Over the past 24 hours, with a vote to formalize the impeachment investigation into President Biden looming in the House, Republican lawmakers have been pressed to identify what, exactly, they think Biden did. After all, a lot of Republicans — including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) — have publicly rejected the idea that evidence implicating Biden in wrongdoing exists.
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So what is their much-hyped evidence pointing at? Asked that question, lawmakers’ answers varied dramatically, which is what happens when you ask a novice fisherman what he hopes to catch.
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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), for example, told CNN that “there’s plenty of proof” of Biden wrongdoing, presumably involving the crimes Donalds identified during a speech from the House floor: “bribery, co-conspirator to [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations — and we can go on and on.” He did not go on and on.
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Asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity whether Republicans were looking at the investigation as “a bribery scandal, a money laundering scandal and an influence-peddling scandal” involving the president, the three Republicans running the impeachment inquiry offered different answers. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.) said it could be “a multitude of numerous items.” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said “bribery,” “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice” were what they were looking at.
Biden impeachment inquiry: Why and what's next?
2:50
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), and Oversight Committee’s Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) discuss the Biden impeachment inquiry. (Video: Ross Godwin/The Washington Post)
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) offered Hannity a briefer answer: Yes, that’s what they were investigating. All of that. At once. In obvious hopes that something incriminating might shake loose.
On Tuesday morning, he appeared on Fox Business to speak with Maria Bartiromo, one of the primary boosters of this Republican effort.
“We’ve talked about the potential of money laundering and bribery,” Bartiromo said. “What can you tell us about the evidence?”
Comer’s response was a very useful distillation of the purported evidence — and a good demonstration of why he and his allies are scrambling to figure out how to summarize their argument.
Here’s what he said — and how it is misleading or dishonest.
“We’ve got over $24 million that we know of — we think there’s more — $24 million that the Bidens have taken in.” This is untrue. In August, The Washington Post looked at the payments on which Comer’s committee has focused. (There has been no significant new revelation from Oversight since that point.) We found that, yes, millions of dollars were paid to Joe Biden’s son Hunter and his business partners — but that most of that money went to people other than Hunter Biden, James Biden (the president’s brother) or any other member of the Biden family.
Our assessment “works out to be about $23 million in total payments from foreign sources,” we wrote at the time. “Of that, nearly $7.5 million can be fairly attributed as going to ‘Bidens,’ but virtually all of it went to Hunter Biden.” None of it, we added, had been traced to Joe Biden. Since that point, the Oversight Committee has invested a great deal of energy highlighting payments from James Biden to his brother and from Hunter Biden’s law firm to his father — in both cases, demonstrably in repayment of loans.
Notice, though, how this all nonetheless becomes “the Bidens,” shoving Joe Biden up against his son and brother in hopes that he’ll be stained by implication.
“They’ve run them through a series of LLCs that even the banks said serve no purposes. We call that a shell company. [A] shell company is a company that doesn’t produce a good or service or has any assets or anything like that.” In that August assessment, we also considered this issue of “shell companies,” noting that the term has a gauzy definition. But most of the corporate entities formed by Hunter Biden and his partners did have stated purposes. One, for example, was the aforementioned Biden law firm.
On Thursday morning, the Associated Press reported that Comer himself used a “shell company” for real estate purposes — something that some of the “shell companies” involved in his investigation also did. (Bartiromo asked him about it; Comer claimed that it was an example of the reporter’s “financial illiteracy.”)
“And then they laundered the money down to the Biden family members — 10 Biden family members — and we say ‘launder’ through the Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed with Treasury. Six different banks accused the Bidens of money laundering. That’s a serious crime, Maria.” It is true that money laundering is a serious crime. It is not demonstrably true that six banks accused “the Bidens” of money laundering.
Comer has for months pointed to Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) centered on “the Biden family,” which here again primarily means Hunter Biden. House Democrats note that many of the SARs include “erroneous or unfounded claims” and none focus on the president.
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Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays.
So what is their much-hyped evidence pointing at? Asked that question, lawmakers’ answers varied dramatically, which is what happens when you ask a novice fisherman what he hopes to catch.
Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip Bump
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), for example, told CNN that “there’s plenty of proof” of Biden wrongdoing, presumably involving the crimes Donalds identified during a speech from the House floor: “bribery, co-conspirator to [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations — and we can go on and on.” He did not go on and on.
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Asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity whether Republicans were looking at the investigation as “a bribery scandal, a money laundering scandal and an influence-peddling scandal” involving the president, the three Republicans running the impeachment inquiry offered different answers. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.) said it could be “a multitude of numerous items.” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said “bribery,” “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice” were what they were looking at.
Biden impeachment inquiry: Why and what's next?
2:50
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), and Oversight Committee’s Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) discuss the Biden impeachment inquiry. (Video: Ross Godwin/The Washington Post)
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) offered Hannity a briefer answer: Yes, that’s what they were investigating. All of that. At once. In obvious hopes that something incriminating might shake loose.
On Tuesday morning, he appeared on Fox Business to speak with Maria Bartiromo, one of the primary boosters of this Republican effort.
“We’ve talked about the potential of money laundering and bribery,” Bartiromo said. “What can you tell us about the evidence?”
Comer’s response was a very useful distillation of the purported evidence — and a good demonstration of why he and his allies are scrambling to figure out how to summarize their argument.
Here’s what he said — and how it is misleading or dishonest.
“We’ve got over $24 million that we know of — we think there’s more — $24 million that the Bidens have taken in.” This is untrue. In August, The Washington Post looked at the payments on which Comer’s committee has focused. (There has been no significant new revelation from Oversight since that point.) We found that, yes, millions of dollars were paid to Joe Biden’s son Hunter and his business partners — but that most of that money went to people other than Hunter Biden, James Biden (the president’s brother) or any other member of the Biden family.
Our assessment “works out to be about $23 million in total payments from foreign sources,” we wrote at the time. “Of that, nearly $7.5 million can be fairly attributed as going to ‘Bidens,’ but virtually all of it went to Hunter Biden.” None of it, we added, had been traced to Joe Biden. Since that point, the Oversight Committee has invested a great deal of energy highlighting payments from James Biden to his brother and from Hunter Biden’s law firm to his father — in both cases, demonstrably in repayment of loans.
Notice, though, how this all nonetheless becomes “the Bidens,” shoving Joe Biden up against his son and brother in hopes that he’ll be stained by implication.
“They’ve run them through a series of LLCs that even the banks said serve no purposes. We call that a shell company. [A] shell company is a company that doesn’t produce a good or service or has any assets or anything like that.” In that August assessment, we also considered this issue of “shell companies,” noting that the term has a gauzy definition. But most of the corporate entities formed by Hunter Biden and his partners did have stated purposes. One, for example, was the aforementioned Biden law firm.
On Thursday morning, the Associated Press reported that Comer himself used a “shell company” for real estate purposes — something that some of the “shell companies” involved in his investigation also did. (Bartiromo asked him about it; Comer claimed that it was an example of the reporter’s “financial illiteracy.”)
“And then they laundered the money down to the Biden family members — 10 Biden family members — and we say ‘launder’ through the Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed with Treasury. Six different banks accused the Bidens of money laundering. That’s a serious crime, Maria.” It is true that money laundering is a serious crime. It is not demonstrably true that six banks accused “the Bidens” of money laundering.
Comer has for months pointed to Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) centered on “the Biden family,” which here again primarily means Hunter Biden. House Democrats note that many of the SARs include “erroneous or unfounded claims” and none focus on the president.
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