America's Talking - Update: U.S. House Investigation Into Biden Family Business Dealings

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

An update on the ongoing U.S. House investigation into the business dealings of President Biden's family. Stay up to date with this story and more at TheCenterSquare.com. 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 McAulb, Vice President of News and Content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. Casey, we're recording this early this week on Tuesday, November 21st, so we can all spend some time with our families for the Thanksgiving holiday. Do you have any plans, Casey? Oh, you know, pretty traditional Thanksgiving for us.

the turkey, the gravy, maybe throw a football around, hopefully not spend too much money on Black Friday. Do you brave the Black Friday crowds in? No, no, never. You're not looking for a near-death experience, I guess. No, not looking for any deals where I can save a buck on a computer, anything like that. I avoid those places. Post-COVID today, is Black Friday still a thing? I guess I should know.

Definitely still a thing. But it's hard for me to understand why with Amazon. I guess really what I'm getting at here is like this is a good opportunity for you to save money on my Christmas present. So whether it's now or later, just be thinking about that. I've got my list, Casey, and I'm checking it twice. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Dean. Actually, Casey, it's probably time to start talking about a little bit of news. You have been reporting at the CenterSquare.com on the ongoing U.S. House investigation into the Biden family's overseas business dealings.

and whether President Joe Biden, when he was vice president under Barack Obama, used his family name to help secure millions of dollars in cash for his family and whether he personally financially benefited from it. You were writing an update on that story today, Casey. Tell us a little bit about it. Yes, I am. I mean, there's been so many updates this month that I think have gone unnoticed. The former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked off this impeachment inquiry earlier this year,

which took it from just kind of a congressional. you know, investigation that was sort of never-ending into a, hey, we're going to find some facts. We're going to put something together and determine if the House should actually pursue articles of impeachment against the president because the scandal is that bad.

And so they got, you know, James Comer, who leads the Republican from Kentucky, who leads the House Oversight Committee. They got Jason Smith and Jim Jordan, who also chair Ways and Means and Judiciary Committee, respectively.

And so they're cobbled together from this impeachment inquiry. And so they've been digging in more and more. And, you know, if you watch the media, especially cable news, I'm not sure why you would, but in the recent years about the scandal of refrain that you've heard many times from kind of democratic pundance or political strategists is that there's no evidence that the president was involved. Basically, the Biden was involved. There's no evidence, no evidence, no evidence. You hear that over and over. But what's been fascinating to watch is potentially evidence and come out. out in these recent weeks. And so what does that look like? It looks like copies of checks,

totally $240,000 going directly to President Biden. Now, right now, I don't think we have full clarity on exactly what was going on and why those checks were sent. But $240,000 is no small amount of money. And I think we joked on a previous podcast about I don't have any family members so far writing me checks for, you know, 200 grand and sending them over. If you want to do that for my Christmas present, feel free to do that, Dan. And we can comment. And we can comment. comment on that in a minute, but just to give you a few the updates, they're most relevant and most recent is Comer sent a flurry of subpoenas, actually, to, you know, Hunter Biden business associates, people who worked on Hunter Biden's paintings, which I'm sure you have one hanging over your mantle,

one of these Hunter Biden paintings that are several hundred thousand dollars. Of course, critics say that. Is that a market? I don't know who's not aware of that. Is that a market driven price, or is that just the Biden family trying to cut? That is, you know, one man's trash. as another man's treasure, Dan. So what is a market price in the art market, which is kind of notoriously used by the wealthy to evade taxes and do other things, not just to buy family if they did do it for that reason? But of course, that's been under scrutiny because when you have the son of a vice president or president who's getting huge sums of money, big loans for his quote-unquote art, when he was not exactly known for an artist before

his father went into politics or even in recent years. It seems a little convenient. And of course, that does it pass the smell test? And I think if it was just that alone, it probably wouldn't be enough to get anybody in trouble. But there's just so many things going on. As you said, I think it's over $24 million. It's the latest figure from the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family and associates raked in from several countries overseas, including adversarial nations. So we're talking China, Russia, as well as Ukraine, Romania, Kazakhstan. And so this money is allegedly being shuffled through a lot of shell companies and ending some of it allegedly in the president's bank account. So Comer sent several

subpoenas, a former White House counsel, Dana Remus is a notable one. And why this is notable, and this is probably the biggest development day. And I'll pass it over back to you after this. But as you know, Biden had his own issues with classified documents. He had them in his garage, basically with his Porsche. He had some in the Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C. And that was from his time as vice president. So he held on to these classified documents. Now, notably, former president Donald Trump is facing criminal charges for doing the exact same thing.

Biden has not yet been charged. It's unclear if he will be charged. But what they want to get to the bottom of is some of these classified documents were reportedly maybe about Ukraine, which of course is a country that the Biden family allegedly got a lot of money from. So could this classified documents case intersect with the foreign payments case is the big development and the big question. Interesting, Casey. And all this is unraveling. We're now less than a year away from the presidential election that takes place in November 2024. This has got to be a, at the minimum, a big headache for the president, his campaign, as this goes forward, as new information is released, I mean, is Biden's kind of sort of lock on the Democratic nomination for president for his reelection?

Is that in jeopardy in any way because of this? Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you ask and how far down the Twitter rabbit hole you want to go. I mean, I think right now in the polling, Biden is pretty much unmatched among Democrats. They're not really willing to jump ship for any of the potential contenders. even people who've been talked about like Gavin Newsom. Right now, I think they're willing to tow the party line and just stick with the incumbent, which is pretty normal. I mean, it's pretty hard to get an incumbent president off the nomination.

So, you know, right now they're sticking with him. But the polling are polling, the Center Square voters voice poll that we release shows that Biden doesn't do very well against the leading Republicans. He gets trounced by Nikki Haley, the former ambassador as well as, you know, he loses to Florida governor Ron DeSantis. He does beat President Trump in our poll, but other polls, basically the polling shows that it could be a dead heat. And in battleground states, it looks like Trump actually has an edge on Biden. Right. He had some advantages in the battleground states.

Exactly. So that's got to be worrying a lot of Democrats. You know, the president's getting older, he's seeming the ongoing criticism of his mental health and his mental faculties being at 100% of, you know, that's an ongoing thing. And it's getting worse. There's more and more gaps or awkward videos coming. out every few weeks. And so, you know, will the Democrats write it out with him? Will they try to find some way to replace them? But it's risky because, you know, a trusted incumbent who was able to beat Trump last time? I mean, who would you want instead of him? And can Democrats agree on someone who would actually be better for Biden than Biden who could get the moderate votes and appeal to

a similar demographic as Trump? I think that was the appeal of Biden all along. Maybe he could get some of these blue-collar guys who went for Trump the first time. Biden supposedly kind of a blue-collar has that appeal more than maybe a far-left candidate who could do better in a primary. So it definitely has political implications going into an election season, but, man, who knows, a year out. Well, thank you for your insight, Casey. Just touching on an earlier suggestion you made, you should not be expecting any $100,000 checks from me, from the company or anything like that. so you better seriously work on your budget for Black Friday and other holiday shopping. But we are out of time.

Listeners can keep up with this story and more at the center square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McLeod. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening. And happy Thanksgiving.