Biden Bank Records Spark Two Strikingly Different Stories

A new batch of bank records showing alleged examples of an influence peddling scheme involving President Joe Biden has again ignited debate between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill over whether the evidence is as damning as the president's political opponents claim.

The documents, released as part of a new memo by Republican House Oversight Committee leadership on Wednesday, allege that the president was a direct party to son Hunter's business dealings with foreign business leaders in countries like Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine during his time as vice president, including occasionally dining with Hunter's business associates.

"During Joe Biden's vice presidency, Hunter Biden sold him as 'the brand' to reap millions from oligarchs in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine," House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said in a statement. "It appears no real services were provided other than access to the Biden network, including Joe Biden himself. And Hunter Biden seems to have delivered."

Previous memos released by the committee—including the one released Wednesday—never show explicit involvement by the then-vice president in his son's business dealings or clear evidence Biden ever profited from the deals, nor do they demonstrate any tangible policy changes made as a result of those dealings.

However, many Republicans Wednesday, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, hailed the findings as the "smoking gun" investigators have long been hoping for, and have even floated as potential motivation for an impeachment inquiry ahead of the 2024 election.

"[The House Oversight Committee] just uncovered $20 MILLION paid to the Biden Crime Family from Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan for access to the power and influence of Vice President Joe Biden," Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has sponsored several resolutions to impeach Biden, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, highlighting the memo. "And Joe Biden knew, he was at the dinners!"

"A smoking gun!" former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake wrote. "Concrete evidence that @JoeBiden received bribes from foreign oligarchs in exchange for influencing US foreign policy. Another damning revelation about Biden's corruption."

Except, according to Democrats, it wasn't.

Much of the evidence presented in Comer's third memo, Democrats noted, had already been made public. None of it showed the direct involvement of Joe Biden. And some $3.5 million of the $20 million in payouts claimed by Republicans did not involve the Bidens.

While former associates of Hunter Biden, including former Burisma board member Devon Archer, claimed that the vice president's son regularly sought to peddle the illusion of access to prospective clients, he stopped short of claiming Joe Biden was ever a party to the deals they made.

In public interviews and in closed-door testimony to the committee, Archer expressly denied allegations of any direct knowledge in the oil and gas giant's finances the former vice president may have had over the course of Archer and Biden's business relationship. Asked directly by congressional investigators whether Joe Biden had ever talked business at any of their dinners together, Archer was blunt.

"It was dinner conversation," he said according to committee transcripts obtained by Newsweek.

Democrats dismissed Comer's memo in the hours after its release, characterizing it as an "embarrassing attempt" to justify a baseless impeachment inquiry into a president they dislike.

"Committee Republicans have once again released information on financial transactions that do not involve the President," House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said in a statement provided to Newsweek. "Instead, they rehash the same Hunter Biden business dealings that Congressional Republicans identified at least three years ago.

"The evidence released since then—including the testimony of witnesses called and interviewed by the Republicans and the records reviewed as part of Chairman Comer's probe—have all clearly established that President Biden was not involved in his son's business dealings. Rather than concede this basic fact, Republicans have repeatedly twisted and mischaracterized the evidence in a transparent and increasingly embarrassing attempt to justify their baseless calls for an impeachment inquiry and distract from former President Trump's dozens of outstanding felony criminal charges in three different cases."