On Wednesday, Republican staff on the House Oversight Committee are seeing for the first time dozens of “suspicious activity reports” flagged by US banks in connection with transactions involving Biden family members and associates.
The committee chairman, Rep. James Comer, has been pushing for access to information as part of what he calls “influence peddling” by the Biden family, and Treasury granted the request Monday.
That created the opportunity for Comer’s staff, who are focusing their efforts on the business practices of Biden family members, to go to the Treasury Department to see the sensitive information in person.
Oversight Committee staff will begin reviewing suspicious activity reports on camera at the Treasury Department on Wednesday afternoon. The SARs are the ones included in Chairman Comer’s January 11 application,” a spokeswoman for the committee told DailyMail.com.
CBS News has reported that financial institutions made 150 submissions of “suspicious activity” related to electronic transactions for Hunter Biden or the president’s brother, James Biden. The reports trigger a security review and include issues such as large wire transfers, but do not necessarily mean that something inappropriate has occurred. The committee’s action comes after Comer quietly subpoenaed Bank of America to obtain the financial records of a Hunter Biden associate.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, (r) R-Ky., secured the opportunity for committee staff to view suspicious activity reports filed by financial institutions
Comer, and a pair of senior Republican senators who investigated Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election, have long had business dealings in China and Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company in their sights.
Comer claims he has obtained new bank and Treasury records potentially implicating an unidentified Biden “family member” who has not previously been identified as part of what has been described as “influence peddling.”
Comer made the comment to Fox News after announcing that his panel obtained Treasury Department documents known as “suspicious activity reports” that it has been requesting.
His claim comes days after it was revealed that the committee quietly subpoenaed Bank of America for information about the financial dealings of a Hunter Biden associate, John R. Walker.
“I am not going to reveal that new name because that really changes things, because what we assumed was that it was just the son of the president and his two brothers, but now a new name has come up. And they are a Biden’, Eat told Fox News host Bill Hemmer on Tuesday.
The documents are being viewed ‘behind closed doors’ at the Treasury, rather than being handed over to the committee.
James Comer said a “new name” has come up in his committee’s investigation, and that the person is “a Biden.” Comer specified that the person is not Hunter Biden, nor the president’s brothers, Frank or Joe Biden, which means he was someone new.
“So we have a problem here with respect to trying to determine what exactly this family was doing to receive these transactions from China,” he said, suggesting a coordinated effort. “This is important, and I think all Americans should be concerned about this issue of national security.”
Daytime host Bill Hemmer told the panel’s new chair that the information seemed “important,” and then warned, “Let’s see where it goes.”
“It’s been five years, a long time to investigate,” Hemmer added.
The White House has long denied that President Biden knew the inner workings of his family members’ businesses.
Hunter Biden is under federal investigation related to fiscal and financial matters. After Republicans won the House, Comer said he would investigate ‘influence peddling’
That came hours after Comer made a similar claim on opinion host Sean Hannity’s show, where he explained that Bank of America records revealed a $3 million transaction from a Chinese energy company to Biden associate Walker. .
‘Two weeks ago, Sean, I subpoenaed a bank to get records of three different former business associates of Hunter Biden. One such partner in particular was Rob Walker. We have your account. We confirmed that account about two months after Joe Biden left the vice president’s office, he received a $3 million wire transfer from two people directly associated with the Chinese Communist Party.
He said the next day Walker’s account “began transferring money to the accounts of three different Biden family members, including a new Biden family member who had never before been identified as someone involved in the influence peddling scheme.” “.
He called it “very serious information.”
“It shows a pattern that the Biden family was receiving money directly from China and the question I have Sean is what were they doing in exchange for that money? This is just one account, there are many more accounts and many more associates,’ he said.
Comer did not provide evidence of wrongdoing by members of the Biden family, and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee previously issued a report detailing transfers to an LLC for Walker’s company.
His accusations came a day after the top Democratic panel Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote a scathing letter accusing Comer of running a “political fishing net” seeking to uncover private details about Walker’s life, with bank records covering a ‘chilling period of 14 years.’
Raskin seems to have learned of the summons from the majority, but reprimanded Comer in his letterdated Sunday, for exceeding a usual 48-hour notification period.
And he accuses Comer of prying into the private details of Walker, who participated in a joint venture with Chinese firm CEFC Energy, part of what Comer portrays as a web of entanglements that benefit members of the Biden family.
Raskin called the Bank of America subpoena “too broad.” He also noted that Comer had sought documents from the “estranged mother of Hunter Biden’s son” who sued him for paternity and child support, a reference to Lunden Alexis Roberts.
Comer claimed that there were three different members of the Biden family who got “a share” of the $3 million he mentioned, and he dismissed the idea that it could be for services rendered.
‘So our question is, what exactly did they do to receive that money? What was the purpose of that $3 million transfer?’
“Now, that’s just the first wire we’ve been able to get from the bank records,” he continued. There are many, many more.
