Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, is not responding to repeated requests from The Epoch Times that he explain how President Joe Biden can never talk to Hunter Biden about his business dealings, while also claiming his son made no money working for China-connected clients.
Twice in recent days in emails following the May 10 release of Biden bank records by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, The Epoch Times has asked Sams to resolve the apparent contradiction between two of the president’s frequently repeated claims.
In the first, during the 2019 campaign, Biden told Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” But during his last debate with then-President Donald Trump during the 2020 campaign, Biden declared that “my son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China.”
The May 10 release included a 36-page memorandum summarizing the oversight committee’s findings. Committee investigators described examining thousands of bank records and legal documents depicting nearly two dozen limited liability corporations (LLCs) established by Biden family members to receive payments from private clients, corporations, and foreign governments, including China and Romania.
“Biden family members and business associates created a web of over 20 companies—most were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency,” the memorandum stated. “Bank records show the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies. The committee has identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office,” the memorandum continued.
The oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), told The Epoch Times that the two claims cannot both be true.
“President Biden continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth regarding his son Hunter’s shady foreign business dealings. He cannot claim to know nothing about his foreign business affairs and at the same time categorically deny material evidence of those affairs are true,” Comer said.
“President Biden’s statements are in direct conflict with each other and the logical conclusion, given that we have the bank records revealing his family’s influence peddling schemes, is that the president is lying. Our investigation will continue to separate fact from fiction and provide the truth to the American people,” he said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the oversight panel’s ranking Democrat, disputed Comer’s statements based on the memorandum, claiming that the bank records involved are “unverified” because they are Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) bank personnel are required by law to file with the Department of Treasury when they detect unusual money flows.
“Unable to implicate the President directly, Committee Republicans have resorted to using cherry-picked bank records, misrepresentations about confidential and unverified bank reports known as SARs, and baseless conspiracy theories to attack the President’s family, including his grandchildren,” Raskin said in a May 10 statement.
“Committee Republicans inexplicable misuse of these confidential law enforcement documents is not only irresponsible, it demonstrates the hyper-partisan nature of committee Republicans’ probe into the Biden,” stated a competing memorandum prepared by the committee’s Democratic staff members.
The Epoch Times submitted the same questions posed to Sams to a spokesman for Raskin, but similarly received no response.
Pressure is certain to continue heating up on the Biden bribery scandal because Comer, working in conjunction with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), issued a subpoena to the FBI to produce a copy of a document described by a whistleblower from within the bureau.
That document, an FT-1023 report, allegedly provides details of a bribery deal when Biden was vice president. The deal described in the unclassified FBI document involved money paid by a foreign national in return for a specific policy action within Biden’s purview.
“While the FBI has failed to produce the specific document by the subpoena deadline, their offer to provide an accommodation process in response to our legitimate request indicates the document is real. So the question remains, what did the FBI do to investigate very serious allegations from an apparent trusted FBI source implicating then-Vice President Biden,” Grassley said in a statement after the FBI declined to provide produce the requested document.
“Today’s letter from the FBI raises additional questions, including whether the FBI has an open investigation based on these allegations. The American people pay the FBI’s salaries, and they’re entitled to a fulsome response,” Grassley said.
“It’s clear from the FBI’s response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the committee. We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI’s position is ‘trust, but you aren’t allowed to verify.’ That is unacceptable. We plan to follow up with the FBI and expect compliance with the subpoena,” Comer said in the statement.
In a related development, a mysterious advocacy group known as Facts First USA released a letter in which it accused Comer of lying about having an informant who has disappeared after cooperating with the oversight committee’s probe of the Biden family finances.
“Representative James Comer recently revealed that the “informant” he is relying on for his unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden cannot be located. In truth, there is a strong possibility that the “informant” that Representative Comer has been speaking about does not exist. This would explain why Representative Comer never produces the evidence he says demonstrates criminal conduct on the part of the Biden family,” the letter claimed.
Facts First USA President David Brock is a longtime Democratic activist and media provocateur. In an October 2022 memorandum to potential supporters, Brock pitched them for support of the group he was then organizing in anticipation of Republicans retaking a majority of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections then approaching.
“Fortunately, the Biden administration is already planning internally for the barrage of investigations, bringing in [attorney] Dick Sauber and Ian Sams and structuring the White House Counsel’s office to be an effective force against the investigations. While a strong internal communications and legal team will undoubtedly serve the administration well as it grapples with the onslaught,” Brock observed.
Brock said Biden would need “a robust external force—a SWAT team with additional capacity” to combat Republican investigations. “An external operation will also allow President Biden to stay focused on his own preferred messaging during 2023 and 2024 and on his reelection campaign. We call this effort Facts First USA,” Brock pointed out.
A Comer spokesman told The Epoch Times, “Dark money organizations are attempting to intimidate congressional investigators who are shining a light on the Biden family’s shady business schemes. Chairman Comer has been clear that the whistleblower who has provided detailed information regarding the FBI’s evidence of a criminal bribery scheme involving Joe Biden is alive and well. We won’t be intimated by these groups’ theatrics and antics.”
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