James Comer searched for China link to Biden — but Oversight found Trump instead: reporter
The House Oversight and Reform Committee, under Rep. James Comer's (R-KY) leadership, has searched through the finances of President Joe Biden and the rest of his family looking for incriminating links to foreign entities.
Now it turns out it was Donald Trump who had international business dealings while sitting in the White House, according to a report released by Democrats on the committee.
Speaking to MSNBC from the Capitol, correspondent Ryan Nobles explained that the new Oversight Committee report Democrats began work on two years ago unveiled at least $8 million in funds from foreign governments and bodies funneled to Trump while he was president.
"It's a 156-page exhaustive report that details only two years of the Donald Trump presidency, in which they outline millions of dollars in payments that flowed directly from foreign governments into the various businesses that were controlled by Donald Trump and his associates," said Nobles.
He went on to recall that while campaigning in 2016, Trump said that he would divest his business interests into a "blind trust," but that never happened.
"And even though his [adult] children did run these businesses, he was still directly involved or had knowledge of the day-to-day business activity that many of these different associated entities were doing while he was in office," the reporter explained.
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"And what this report outlines, with a great deal of specificity, are the types of payments that many of these foreign governments were making to his various businesses. The number one country over this two-year period that had participated in or had patronized Trump-associated businesses was China, which of course Donald Trump has been a fierce critic of, particularly as it relates to Hunter Biden, the current president's son."
Trump claimed during the 2020 campaign that Biden scored $1.5 billion from China.
Trump conflated the accusations by saying that Biden "goes on and he allows China to rip us off." He also said, "So the Bidens got rich while America got robbed."
The Republicans in the Oversight Committee have been unable to find such a payment. The amount that they've alleged Biden took from foreign entities through his son has shrunk to about $4,000, which Biden loaned his son so he could buy a 2018 truck. Hunter Biden paid his father back in monthly installments.
The report released Thursday also includes funds from Saudi Arabia, which already has connection to his son-in-law. After Trump left office, Jared Kushner got a $2 billion investment from the country for his hedge fund.
"They were only able to collect that two-year period worth of time because the accounting firm that was working with Donald Trump during that window of time separated from him and no longer was willing to do business with him," said Nobels.
"They felt compelled to hand the information over because they were requested to do so by Congress. The rest of that period of time, House Republicans have not joined with House Democrats in compelling that information to be brought forward. And that was one of the things that we heard members of the House Democratic Oversight Committee be very critical of the chairman of the Oversight Committee, James Comer, for not allowing them to ask for these additional documents to get the full four years of the Trump presidency."
Meanwhile, Nobles said, the House has moved for an impeachment "inquiry" for Biden, claiming that his son was engaged in foreign business activities that benefited Biden while he was vice president.
"They have not shown vast amounts of millions of dollars worth of payments that were directly given to Joe Biden as a result of his son's business dealings, nor have they shown any evidence that Joe Biden's role as a public official benefitted any of these foreign entities," said Nobles. "This report at least attempts to do that as it relates to Donald Trump."
See the full update in the video below or at the link here.
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