Biden ignores question about claim 9 of his relatives got foreign cash

WASHINGTON — President Biden was in no mood Tuesday to discuss the House Oversight Committee’s claim that bank records indicate nine members of his family benefited from controversial foreign business dealings — doing his best to ignore the question at a Rose Garden event.

“President Biden, is it true that nine members of your family got millions from places like China?” The Post asked. “President Biden, did nine members of your family get millions from places like China? Is that allegation true, President Biden? Is it true, what House Republicans are saying?”

The 80-year-old president walked within about 15 feet of a reporter and almost certainly heard the query, but took off his sunglasses instead of approaching the press corps and walked straight ahead to the West Wing colonnade.

After not answering the questions, Biden posed for a photo with a group of female members of Congress, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), just outside the door to the Oval Office.

The Post again asked: “President Biden, do you have a response to House Republicans who say nine of your family members got money from overseas?”

Biden did not respond, instead walking into the presidential office.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) on Monday said after reviewing bank records that it appears nine members of the first family benefitted financially from such dealings.

“The Biden family enterprise is centered on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family,” Comer said. “We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine.”

Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge about or involvement with the foreign business interests of his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden in places like China, Mexico, and Ukraine — even though Biden himself regularly interacted with his relatives’ associates while vice president.

Comer last month revealed that at least three members of Biden’s family received a portion of $3 million wired in March 2017 from Chinese energy company State Energy HK to Biden family associate Rob Walker. Walker, in turn, transferred about $1,065,000 to Hunter and James Biden — in addition to the president’s daughter-in-law Hallie, who was married to the late Beau Biden before dating Hunter following Beau’s death from brain cancer in 2015.

Hunter Biden’s legal team confirmed last month that he, Hallie Biden, and James Biden received a portion of those funds.

The Washington Post previously reported that at least $4.8 million flowed to Hunter and James Biden from a venture with CEFC China Energy, with which State Energy HK was affiliated.

Joe Biden gave a broad denial of involvement on the White House lawn on March 17, despite his son’s confirmation of Comer’s prior revelation.

“Any reaction to the House GOP memo about your family dealings, sir?” a journalist asked Biden on the lawn.

“My family dealings?” the president replied.

The journalist clarified: “That Hunter Biden’s business associate sent over a million dollars to three of your family members.  Any reaction to that?”

“That’s not true,” the president said.

Biden has repeatedly made dubious denials about his family’s foreign income.

Republicans say such arrangements create conflicts of interest in foreign affairs and that it’s unclear what services Biden’s relatives provided in exchange for their employment.

Biden claimed in 2019 that he has “never spoken” with his son about “his overseas business dealings  and also said that “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses.”

Last year, NBC News journalist Kristen Welker, who moderated the final 2020 presidential debate, pressed then-White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield about the accuracy of Biden’s claim that “nothing was unethical” about his son’s business dealings in China and Ukraine and that “my son has not made money in terms of this thing about, talking about China.”

“We absolutely stand by the president’s comment,” Bedingfield said.

One of the Hunter Biden laptop documents reported by The Post ahead of the final 2020 debate showed that Hunter Biden and Jim Biden were brokering a deal with CEFC and appeared to cut in Joe Biden.

Joe Biden was referred to as the “big guy” in communications regarding the CEFC enterprise, according to two of Hunter’s former associates, and an email in May 2017 said he was due a 10% cut.

An October 2017 email from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas. 

Then-presidential candidate Biden also dismissed The Post’s reporting on laptop documents linked to overseas business relationships as a “Russian plant,” though it has since been broadly corroborated.

During the 2020 campaign, then-President Donald Trump likened Hunter to a “vacuum cleaner” that would suck up money for the Biden family wherever his father traveled.

House Democrats impeached Trump in December 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Hunter’s position on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma while his dad led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.

In 2013, Hunter co-founded with Chinese state entities BHR Partners, which was registered 12 days after he joined then-VP Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing.

Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip to China’s capital and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children. 

The current status of Hunter’s 10% stake in the firm, which says it manages nearly $2.2 billion in assets, remains unclear.

In 2015, Joe Biden hosted his son’s Mexican business associates at the vice president’s residence in Washington.

In 2016, Hunter Biden emailed one of them, Miguel Aleman Magnani, apparently while aboard Air Force Two with yet another business associate, Jeff Cooper, en route to Mexico, complaining that he hadn’t received reciprocal business favors.

At an April 16, 2015, dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano, then-VP Biden joined his son and a small group including Vadym Pozharskyi of Burisma, a trio of Kazakhstani leaders and the Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, the former mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov.

Baturina allegedly paid $3.5 million to a firm associated with Hunter Biden in February 2014 as she sought out US property investments.

Baturina and another Russian billionaire who shopped property with Hunter have so far avoided President Biden’s sanctions against Moscow’s business elite over the invasion of Ukraine.

The first family’s pursuit of overseas income allegedly began even before Joe Biden took office as vice president in 2009.

James Biden openly boasted about selling influence to his brother, who was then the powerful ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he and Hunter sought to take over a New York-based hedge fund in 2006, according to the book “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power” by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.

“Don’t worry about investors,” James Biden allegedly told a corporate executive. “We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden… We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash.”

After his father assumed the presidency, Hunter Biden launched an art career seeking as much as $500,000 for his novice works. The House Oversight Committee is demanding that Hunter’s SoHo art dealer Georges Berges hand over a list of buyers.