By Samantha Flom
More bank records pertaining to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s probe of the Biden family’s business dealings will be released this week, according to Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
The congressman was in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, on Aug. 5 hobnobbing with voters and the rest of his state’s top politicians at the annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic—often viewed as the state’s premier political event. In between handshakes, however, he found time to chat with the press about the next steps in his ongoing investigation of the Biden family.
“This next week, we will release more bank records—we’ll do our third bank memo—where we show some interesting wire transfers and some suspicious bank activity that I think the American people will have a lot of questions about,” the congressman told CNN in an interview.
In an email to The Epoch Times, an Oversight Committee spokesperson added that the new bank memo will likely be released “later this week” and pertains to transactions with Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.
Latest Developments
Throughout their investigation, Mr. Comer and his fellow Oversight Committee Republicans have maintained that President Joe Biden and his family members enriched themselves by selling access to his office.
According to the committee, subpoenaed bank records (pdf) show that nine of the president’s family members received at least $10 million in payments from foreign nationals, starting during his term as vice president. The documents also show that, before reaching those family members’ bank accounts, the funds were funneled through a network of at least 20 shell companies.
Last week, the committee interviewed Devon Archer, a former associate of first son Hunter Biden.
Describing the two men’s business relationship during an Aug. 5 appearance on Fox News, Mr. Comer said: “They didn’t have a legitimate business. Their business was influence peddling, and that’s what Devon Archer testified in the transcribed interview. They were simply selling ‘the brand,’ which was Joe Biden.”
The president has repeatedly claimed that he has never had any involvement in the business activities of his son or other family members. But the transcript of Mr. Archer’s closed-door testimony, released publicly on Aug. 3, paints a different picture.
Specifically, Mr. Archer testified that the value the first son brought as a board member to Burisma Holdings, a now-defunct Ukrainian energy firm, was primarily the Biden family “brand.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), seeking clarification, asked: “When you say, ‘Biden family,’ … you aren’t talking about Dr. Jill [Biden] or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?”
“Yeah, that’s fair to say,” Mr. Archer replied.
And while he also testified that then-Vice President Biden had no “direct” involvement with Burisma, he added that the so-called Biden brand was essential to keeping the embattled company afloat.
“My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” he said.
Another highlight of Mr. Archer’s testimony was the news that the younger Biden would often have his father chat via speakerphone with his foreign business partners during meetings.
Further building on that revelation in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Archer described the president’s claims of having no involvement in his son’s business dealings as “categorically false.”
More Witnesses
Mr. Archer is the latest in a string of witnesses to provide bombshell testimony to the committee relating to the Bidens.
Recently, two IRS whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm on what they perceived to be preferential treatment of Mr. Hunter Biden during an ongoing federal investigation of his taxes.
And according to Mr. Comer, the committee has even more witnesses they are planning to interview.
“We’re going to bring in additional people,” he told Fox News. “There are about five or six people whose names were also on these shell companies, these fake companies that the Bidens were using to launder money from these foreign nationals.”
In May, the congressman made waves when he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that a key informant linked to allegations that the president was involved in a pay-to-play bribery scheme had gone “missing.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant—we’re hopeful that the informant is still there,” he said on May 14.
He continued: “Nine of the 10 people that we’ve identified that have very good knowledge with respect to the Bidens, they’re one of the three things, Maria: They’re either currently in court, they’re currently in jail, or they’re currently missing.”
One such witness has since been identified as Gal Luft, a former Israeli Defense Force colonel who is facing charges of arms trafficking, among others. He was arrested in February in Cyprus but fled after being released on bail.
A dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, Mr. Luft has said the charges against him are politically motivated.
“I’ve never been an arms dealer,” he wrote in a Feb. 18 X post. “[The Department of Justice] is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden. Shall I name names?”
Other claims of retaliation have been made in recent weeks as individuals have come forward with their testimony.
In the case of the two IRS whistleblowers, both believe they were retaliated against for voicing their concerns as they were subsequently removed from the investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes.
Meanwhile, Republicans have suggested that a letter the Justice Department sent two days before Mr. Archer’s testimony requesting the setting of a date for him to report to prison was tantamount to witness intimidation.
Mr. Archer was sentenced in February 2022 to a year and one day in prison for attempting to defraud a Native American tribe of almost $60 million in bonds.
However, Mr. Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said his client does not agree that the letter was meant as an intimidation tactic.
Tom Ozimek, Catherine Yang, and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
