Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ oversight committee held a press conference on Wednesday where they said President Biden’s family could be implicated in a growing corruption scandal in Romania.
They allege that the U.S. president previously took money from Romanian businessman, Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu, who was convicted of corruption six years ago.
Commission chairman James Comer said that previously, when Joe Biden visited Romania as vice president, his son and his family acted as a walking billboard and collected the money.
They also released a 36-page document showing that, over two-and-a-half years, $3 million was transferred in several installments from Bladon Enterprises, owned by Popoviciu, to Robinson Walker LLC, controlled by Rob Walker, the business partner of the current president’s son, Hunter Biden.
The payment in Romania confirms a similar sum of around $3 million received in early 2017 from the Chinese company CEFC China Energy, one-third of which was split between Hunter, Beau Biden’s wife, and other members of the Biden family, reports Hungarian-language Romanian news portal Maszol. Although Popoviciu was convicted in his home country and is currently in London, Romanian authorities are awaiting a final court decision on his extradition.
Leaked correspondence from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, also revealed that the president’s son had asked the former FBI chief to take on the defense of Popoviciu, who was convicted in Romania. Joe Biden denies any knowledge of or involvement in his family’s business dealings.
Hunter Biden’s role in the Romanian trial was revealed in emails published by the New York Post two years ago. In the published messages, the son of the current U.S. president asks the former FBI chief to take on Popoviciu’s defense.
According to press reports, Hunter Biden and then FBI director Louis Freeh met several times with prosecutors from the Romanian Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), then headed by Laura Kövesi, but they also had contacts with the Romanian Intelligence Service. In the same case, Cornel Șerban, the former head of the Romanian Interior Ministry’s secret service, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison after it emerged that Șerban, at the request of the real estate investor (Popoviciu), had pressured the prosecutor not to open a criminal investigation.
