In the first hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have made a series of false and misleading claims, as well as some claims that lack critical context. One claim made by Republican Rep. James Comer is that the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies and earned over $20 million between 2014 and 2019. While the $20 million figure is roughly accurate for Biden’s family and associates according to bank records, there is no public evidence that President Biden himself received any of this money. Additionally, a large portion of the money went to Hunter Biden’s business partners, not Biden’s family directly.
Another false claim made by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan is that Hunter Biden himself said he was unqualified to sit on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings. In fact, Hunter Biden said in a 2019 interview with ABC News that he was completely qualified to be on the board and defended his qualifications in detail. While he did acknowledge that he might not have been asked to be on the board if he wasn’t a Biden, he explicitly rejected claims that he wasn’t qualified.
In addition, Republicans have cited documents obtained from IRS whistleblowers to argue that the Justice Department improperly blocked investigators from asking about Joe Biden in a 2020 search warrant related to Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings. However, the Justice Department official who gave this instruction stated that Joe Biden’s name shouldn’t be mentioned in the search warrant because there wasn’t any legal basis to do so. It’s important to note that this occurred during Trump’s presidency, not the Biden era, so it doesn’t prove pro-Biden meddling by the Justice Department.