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House Republicans sent criminal referrals for Hunter Biden and James Biden to the Department of Justice on Wednesday.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel David Weiss, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., accused the men of making false statements during their transcribed interviews before the Oversight and Judiciary Committees.
The chairs wrote, “With respect to James Biden, he stated unequivocally during his transcribed interview that Joe Biden did not meet with Mr. Tony Bobulinski, a business associate of James and Hunter Biden, in 2017, while pursuing a deal with a Chinese entity, CEFC China Energy.” Additionally, he told the committees that “he did not attend a meeting with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Tony Bobulinski on May 2, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.”
However, James Biden’s “statements were contradicted not only by Mr. Bobulinski, but Hunter Biden,” according to the letter. The chairs cited text messages turned over to the committee from Bobulinski “that establish the events leading up to and immediately following his meeting with Joe Biden” on that day.
During his interview with the committees, Hunter Biden “falsely distanced himself” from Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC, and the corporation’s bank account “that was the recipient of millions of dollars from foreign individuals and foreign entities who met with then-Vice President Biden before and after transmitting money to the Rosemont Seneca Bohai Bank Account that then transferred funds to Hunter Biden.”
According to the committees, Hunter Biden allegedly “relayed an entirely fictitious account about threatening text messages he sent to his Chinese business partner while invoking his father’s presence with him as he wrote the messages.” The chairs wrote that Hunter Biden claimed that “he had transmitted this threat to an unrelated individual with the same surname.”
The chairs cited documents and bank records obtained and released by the Ways and Means Committee that “demonstrate conclusively that Hunter Biden made this threat to the intended individual, and bank records prove Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partners wired millions of dollars to him after his threat.”
Additionally, the letter stated, “A portion of the proceeds has been traced to Joe Biden’s bank account.”
The committee chairs expressed their belief about the motives behind the false statements in the letter, writing, “The nature of these false statements is not lost on the Committees: every instance implicates Joe Biden’s knowledge of and role in his family’s influence peddling.”
The chairs further expressed doubt about the veracity of Hunter Biden’s claim that “his father was not, in fact, sitting next to him when he transmitted the message.”
The letter noted that the committees had shown James Biden evidence that contradicted his claims about the business meeting and that he had been “given multiple opportunities to amend his response.” His decision not to change his testimony appeared “to be a clumsy attempt to protect Joe Biden from the reality that Joe Biden has indeed met with his family’s business associates,” wrote the chairs.
In the conclusion of the letter, the chairs described the alleged false statements to Garland and Weiss as “a conscious, calculated effort to insulate Joe Biden from the duly authorized impeachment inquiry.”
The committees recommended that both men be federally charged for making false statements and perjury. The letter also asks the DOJ to “consider Hunter Biden’s prior alleged criminal activity when evaluating whether to charge him,” as “he was also subject to two federal court orders stating that he could not commit any crimes while on federal supervised release” for his two other federal indictments.
