An investigation underway from House Republicans on the basis of the idea there was potentially involvement by President Joe Biden in financial corruption was “totally refuted” by another recent witness for GOP investigators, per Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Raskin is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, where the panel’s GOP majority is at the forefront of advancing House Republicans’ ambitions against the Bidens.
Republicans have been looking for potential connections between the current president and ostensibly corrupt financial dealings that involved family members of his but primarily his son, Hunter Biden.
One of the most recent witnesses for Republicans was Georges Bergès, an art gallery owner whose institution represents the younger Biden, having even exhibited his work at an outpost in lower Manhattan. The apparent idea from Republicans was that the president may have been somehow involved in transactions around Hunter Biden’s art, particularly through doling out covert benefits in return. (They sought testimony from a purchaser who was separately given an unpaid federal role in the arts by the president.)
Bergès told committee members that there was neither involvement in nor knowledge of the inner workings of the art sales by the president, distancing him yet again from potentially covert income and ideas of basically a secret quid pro quo.
“Just like every other witness in this embarrassing slapstick investigation, George Bergès stated he had no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden,” Raskin’s prepared remarks said. “Hunter Biden made art that Bergès sold in his gallery, and President Biden had no knowledge of, or role in, these art sales. It’s not illegal to buy and sell abstract art in America. If Chairman Comer doesn’t like Hunter Biden’s paintings or modern art in general, he doesn’t have to buy it. But Hunter Biden is allowed to create art and sell it. The GOP’s allegations of influence peddling and money laundering are unfounded and were, once again, totally refuted by today’s witness.”
Republicans have moved towards potentially impeaching the president. It’s unclear that even at the comparatively inconclusive House level such will ever happen.
