Posted on 11/03/2023 6:15:33 AM PDT by Red Badger
More than four years after Democrats made Donald Trump’s taxes a focus of investigation, House Republicans are turning the tables on Joe Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Just the News that his investigators are probing whether a series of payments in 2017 between the president and his brother, James Biden, were properly accounted for on taxes.
The inquiry was prompted when the committee received bank records showing that James Biden made payments of $200,000 and $40,000 from personal accounts to President Biden in 2017 after receiving money from business deals involving a financially troubled health care firm and a Chinese energy company.
Both payments to Joe Biden were marked as loan re-payments.
“The Democrats say it was a loan. They need to show where the money came from,” Comer told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. “Did Joe Biden write him a personal check? Or did it come from a corporate account?
“Well, if it came from a corporate account, and then they paid him back, and it went into his personal account, then he evaded a significant amount of taxes there,” Comer alleged. “You can't just withdraw money from a corporate account or even an LLC like you do your personal funds or a sole proprietorship. There are major tax consequences from withdrawing money from a corporate account.”
Asked whether his committee was investigating whether Joe Biden complied with tax laws, Comer answered: “Absolutely.”
Federal prosecutors are already weighing federal criminal tax charges against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, alleging he failed to pay taxes for several years on his foreign business income.
The threat of an indictment increased this summer in that probe after a judge rejected a plea deal in which Hunter Biden would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges.
The first son has already been indicted on felony gun charges in Delaware.
Two IRS whistleblowers have provided substantial evidence to Congress alleging that Hunter Biden failed to pay taxes on income dating all the way back to 2014 from his controversial Burisma Holdings deal in Ukraine and other transactions.
The first son published an OpEd on Thursday in USA Today, saying he took full responsibility for his failures, but also believed he was being criminally prosecuted and politically persecuted because his father is the president, and because of his prior struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
Republican and Democrat congressional investigators say that bank records show money was transferred out of a special account known as an “attorney trust account” to James Biden in the amount of $200,000 and $40,000 in 2017.
Within a few months of each transaction, James Biden or his wife wrote a personal check back to Joe Biden, which the future president deposited into his personal accounts. Both were marked as loan repayments.
Democrats say the attorney trust account belongs to Joe Biden, and was controlled by one of his longtime lawyers. Republicans say they do not have enough information yet to determine whether the source of funds in the trust account were Joe Biden’s personal funds, or from one of his corporate entities.
Tax law experts, who spoke to Just the News only on the condition of anonymity, said the distinction between a corporate or personal attorney trust account, would be very important for determining whether Joe Biden had tax liabilities as a result of the transaction.
If the trust fund was derived from personal funds, and Joe Biden took the repayment back to his personal account, there may not be a tax consequence, they said. But if the trust fund proceeds were derived from corporate monies, and then Joe Biden put the repayment of the loans into his personal account, there could be a tax issue, they added.
Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, did not immediately return a message Thursday seeking comment.
Comer told Just the News he’s resolved to obtain the records necessary to make those determinations.
“If he (Joe Biden) used corporate money to loan Jim Biden money and then, you know, he put it back in his personal account, then that's a huge problem,” he said.
The House GOP shift in focus to possible tax issues involving President Biden comes 4 1/2 years after House Democrats first began an effort in 2019 to obtain Donald Trump‘s personal tax records, a quest that eventually reached the United States Supreme Court. Democrats eventually released those records shortly before yielding control of the U.S. House last December.
5 min later...”Yeah, it’s all good.”
Yawn, it will go nowhere.
“Yawn, it will go nowhere.”
Yep. It’s the Lindsey Graham approach... talk tough, keep in front of the cameras, do nothing.
It’s the GOP Way.
James Biden lied to the IRS, saying “that he recalled not being involved with anything beyond 2017.”
And here’s James frantically contacting Hunter in 2018 about getting bribe money from the Chinese.
James Biden, sent a message to Hunter in February 2018 that he was “in a near panic” because “we got nothing in Feb! … Did K [likely Kevin Dong, Hunter’s Chinese business partner] cut us off in Feb?”
“I thought you had said that the Chinese wired $$$ into your account, 82.5 was on its way.
We can’t find any record that was sent. Did I miss something?”
Could also mean James and his brother Joe.
I want loan repayment on every check payment made to me from now on. Apparently that means no tax is due right?
There seems to be a lot of talk about a loan repayment but I can’t recall hearing anything about the loan itself. How much did they borrow from Joe? When was it borrowed? What was it borrowed for?
.
Stuff was from 2017. No hurry on a Subpoena or Impeachment.
Take your time.
Is John Durham advising them?
GET REAL......COMER IS NOTHING LIKE LESBIAN GRAHAM.
Correct, assuming you are a powerful elected official.
THE BRIBE MONEY GOES TO JAMES OR HUNTER, THEN 10% IS LAUNDERED THRU ACCOUNTS SO JOE CAN “HONESTLY” SAY HE HAS NEVER RECEIVED FOREIGN MONEY!!!!!
Good insight.
jonathanturley.com
snip
House investigators discovered that, in 2018, the president’s brother, James, received two loans totaling $600,000 from Americore Health, which they described as “a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator.” According to the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, it made the loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’” to new overseas investors. On the day he received the second loan transfer, James Biden sent a check for the same amount — $200,000 — to Joe Biden as a “loan reimbursement.”
Recently, the House Oversight Committee revealed that just after Joe Biden announced his 2020 presidential candidacy, Hunter Biden received a $250,000 loan from a Chinese businessman using the address of his father’s Delaware home. The generous transfer of funds was from Xiangsheng “Jonathan” Li, a Chinese businessman connected to the investment fund Bohai Harvest RST. (President Biden reportedly later wrote a college-admission recommendation for Li’s daughter).
What happened next was vintage Biden family: A Hollywood lawyer, who had just met Hunter at a political gathering, reportedly suddenly took over the repayment of that loan, with no explanation, and later reportedly paid for some of Hunter’s tax bills and living expenses as well.
So, it appears that $250,000 went to Hunter, but the loan obligation was shifted to a Democratic political donor.
There is also a reference to another loan agreement with a Chinese company for $5.1 million. Notably, the loan was, again, “interest-free.” The source was CEFC China Energy headed by Ye Jianming. Text messages reportedly indicated plans for Joe Biden to meet with Jianming, who reportedly had close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
In addition to these loans, money seemed to move between myriad accounts connected to various Biden family members, according to House Oversight Committee findings. And we know from reports of some of Hunter Biden’s text messages that he complained about using money he acquired to pay for repairs to his father’s Delaware home.
None of this, however, appears to pique much of the media’s curiosity. Because the word “loan” was written on some of these documents, it is once again accepted by many at face value. In discussing a “loan” connected to one Hunter-connected company, Rosemont Seneca Bohai, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley called this a classic tax-evasion move.
Shapley said that “when the money came back to him, he booked it as a loan. You then go on to testify that it should’ve been taxable as soon as it became income from Burisma to Hunter and whatever he did with it after that was really just a scheme to evade taxes for that year. You add that Rosemont Seneca Bohai did not book this as a loan, itself, so Biden is treating it differently than they did.”
Despite the Bidens’ denials about money, it seems to be everywhere and nowhere — metastasizing and spreading throughout the dozens of accounts, banks and family members identified by House investigators. Yet many in the media and most Democratic members of Congress appear to be firmly committed to assuring that all of this remains “a wonderful life” for Joe Biden and his family.
Jonathan Turley, an attorney, constitutional law scholar and legal analyst, is the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School.
Can I self identify as a powerful politician?
Seems to work for guys who can’t win against other men.
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