Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 3:19 pmThe Washington Post's fact checker compared what Comer and official committee announcements have been saying about what the committee has found with what the staff member memos actually say.
The Hype:
The Reality (as shown in the memos written by Republican staffers):“The Committee has identified over 20 companies affiliated with certain Biden family members and their business associates.”
— Majority staff of the House Oversight Committee, Second Bank Records memorandum, released May 10
“We’ve identified about 20-plus shell companies that the Bidens have created to launder the money they were receiving from foreign nationals down to their personal bank account.”
— Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, interview on Fox Business, May 11
“The Committee has now identified over $20 million in payments from foreign sources to the Biden family and their business associates.”
— Majority staff of the House Oversight Committee, Third Bank Records memorandum, released Aug. 9
“The Biden family received over $20 million from our enemies around the world. What did they do to receive the money?”— Comer, interview on Newsmax, Aug. 10
There were not 20-plus shell companies. There was one. No funds were transferred to any member of the Biden family through that single shell company.
For instance, the second staff memo never says that Hunter Biden used “shell” companies — a term often associated with shady or illegal activity, even though a shell company is a legitimate entity. Comer once described such an entity as “a fake company … they don’t make anything. They don’t produce anything. They don’t provide a good or service.” He is not wrong about many shell companies, but the memo lists real companies, with active websites and real business functions. (The third staff memo refers to just one “shell” company, which we will describe later.)Although the Committee traced over $20 million in foreign payments, only $7.5 million went to Biden family members -- almost all of it to Hunter. The Committee was unable to trace any funds to Joe Biden.Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC is the one company specifically named in a staff memo as a shell company. As we have reported, this entity was created in 2013 to invest in BHR Partners, the Chinese fund. But almost as soon as Rosemont Seneca Thornton was created, the partners decided to dissolve it, according to a person with access to the board minutes. Thornton Group, one of the investors, was run by Jim Bulger, who brought expertise in investing in China. But the original structure had added unexpected regulatory burdens to Thornton, and so Bulger’s lawyers advised that the group split up, this person said. Archer, in his interview, confirmed this to committee investigators, saying the creation of the LLC was “a mistake.”
We’d previously reported that Archer kept the vehicle alive for his own real estate business, without telling Hunter Biden or Bulger, according to two people knowledgeable about Archer’s activities. After a Senate report alleged that Rosemont Seneca Thornton received a $3.5 million payment from Baturina, Archer told Bulger that he had used Rosemont Seneca Thornton to transfer funds from Baturina to purchase real estate in Brooklyn, according to a participant in the conversation.
Comer and his cronies made multiple claims that they had proof that Joe Biden accepted bribes. They lie.That works out to be about $23 million in total payments from foreign sources. Of that, nearly $7.5 million can be fairly attributed as going to “Bidens,” but virtually all of it went to Hunter Biden. No money has been traced to Joe Biden.
Great stuff Res. It truly is mind boggling how these people in the House GOP think they can constantly get away withholding information and flat out lying about things they are keeping from the public. They withheld the Archer testimony from the public after making it sound like it would be the earth shattering testimony hearing of the century. They refused to share with the House Democrats any transcript interviews with the bogus "whistleblowers" under the false pretense that they were trying to protect the "whistleblowers." Dan Goldman told Jim Jordan several times they were not granted whistleblower status because they were just disgruntled ex-employees who were paid to speak. But they withheld those transcripts so the Democrats were caught off guard and didn't have time to do any background work to rebut their claims. This is their "drip-drip" strategy that is deceptive and they stick to it because it works. I mean if we all take 100 steps back and look at the overall picture here, what are we really dealing with?
A private citizen who happens to be related to a Democrat official who may or may not have used his name to enrich himself. And the only crime definitively proven by Joe Biden is that he answered the phone every time his son called him during a time of mourning after he lost his second sibling, this time to cancer.
Twitter has been going completely nuts over this so called "$20 million in payments to the BIDEN FAMILY through 20 SHELL COMPANIES."
And now we know it is all another lie, which begs the question. If the House GOP has to constantly lie in order to shape this "Biden-Crime-Family" narrative of theirs, then what does that say about the strength of their position?
