The Biden Family Business

Happy Tuesday! If you thought you might have held the world record for longest time living underwater without depressurization, think again.

Joseph Dituri has been at the bottom of a lagoon in Key Largo, Florida, since March 1—and “Dr. Deep Sea” isn’t planning on surfacing anytime soon. “The record is a small bump, and I really appreciate it,” the retired U.S. Naval officer said. “I’m honored to have it, but we still have more science to do.”

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Special Counsel John Durham—appointed during former President Donald Trump’s administration—issued a 306-page report criticizing the FBI’s investigation into allegations linking the Trump campaign and Russia ahead of the 2016 election. Durham found the collusion probe was opened based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” and that investigators placed too much stock in supposed evidence provided by Trump’s political rivals. The report also alleges the FBI was far more hesitant to investigate claims Hillary Clinton’s campaign had similar foreign ties. GOP Rep. Jim Jordan—chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government—said yesterday he’d invited Durham to testify next week.
• President Joe Biden announced Monday his intent to nominate cancer surgeon Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bertagnolli has led the National Cancer Institute since October, and if confirmed by the Senate, would fill a role at the NIH that has been vacant since December 2021, when Dr. Francis Collins retired. Bertagnolli said in December she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer herself, but that her prognosis was good due to early detection.
• The Department of Energy announced plans on Monday to purchase up to 3 million barrels of U.S.-produced sour crude oil in the coming months, with the sales awarded in June and oil delivered to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in August. The Biden administration sold off more than 200 million barrels from the SPR last year in an effort to bring down gas prices, and officials said last fall the Energy Department would begin restocking the reserve once costs had come down.
• A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a 78-year-old U.S. citizen to life in prison on espionage charges and seized more than $70,000 worth of the man’s personal property. John Shing-Wan Leung—who lives in Hong Kong—was first detained in April 2021, but the circumstances surrounding his arrest remain murky. The State Department declined to comment with any specifics, citing privacy concerns.
• Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia confirmed yesterday a man armed with a metal baseball bat attacked his district office in Fairfax, Virginia, on Monday, sending two staffers to the hospital with “non-life threatening injuries.” The 49-year-old assailant—who Connolly said asked to see the congressman before bludgeoning the staffers—was arrested and charged with one count of aggravated malicious wounding and another count of malicious wounding. His motive is not yet clear, but the assailant’s father said he suffers from schizophrenia.
• Former Vice President Mike Pence took another step toward launching a presidential campaign on Monday, blessing the creation of a super PAC that would support such a bid. Pence is widely expected to get in the race in the coming weeks, and the PAC—Committed to America—will be led by former GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling and longtime Republican operative Scott Reed. “People know Mike Pence, they just don’t know him well,” Reed told reporters yesterday. “This campaign is going to reintroduce Mike Pence to the country as his own man, not as vice president, but as a true economic, social, and national security conservative—a Reagan conservative.”

Where There’s Smoke?

In October 2020—just days before the presidential election—NBC News’ Kristen Welker had a question for Joe Biden about the allegations swirling around his son Hunter’s work in China and for a Ukrainian energy company while he was vice president: “In retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?”

“Nothing was unethical,” the Democratic nominee replied. Whether Biden truly believed that or not is anyone’s guess, but nearly three years later, it’s increasingly clear a whole lot of Americans have questions about the Biden family business. And as congressional Republicans continue to dig into the activities of the president’s brother and son, those questions are likely only going to grow louder. 

Last week, the House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer, a Republican of Kentucky, released a memo detailing financial information on more than 20 companies that received funds from foreign sources and channeled some of the money to Biden family members. The committee obtained the information from subpoenas of the bank records of businesses associated with the Bidens. The release follows a similarly-styled March memo claiming the family received money from a Chinese energy company via a business partner of Hunter Biden. Based on these findings, Republicans are trying to paint a picture of a corrupt scheme to cash in on political influence internationally—but they have yet to produce evidence the family broke the law or that President Biden had any role in wrongdoing. 

