Everything you need to know about the Biden family's alleged influence-peddling scheme

Since early 2023, three House committees have investigated an alleged influence-peddling scheme run by the Biden family. In the process, they have obtained thousands of pages of financial records, text messages, emails, and testimonies revealing the high level of corruption surrounding President Joe Biden and his family. Most of the events would have occurred while Joe Biden was serving as vice president.

The House Oversight Committee identified at least 20 shell companies created by the Biden family, according to Representative James Comer, to "launder the money" they received from abroad, which then reached their personal accounts. According to the committee, the Bidens and their partners obtained more than $24 million from China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Romania between 2015 and 2019, when the current president served as vice president of the Obama Administration.

What was the Biden family business?

Hunter Biden's business partner, Devon Archer, said President Joe Biden was "the brand." The evidence suggests that several members of the president's close family, including his son Hunter Biden and his brother James Biden, received money from abroad and participated in businesses offering family influence and possible political favors from Joe Biden.

James Comer, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has said: "Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from these schemes. This is a national security threat at the highest level of government and Americans demand accountability for the Biden's corruption."

Representative Jason Smith, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has said: "Vice President Biden appears to have treated Air Force 2 like a corporate jet, traveling to Ukraine and Mexico to advance Hunter Biden's business interests. Evidence from today's documents show right around the time of international trips like those to Ukraine, Joe Biden was emailing his son and his son's business partner from private email accounts using aliases while Vice President."

The case of the Ukrainian company Burisma is perhaps the best-known example to illustrate how the alleged influence-peddling scheme operated. Hunter Biden was appointed to Burisma's board of directors without the necessary credentials for the position. According to the information obtained by the different committees, members of the company would have asked Hunter that his father, at that time Obama's vice president, use his influence to get the company out of trouble. Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and threatened to withhold money that had already been approved to be sent to that country, after which the prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired.

That's why Devon Archer, Hunter's business partner, has said Joe Biden was the brand. The matter is not only about the money that the Biden family would have obtained in exchange for favors and how they created dozens of shell companies to hide the origin of the money, but this is even a matter of national security. The different committees investigating the Biden family's businesses have pointed out the danger that Joe Biden has put the interests of the United States to benefit his family. So one of the many questions that this investigation tries to resolve is what favors Joe Biden, as vice president, would have given in exchange for the money received by his family from countries like China and Russia, known enemies of the United States.

Was President Biden directly involved?

Devon Archer has testified that Joe Biden spoke to his son's associates over loudspeaker more than 20 times, that he had dinner with prominent foreign billionaires and particularly with a Burisma executive, and that he also had coffee with one of his son Hunter's Chinese associates.

But in addition to the statements of witnesses who were present or who knew about those communications and meetings, the different committees involved in the investigation have found direct payments to Joe Biden's personal bank account and hundreds of communications in which the then-vice president used aliases to communicate with his son Hunter and his son's business associates.

If the president was unaware of his family's businesses, why did he receive payments to his personal bank account and hide his communications using aliases?

These are the findings that the different committees have made so far, following the money that reached Joe Biden's accounts:

Hunter Biden received wire transfers originating in Beijing worth more than $250,000 from his Chinese business partners. Some of those wire transfers had Joe Biden's home in Delaware as the address of the recipient of the funds.

The Oversight Committee received records of two transfers from Beijing linked to BHR Partners, a company of which Hunter Biden was part of the board of directors.

In 2018, James Biden, the president's brother, received $600,000 in loans from Americore, a financially distressed and bankrupt entity. According to the committee, the loans were based on the Biden name being able to open doors and obtain investments for the declining company. On March 1, 2018, Americore transferred $200,000 to James and Sara Biden's personal bank account, not their business bank account. The same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from that same account to Joe Biden.

In August 2017, Hunter Biden demanded $10 million from a Chinese business partner to promote one of his companies. At that time, Hunter claimed he was sitting next to Joe Biden and threatened his partner with retaliation if he did not give him the money. Just a few days later, $5 million flowed from a Chinese subsidiary of Hunter's partner's company to Hunter Biden's joint entity in China. For three weeks, members of the Biden family carried out a series of complicated financial transactions to hide the origin of that money.

Finally, Hunter's company in China sent $400,000 to one of its entities and then transferred $150,000 to an entity owned by James and Sara Biden. Sara Biden then withdrew $50,000 in cash from the entity and deposited it into her and James Biden's personal checking account. Days later, Sara Biden sent Joe Biden a check for $40,000. The subject of the check said: "loan payment."

The Oversight Committee released a 2018 email in which a bank raised severe concerns about money Hunter Biden received from China, of which $40,000 ended up in Joe Biden's bank account.

The Oversight Committee also released bank records revealing that Hunter Biden's business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. Hunter Biden is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for using that company's corporate account to evade taxes and other serious crimes.

In a statement, the Committee stated that the payments made by Hunter Biden, from the Owasco PC account to President Joe Biden, are part of a pattern that reveals that the current president did know about, participated in and benefited from the trafficking influence schemes of his family.