America's Talking - Oversight Committee Subpoenas Biden Family Members

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., signed and issued subpoenas Wednesday for Hunter Biden, the president’s son, James Biden, the president’s brother, and their business associate Bob Walker. Pointing to released bank records and testimony from IRS whistleblowers and Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business associate, Comer says the Biden family and associates received more than $24 million that was shuffled between about 20 shell companies. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, Vice President of News and Content at the Franklin News Foundation, which publishes the Center Square Newswire service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper. It's been another whirlwind week in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, among the biggest news of the week, maybe the biggest news of the week, I don't know, was sort of the blockbuster news from the U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, who signed and issued subpoenas this week for Hunter Biden, the president's son,

the president's brother, James Biden, and their business partner, Bob Walker, as part of the ongoing investigation into the Biden family's business dealings overseas, particularly in countries that are notable enemies of the United States, China, Russia, etc. Tell us about this development, Casey. Yeah, I mean, this, the there is starting to be there, as they say sometimes, you know, this story, these allegations have been around for a long time. President Biden has denied them. He's laughed them off. He's rolled his eyes when asked about him. The media has largely reported on this as, you know, at first they called it basically Russian disinformation. And then they said, okay, there's something to this, but there's no evidence that

Biden himself was involved. And now there's evidence showing maybe that the president himself did receive some kind of money from the overseas dealings. And that's really the question because I don't think there's been a lot of skepticism that Hunter Biden, who's had a, you know, a well-known drug problem and a lot of salacious photos online and, and just a lot of, you know, I don't think there's a lot of doubt or skepticism that he could have been involved in some kind of nefarious activity overseas. But the defense of the president has been, hey, I mean, this is his president's son. It's not his fault. What kind of dad isn't going to show compassion on their own son and try to work with them, even if they are doing criminal things? And that's a pretty sympathetic argument, I think, to a lot of Americans. But if it's true that Biden himself was financially benefiting, that changes the whole narrative. It changes the whole story.

And it makes the president himself complicit. And so that's what we're really getting to the bottom of here. And that's what these subpoenas are about because the latest evidence released by the oversight committee has shown that Biden received a couple of checks from his family members that were oddly timed and in very significant amounts. right so for example Biden received a check for $200,000 a direct check from $200,000 and there's a copy of that check was released by the by the committee he was received that from one of his family members he also received a check from his sister-in-law for $40,000. And so Comer who leads the House Oversight Committee says that the timing of these checks and if you follow if you can see all the accounts that are involved in this this. you know, quote unquote scheme. There's about 20 shell companies, several family members and business associates. And Comer says that, you know, all this money came in from a Chinese energy company and then was shuffled around to all these accounts and distributed and then $40,000 was given to

the president. And the argument is that this was some kind of commission. The initial amount was much larger. But Comer says that this was a commission of some kind that the money was shuffled around to keep it from being seen. But if this is really true, it could have really big implications for the president. Right. And so the big news this week was the subpoenas were issued for President Biden's son, his brother, and their business partner, one of their business partners. And when you issue subpoenas, you're essentially compelling those who have been subpoenaed

to come in and provide either testimony or some sort of evidence or essentially be put under tough questioning. Is there a schedule yet for whether or not they're going to come? come in before the oversight committee and have to answer questions. Would it be behind closed doors? Would it be public? Any of those details yet or not yet? Yeah, I don't think we have those details and they may be coming out soon. I don't think we have those details. But, you know, the question, I think, to follow up on that is, what are they looking for? You know, what could be provided? And I think what they're looking for is more of these kinds of checks, these kinds of direct payments. Because, you know, if you receive one $200,000 check from a family member, and it, it was,

was marked loan repayment in the memo. You could say, hey, I gave a family loan. It was paid back. Okay. Yeah. What's, what's $200,000 between close family members? Yeah, that reminds me. You owe me money.