The financial records revealed in the memo show that 21 companies—most of which were formed while Biden was vice president—received more than $10 million in foreign payments. The money flowed to nine Biden family members including several of Biden’s grandchildren, but there is no indication in the documents that money was sent to President Biden. The source of the funds include Chinese and Romanian companies. In one example detailed in the memo, a Romanian company sent $179,836 to Robert Walker—a Biden family associate. Walker then transferred $59,000 from his business account to his personal account before finally sending it to an account owned by Hunter Biden. The pattern continued with additional payments over two years that eventually totaled $1 million.

Republicans argue business dealings like these suggest Hunter profited off the influence of his father’s office and that the fund transfers illustrate an attempt to conceal the foreign involvement. “The Bidens made millions from foreign nationals providing what seems to be no services other than access and influence,” Comer argued. 

But despite Republican insinuations, no evidence of illegal activity by Biden family members has surfaced.

“I don’t see any direct evidence of misconduct in the memo or reports about it,” Ken White, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor who worked on government fraud and public corruption, told TMD. “When it rises to the level of an official doing things because of payments to a family member, or paying money with the specific intent to change an official’s decision, that’s illegal. But hiring a public official’s idiot brother-in-law for your board of directors generally isn’t.”

Democrats have emphasized the lack of connection to President Biden. The Oversight Committee’s Ranking Member, Rep. Jamie Raskin, argued Comer “failed to provide factual evidence to support his wild accusations about the President.” And in a rebuttal memo, Democrats on the committee point out the financial reports include no ties to President Biden and no proof that then-Vice President Biden took any action in office that was related to the money from foreign sources.

Media coverage of the report also harped on the lack evidence proving corruption—an allegation Republicans have levied at the Bidens for years. Even some right-leaning outlets criticized Comer’s lack of proof. “I know the Republicans said that the smoking gun were these financial records that you were able to subpoena and got your hands on,” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy told Comer in an interview last week. “Your party, the Republican investigators, say that that’s proof of influence peddling by Hunter and James [Biden]. But that’s just your suggestion. You don’t actually have any facts to that point. You have got some circumstantial evidence.”

Comer responded by saying he knows President Biden participated in the business dealings—he referenced “informants” he’s spoken to who have yet to speak publicly on the issue. (Comer revealed on Sunday the committee has lost touch with at least one informant.) At the same time, Comer also admitted the committee is still looking for evidence to prove his claims: “We know that Joe Biden was actively involved, and we’re still looking for bank records that we believe will implicate Joe Biden’s active participation in this at the end of the day.” 

Comer’s getting the “Sure, Jan” treatment. “[It] smacks of making up your mind to attack the president first and then backfilling the allegations afterwards,” said Norman Eisen, a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution and special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment in 2020.

Yet even as Republicans take flak for overplaying their hands, the steady drip of stories and controversy surrounding the Biden family has heightened concerns, and President Biden’s past false statements claiming his son never made money from Chinese sources have also raised red flags.

Republicans are considering legislation that would introduce financial disclosure requirements for family members of the president and the vice president. And some Senate Democrats have expressed interest in the move as reported in Uphill. The Trump administration’s record on potential conflicts of interest and using political influence to make a profit has raised similar questions over the years. House Democrats have raised the alarm over the $2 billion Saudi Arabia invested in Jared Kushner’s private equity firm. 

“There’s a vast amount of activity that’s sleazy but legal in American politics,” White told TMD. “It’s reasonable to make inquiries about why a vice president’s relatives are getting big payments from foreign countries. But so far it’s smoke, not fire.”

If you’re interested in the latest on all the other strands of controversy surrounding the Biden family, here’s a quick roundup.

