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House Republicans allege Biden family members received millions in payments from foreign entities in new bank records reporthttps://www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/politics/comer-bank-records-biden-family-members-payments-foreign-entities/index.htmlThe Biden PresidencyFacts FirstAudioLive TVLog InHouse Republicans allege Biden family members received millions in payments from foreign entities in new bank records reportAnnie Grayer Jeremy Herb Sara MurrayBy Annie Grayer, Alayna Treene, Jeremy Herb and Sara Murray, CNNUpdated 4:24 PM EDT, Wed May 10, 2023U.S. Representative James Comer Jr., R-Ky., speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 8, 2022. U.S. Representative James Comer Jr., R-Ky., speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 8, 2022.Andrew Harnik/ReutersWashingtonCNN — House Oversight Chairman James Comer laid out new details to support allegations that members of Joe Biden’s family including his son Hunter received millions of dollars in payments from foreign entities in China and Romania including when Biden was vice president, according to a memo obtained by CNN.New bank records cited in the memo were obtained by the committee through a subpoena and include payments made to companies tied to Hunter Biden. Republicans also alleged that Hunter Biden used his familial connections to help facilitate a meeting in 2016 between a Serbian running for United Nations Secretary-General and then-national security adviser to the vice president Colin Kahl.The foreign payments raise questions about Hunter Biden’s business activities while his father was vice president, but the committee does not suggest any illegality about the payments from foreign sources. The bank records by themselves also do not indicate the purpose of the payments that were made.The memo marks Comer’s most direct attempt to substantiate his allegations that Biden family members have enriched themselves off the family name. Comer has suggested that Biden may have been improperly influenced by the financial dealings, particularly by his family’s foreign business partners.But the latest report does not show any payments made directly to Joe Biden, either as vice president or after leaving office.Comer has been publicly teasing information for months about the paper trail committee Republicans have uncovered through subpoenas sent to multiple banks and trips to the Treasury Department to review records.Comer and other Republicans on the committee held a press conference Wednesday morning to tout their findings.“These people didn’t come to Hunter Biden because he understood world politics or that he was experienced in it, or that he understood Chinese businesses. They wanted him for the access his last name gave him,” Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said during the news conference.On Wednesday, Comer was asked about specific policy decisions Biden made while president or vice president that may have been directly influenced by these foreign payments. Comer failed to name any and instead pointed to then-vice president Biden traveling around the world and discussing foreign aid in the last year of the Obama administration, and added they think there are decisions Biden made as president that “put China first and America last.” Comer said the committee “will get into more of those later.”Ahead of the memo’s release, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “Congressman Comer has a history of playing fast and loose with the facts and spreading baseless innuendo while refusing to conduct his so-called ‘investigations’ with legitimacy. He has hidden information from the public to selectively leak and promote his own hand-picked narratives as part of his overall effort to lob personal attacks at the President and his family.”Abbe Lowell, counsel for Hunter Biden, said in a statement, “Today’s so-called “revelations” are retread, repackaged misstatements of perfectly proper meetings and business by private citizens. Instead of redoing old investigations that found no evidence of wronging by Mr. Biden, Rep. Comer should do the same examination of the many entities of former President Trump and his family members.”The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, said in a statement to CNN, “Chairman Comer has failed to provide factual evidence to support his wild accusations about the President. He continues to bombard the public with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago.”Payments from a Romanian business associateBank records cited in the committee’s memo show that within five weeks of then-Vice President Biden’s meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in 2015, a Romanian who Hunter Biden was doing legal consulting for, Gabriel Popoviciu, started sending money to Rob Walker, a business associate of Hunter’s.Walker received more than $3 million from November 2015 to May 2017 and wired approximately $1 million in various installments to Hunter Biden, his business associate James Gillian, and Hallie Biden, the widow of the president’s oldest son, Beau Biden who died in May 2015. Hallie Biden and Hunter Biden were romantically involved for a period after Beau’s death.The US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2022. House Republicans say CIA staffer helped seek support for statement from former intel officials questioning Hunter Biden laptop storyIt has long been known that Hunter Biden did legal work for Popoviciu, a wealthy Romanian business executive who was convicted in 2016 on corruption charges.Comer’s memo raises questions about why Popoviciu was paying a Biden family business associate directly instead of the law firm where Hunter Biden worked at the time or the other firm Hunter reportedly referred Popoviciu to.Former President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani was also involved with Popoviciu, which Comer’s memo does not mention.Committee Republicans obtained the bank records from subpoenas to four different banks.Meeting with a Biden aideThe report also alleges that in 2016, Vuk Jeremic, a Serbian politician who was running for UN secretary-general, tried to use his business relationship with Hunter Biden and his associates to get a meeting with Kahl, who was then an aide in Biden’s vice president’s office.In a June 2016 email, Jeremic wrote to Hunter Biden and a business associate, Eric Schwerin, asking to “meet with VPOTUS National Security Advisor Colin Kahl” related to the UN secretary-general election.Schwerin instructed Hunter Biden to “Think about how you want to respond,” according to the report.In a July 2016 email, Jeremic followed up via email saying, “[m]y meeting with Colin did not last very long, but didn’t go too bad, I think. What is suboptimal is that OVP seems to be outside the decision-making loop on the UNSG elections issue. Colin promised to get better informed on what’s going on at the moment,” according to the report.Hunter Biden boards Air Force One at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York in February.IRS whistleblower's attorneys meet with congressional investigators on Hunter Biden probeRepublicans said t