Investigation: Biden Received Millions in Payments from Romania, China

House Oversight Chairman James Comer laid out new details to support allegations that members of Joe Biden’s family, including his son Hunter received millions of dollars in payments from foreign entities in China and Romania, including when Biden was vice president, as reported by CNN.

The foreign payments raise questions about Hunter Biden’s business activities while his father was vice president, but the committee does not suggest any illegality about the payments from foreign sources. The bank records by themselves also do not indicate the payment’s purpose.

Payments from Romania

Bank records cited in the committee’s memo show that within five weeks of then-Vice President Biden’s meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in 2015, a Romanian who Hunter Biden was doing legal consulting, Gabriel Popoviciu, started sending money to Rob Walker, a business associate of Hunter’s.

Walker received more than $3 million from November 2015 to May 2017 and wired approximately $1 million in various installments to Hunter Biden, his business associate James Gillian, and Hallie Biden, the widow of the president’s oldest son, Beau Biden, who died in May 2015. Hallie Biden and Hunter Biden were romantically involved after Beau’s death.

This shadows all the efforts the US made to quench corruption in Romania. Headlines like “Corrupt Romanian Paid Biden Family $1 Million as Joe Biden Pushed Anti-Corruption Measures in Romania” erase all the American administration’s efforts in this direction.

As expected (it’s no longer a secret that Romanian diplomacy prefers not to answer questions or clear things out), there is no reply from Romania yet and no official reaction on the subject.

Payments from China

The memo also alleges that two Chinese nationals paid $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s professional corporation through a Chinese-backed energy company. Republicans claim that at least one of those individuals had ties to the Communist Party of China. These transactions and Hunter Biden’s relationship with a Chinese-backed energy company once his father left the VP’s office, have long been known.

The memo alleges that the two Chinese nationals were connected to CEFC, a Chinese energy conglomerate with a business relationship with Hunter Biden.

We all must understand this in the complex context of the political fight in Washington. Yesterday, former President Donald Trump went straight to CNN. Trump accused Biden, during the campaign three years ago, he received money from China, but Biden denied it. Now, Congress discovers evidence Trump was pretty right about it.

Weeks ago, Trump’s presence at CNN would have been inconceivable. But American politics might have entered the long straight line until next year’s elections. Countries like Romania are caught in a political war which it’s not theirs.

To be completely transparent about all that – no one says Biden family received dirty money to intervene or to solve a particular situation. But the simple act of receiving money from a convicted businessman while the American administration was pretty clear about corruption is enough to cast doubt on all the other legitimate efforts.