So if you could get that $200,000 to me soon, I'd appreciate that. So then, yeah, you got it. I mean, so you get, then you get $40,000 from a family member. It's like, okay. But how many, you know, $200,000 checks from family members can you receive before people say this is pretty unusual and something else is going? on here, right? So if they start digging up three, four, five, ten of these kinds of different kinds with, you know, seemingly innocent memo lines like loan repayment, I think it's

going to be harder and harder for the president to say with a straight face that there's nothing going on here. And it's going to be especially harder really for Democrats to cover for him, especially when his polling is not great. He's losing to a lot of the Republican challengers. He's basically tied with Trump. Some of the main battleground states, actually, he's being crushed by people like Nikki Haley and even losing to the Santis. He's not doing well against Trump in battleground states. It is a year out, but that's still notable. And if this keeps getting worse, you know, Democrats are going to start getting squeamish, I think. And the thing, another thing to remember, Dan, is this is part of an impeachment investigation, impeachment inquiry,

right? We don't hear that much about this. But McCarthy, you know, may he rest in peace. Not actually dead, obviously, but he got ousted shortly after announcing this impeachment inquiry from his role, Speaker of the House. He's in California. He's still in Congress, of course. But he launched this impeachment inquiry, and that's still going on. That's what this is all about. And so at what point do the Republicans feel confident that they can impeach the president without getting backlash from the American people who say, this is just political. If they have enough evidence, they can impeach Biden and say, this isn't political, this is accurate.

And the more evidence they find, the more difficult that vote becomes for moderate, Republicans and Democrats to protect Biden in that impeachment inquiry, which of course is just not good for the president on many levels, of course, especially in an election year. Speaking of that, all of this is going on with the election now less than one year away, not much less than a couple of days less than next year's presidential election. Biden, of course, really has no real challengers at this point, although there are growing talks behind the scenes that, you know, because of his, more so because of his age than because of this investigation, I think, you might know differently than me, that he might not be the best candidate to put forward

next year anyway. He'll be well into his 80s if he wins re-election by the time the term ends. He's already shown significant issues communicating, things like that. And at the same time, the frontrunner on the GOP side, by far, former President Donald Trump, faces nearly 100 criminal counts from four separate indictments. This is just going to be a bizarre primary season, isn't it? It is going to be bizarre. And, you know, as weak as Biden looks as a candidate right now, our polling and other polling shows that there's really no Democrat that is able to challenge him right now,

actually except for one, and I think you know who it is Dan, it's Michelle Obama, which, if there's any way for this race to get more kind of strange, to have an Obama versus Trump and somehow happen. in the next election will be pretty incredible. These same names, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Biden, they seem to keep coming up over and over again. So Biden doesn't have too much opposition with his own party that's strong, except actually from Michelle Obama if someone wanted to challenge him.

There's that, but let me just clarify. We did ask voters in hypothetical matchups with President Joe Biden against other Democrats, prominent Democrats, and Michelle Obama is one of the names we think he said. She has had ended in no way that she, she's going to run for president. She's not going to run for president. So let's just be clear about that. But she's the only one among the prominent Democrats that we asked Democratic voters about against Biden who would come close to Biden. Yeah, I mean, I feel less confident that she definitely won't. I don't know. I mean, if something happened, you know, God forbid to Biden at his age, there's going to could be a scramble. And Democrats are going to want a candidate with a lot of name recognition who's really strong and who they know polls well against Trump, you know, last name Obama.

doesn't hurt at all. And so I think she would at least probably get asked. If something happened to Biden, people are going to ask her to do it. And she would have to say no, I think. So it's definitely worth talking about. Our polling shows that 66% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. When you consider that, Biden's approval rating is about 43% about, you know, over, I think it's like 57% disapprove of him. So when you have such high disapproval numbers. Everyone thinks countries head in the wrong direction. Normally, the alternative to that would be looking pretty good, but the alternative is one of the most polarizing candidates in modern history, and that's either love him or love to hate him, Donald Trump. And so we'll

see if he's able to pull it out, but that's going to be the face-off in a very interesting, interesting race. Listeners can keep up to this ongoing investigation of the President Biden's family business dealings overseas and more at thecenter square.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAle. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.