beijing, touting special investment visas to Chinese
investors.
That next summer, Brookfield Asset Management made a deal to pay 99
years of rent on a Manhattan skyscraper that Kushner’s
family’s real estate company owned – one
investor was from Qatar. Kushner said Qatar did not know about the deal
before it was made public.
Kushner’s family also had
previously sought a deal on the building with a Chinese firm.
Kushner’s big business ties in the Middle East continued after the Trump presidency.
Soon after he departed the
White House, a fund led by the Saudi crown prince (MBS) invested $2 billion in Kushner’s
private equity firm, while funds in the UAE and Qatar invested hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Another company partly
owned by Kushner received Saudi funds as
well. The deals have drawn criticism for, at minimum, creating the appearance
of Kushner receiving potential payback for his efforts while in the White
House.
Like Donald Trump Jr., Kushner’s meetings with Russian
contacts before the election also came under scrutiny. In addition to
participating in the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Trump Jr., Kushner
also spoke multiple times to the Russian
ambassador to the U.S. during and after the
2016 presidential campaign.
My 2 Cents: Simply stated
as clear as possible is that the comparison between the Biden family foreign
business dealings and the Trump family as outlined above is like comparing
apples to oranges – no comparison none whatsoever.
I’ll let the facts and
data above and elsewhere speak for itself.
The GOP aim is clear: Get
the Biden’s at any cost, while skipping over and not mentioning the Trump family and Jared Kushner as noted above.
Thanks for stopping by.
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