Biden laughs at question about McCarthy request for his bank records

WASHINGTON — President Biden tried to laugh off a question Thursday about whether he will comply with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s request for his bank records ahead of a possible impeachment inquiry into his role in first son Hunter’s foreign business dealings.

“Hee-hee-hee,” the 80-year-old president chuckled during a gaggle with reporters at FEMA headquarters in Washington after discussing the impact of Tropical Storm Idalia on Florida and nearby states.

“Let’s talk about why I’m here,” Biden deflected.

Biden had answered without complaint several prior questions that were unrelated to the storm, including about Overdose Awareness Day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s health and a potential partial government shutdown.

After declining to discuss his financial statements, Biden proceeded to answer yet another question unrelated to the storm, about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s possible attendance at the G20 summit next month in India.

Biden declined to answer the same question about his bank records as he left the White House East Room Monday following a civil-rights-focused event.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Sunday that the launch of an impeachment inquiry was “a natural step forward” that “provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need,” citing the alleged obstruction of various requests for information.

McCarthy said Aug. 8 that he wants Biden to “give us his bank statements” to settle questions about whether he personally profited from his family’s dealings in countries where he held sway as vice president.

Hunter Biden wrote in emails retrieved from his former laptop that he had to give “half” of his income to Joe Biden and the House Oversight Committee in May identified nine Biden family members who allegedly received foreign revenue.

The Oversight Committee has requested a vast array of records — most recently demanding from the National Archives emails containing Joe Biden’s use of pseudonyms “Robin Ware” and “Robert L. Peters” — of which more than 5,000 reportedly exist.

The panel is also seeking Air Force Two flight manifests that show Hunter’s use of the jet and has issued subpoenas to banks seeking records on foreign transactions, though it’s unclear if any have yet been issued for members of the Biden family rather than their associates.

Joe Biden’s role as vice president repeatedly intersected with Hunter’s foreign dealings.

The then-second son cofounded investment fund BHR Partners with Chinese state-owned entities in 2013 just 12 days after Hunter joined Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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. 

Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee in a July 31 interview that Joe Biden had coffee with Li during the 2013 trip — rather than a mere handshake as previously reported — and that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with Li during a subsequent business trip to Beijing.

The then-vice president was put on speakerphone by his son during about 20 business meetings with associates from various countries and dined at least twice in Washington with his son’s Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani associates, Archer said.

Hunter Biden held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his father’s first year in office and the status of his alleged divestment in late 2021 remains unclear. Purported leaked BHR documents suggest Hunter’s “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer whom he met at a 2019 fundraiser, may have assumed control of the stake.

Hunter and James Biden later launched a second business venture in China with another government-linked company, CEFC China Energy, which formed part of Beijing’s foreign influence “Belt and Road” campaign.

Months after leaving office as vice president, Joe Biden allegedly met twice with his son and brother’s CEFC partners and was referred to as the “big guy” penciled in for a 10% cut in a May 2017 email about CEFC.

Two of Hunter Biden’s former associates in the venture, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, identified the president as the “big guy.”

Bobulinski alleges that he discussed the CEFC deal with Joe Biden and 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. 

The CEFC relationship appears to have started around 2015 when Hunter connected with Vuk Jeremic, a former foreign minister of Serbia and president of the United Nations General Assembly who was running for UN secretary general, as his dad was vice president.

IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who investigated Hunter for three and five years, respectively, said in recent congressional testimony that Justice Department officials blocked them from investigating Joe Biden’s role in business dealings, despite communications directly mentioning him.

Shapley provided the panel with a July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message in which Hunter wrote he was “sitting here with my father” and threatened retribution if a deal was aborted, immediately preceding the transfer of $5.1 million from CEFC China Energy to Biden-linked accounts — on top of more than $1 million transferred earlier in the year.

Shapley said that the prosecutors in Delaware who brokered a probation-only plea deal rejected last month by a federal judge also failed to inform the IRS team that a paid FBI informant provided a tipoff that Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in 2014, said in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s help getting a prosecutor fired.