• The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden after a years-long investigation. The investigation initially concerned foreign lobbying and money laundering but reportedly narrowed to focus on alleged tax-related crimes and lying on a gun-purchase form. An unnamed IRS whistleblower agent came forward last month claiming political interference is hindering the investigation—the individual’s attorney is reportedly working with members of Congress to share evidence of his claims. Attorney General Merrick Garland responded to the allegations earlier this month by reaffirming the investigation’s independence from political bias. 
• Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to the FBI earlier this month requesting access to a bureau document brought to their attention by whistleblower disclosures that may detail an “alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.” (Comer followed the letter up with a subpoena.) But Grassley did not express confidence in the veracity of the allegation. “I wish I could say that I knew it was true or untrue,” he said in a NewsMax interview. The FBI declined the request and did not confirm or deny the existence of the document, explaining that the type of document, an FD-1023 form, is “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from a confidential human source.”
• The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees released a joint staff report last week claiming a letter signed by former intelligence officials during the 2020 election discounting the legitimacy of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop was coordinated with the Biden campaign and exploited the national security credentials of former officials. The report also says that a current CIA employee helped solicit signatures—a claim Democrats on the committees have contested.

Worth Your Time

• Even as other parts of Sudan experienced violence and strife in recent years, the capital of Khartoum remained largely safe. That changed on April 15 when fighting broke out between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces—born out of a repressive militia that committed atrocities in Darfur—and the Sudanese military. “The moment Abrar Elaliem realized she had to abandon her home in Khartoum was when two missiles soared past her front door and exploded in a yard just meters away. The subsequent blast shook the building so hard that paint fell off the walls,” Simon Marks and Mohammed Alamin report for Bloomberg. “Following the 2019 ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir, Khartoum started to loosen up. There were pop-up galleries, more coffee shops and even a KFC outlet, while more women decided to ditch their headscarves. Now, residents share their lives with a deadly group they’ve spent decades fearing, dodging bullets and trying to secure food supplies. RSF fighters have broken into the homes of people who have fled to create makeshift army camps. They have asked people to use their toilets and share their food, according to residents interviewed by phone.”

Presented Without Comment 

Washington Post: Wagner Chief Offered to Give Russian Troop Locations to Ukraine, Leak Says

Also Presented Without Comment 

NBC News: 1,500 Grams of Cocaine Fall Out of Woman’s Fake Pregnancy Belly During South Carolina Traffic Stop, Police Say

Toeing the Company Line

• Calling all Dispatch Book Club (🔒) participants: The next three books have been announced! This summer’s theme is “historical adrenaline,” and members can kick off their comment-section discussions of The Wager, Rawhide Down, and Manhunt today. Happy reading!

• It’s Tuesday, which means Dispatch Live (🔒) returns tonight at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT! Drucker will join Mike for an update from Iowa and they will, of course, take plenty of viewer questions! Keep an eye out for an email later today with information on how to tune in.
• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics team files from Iowa where proto-candidate Ron DeSantis is trying to drum up support for his imminent presidential bid, Nick calls out (🔒) Elon Musk’s free speech hypocrisy, and Kevin argues (🔒) no one is above negotiating, not even Biden.
• On the podcasts: David Lat joins Sarah to discuss all the latest Supreme Court news. 
• On the site: Mike reports on Pence’s new super PAC, Jason Blessing writes on the danger of Russia-Iran cyber cooperation, and Eric S. Edelman and Franklin C. Miller argue in favor of providing more sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine. Plus, Charlotte covers Turkey’s Election Day and previews the upcoming runoff vote: “They exploit us through religion,” one voter said from Istanbul. “They talk about our prophets and caliphs, but only they themselves live in the palace.” 

Let Us Know

Even before the latest GOP claims about the Biden family, there was abundant evidence Hunter Biden sought to trade on his father’s position and power. Donald Trump’s children have long done the same. Is this an inevitable part of our politics? Or should lawmakers consider tightening rules around the business activities of close relatives of politicians?