President Joe Biden restated he never discussed business with Hunter Biden’s associates, responding to testimony from one of his son’s former partners that he listened in on their calls and dined with them.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden restated he never discussed business with Hunter Biden’s associates, responding to testimony from one of his son’s former partners that he listened in on their calls and dined with them.
Biden was asked Wednesday about comments his son’s former business partner, Devon Archer, made during an interview with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. Archer said Biden was repeatedly in the presence of his son’s associates, who were seeking connections inside the US government, but the group did not talk about their dealings and Biden did not get involved.
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden after an event in New Mexico about testimony “where one of your son’s former business associates is claiming that you were on speaker phone a lot with them talking business.”
“I never talked business with anybody,” Biden said. “I knew you would have a lousy question.”
Asked by Doocy why it was a lousy question, Biden responded, “Because it’s not true,” and walked away.
In a transcript of closed-door testimony released by the Oversight Committee, Archer testified that Biden, when he was vice president, spent time with his son’s business associates. Archer told the committee Hunter would put his father on speaker phone during calls and that Biden dined at Washington’s Café Milano restaurant with some of those associates.
Hunter Biden made money from foreign companies and individuals while his father was vice president, but there’s no proof that Joe Biden influenced or was aware of those dealings. President Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of or involvement in his son’s business dealings and said he is proud of Hunter’s recovery from addiction.
Read more: Why Hunter Biden Remains a Washington Preoccupation: QuickTake
House Republicans have launched investigations into the business dealings of Biden family members, seeking to promote unverified claims that Joe and Hunter Biden engaged in corruption and have pushed Archer’s testimony as evidence of wrongdoing, even though he did not substantiate the GOP’s most explosive allegations.
“It’s clear Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings and allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family while he was Vice President of the United States,” House Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said in a statement Wednesday.
Comer released a memo on the investigation’s findings, which claimed a new tranche of bank records show Biden family members and their business associates took in at least $20 million from foreign business sources, including Hunter Biden’s associates in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
The top Democrat on the Oversight panel said Archer’s testimony showed Biden never actually involved himself in his son’s dealings and that none of the bank records Comer released showed any payments to Biden.
“Committee Republicans have once again released information on financial transactions that do not involve the President. Instead, they rehash the same Hunter Biden business dealings that Congressional Republicans identified at least three years ago,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
White House spokesman Ian Sams, in a post on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, called Biden’s response Wednesday “100% accurate.”
“Fox News may try to ask false questions and then gin up the right-wing media disinformation machine,” Sams wrote. “But facts are facts.”
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