Oversight Committee Memo Details More Foreign Payments Made to Hunter Biden

The Republican-controlled House Oversight and Accountability Committee released more banking records Wednesday, detailing millions of dollars in payments made to Hunter Biden by Russian and Kazakhstani oligarchs while Joe Biden served as Vice President. 

Details: The committee is accusing President Joe Biden of influence peddling, alleging that Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s political power and the “Biden brand” to his financial benefit. No payments listed are made to Joe Biden. This was the focus of White House Counsel’s Office spokesman Ian Sams' response, which stated the committee’s memo lacks “any connection to President Biden.”

Key Quotes: In both the memo from the Oversight Committee and the White House response memo, both sides accused the other of “moving the goalposts.” The Oversight memo states, “The White House’s latest claim that the ‘President was not in business with his son’ is a marked departure from previous attempts to counter the Committee’s investigation.” The White House response states, “Comer’s memo doesn’t show anything about President Biden. And faced with his inability to uncover any evidence that President Biden did anything wrong, Comer is now explicitly moving the goal posts.”

How the Media Covered It: Right-rated outlets heavily covered the memo, while left- and center-rated outlets largely ignored it. Right-rated outlets mirrored the language used in the memo, identifying the payments as being made to the “Biden family.” Left-rated outlets avoided this language, noting that the only Biden family member that appears in the banking records is Hunter Biden.