U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, presented new evidence Wednesday pertaining to pay-to-play schemes involving President Joe Biden, several Biden family members, and foreign nations.
The report is yet another indication that the Biden family, while the patriarch was Vice President and before he was the 2020 Democratic nominee, leveraged his political office for financial gain that often involved foreign nationals and foreign businesses, including corporations connected to hostile foreign powers, such as the People’s Republic of China.
However, if your only source of news are Maine’s top newspapers, you probably haven’t heard much about evolving corruption scandal engulfing the Biden White House.
The lack of coverage appears not to stem from a lack of interest in covering national politics.
The Bangor Daily News published three articles covering Rep. George Santos’ (R-N.Y.), a freshman GOP lawmaker, within the past two days, but it somehow neglected to post a single story on the Oversight Committee’s findings regarding the leader of the free world.
The Portland Press Herald gave headline space to Rep. Santos’ arrest on fraud charges and former President Donald Trump’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit, but coverage of the credible accusation of corruption against the current president remains noticeably absent.
Credit where it’s due: Maine Public, the 25 percent taxpayer-funded liberal news outlet, did re-publish a story from National Public Radio (NPR) regarding the allegations in Rep. Comer’s report, although the story was mostly an opportunity for Biden family attorneys to level ad hominem attacks against the Republican.
So what are Maine’s newspaper readers missing out on?
In Comer’s May 10 press conference, he unveiled the Oversight Committee’s recent discoveries on alleged unethical conduct by then-Vice President Biden, his associates, and his family.
The Committee found that the Biden family and associates created a complex network of over 20 shell companies, most of which were established while Biden was serving as Vice President.
Following the committee’s subpoena of financial records from multiple banks tied to these companies, they could confidently report that the Biden family had received over $10 million from foreign entities.
The Committee alleged that Hunter Biden and other associates of the Biden family would court business deals in countries where Biden was then working as a representative of the U.S. government and the administration of Barack Obama.
The Oversight Committee found deliberate efforts to conceal these large wire transfers, possibly in an attempt to prevent scrutiny on what could be a massive pay-to-play scheme.
Multiple Biden family members received money from the Chinese after it passed through an associate’s account. Additionally, Hunter Biden received money directly into his company’s account from a Chinese-controlled entity. pic.twitter.com/CEyPZGW8gA
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 10, 2023
“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, china. I have not had–The only guy who made money from china is this guy [donald trump]. he’s the only one. nobody else has made money from china“
Biden’s October 2020 Presidential Debate denial of Hunter’s having received any money from China
Furthermore, Comer revealed that while Biden was involved in matters concerning Romania, his son Hunter and his associates exploited a highly profitable financial connection with a Romanian national who was subsequently found guilty of corruption.
The Bidens received over $1 million as part of the deal with this Romanian national, with 16 out of 17 wire transfers occurring while Biden was vice president.
Comer released a copy of the Committee’s second bank records memorandum to the public so that they could see the evidence firsthand.
“Ultimately, we believe the Biden family and their associates courted business in countries that correlated directly with Joe Biden’s work as Vice President,” the Committee said in its May 10 press release. “This is not normal. It is not ethical. And this is why we are working towards legislative solutions.”
Watch the House Oversight Committee’s full press conference on the Biden family’s business schemes here.
On May 10 FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to comply with a subpoena sent by Comer in order to obtain an FBI document alleged by a whistleblower to contain evidence of a criminal scheme between a foreign national and then-VP Biden.
The FBI cited “confidentiality interests” in their refusal to send the document to the House Oversight Committee, as well as wishing to “avoid the polarization of disputes.”
Maine’s papers found it more sensational that a low-level Republican Congressman, Santos, is accused of campaign finance violations than the sitting president and his family having received millions of dollars from foreign nations through shell companies.
The Portland Press Herald spent the day pondering whether or not Santos would be expelled from Congress, and Trump’s CNN town hall performance.
The Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News weren’t alone in running cover for President Biden — they stood in good company with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was revealed this week to have played a lead role in a now-discredited letter signed by intelligence officials alleging that political damaging news about Hunter Biden was in fact Russian disinformation.
Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post wrote their first story on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.
Just five days following the publication of this story, a statement was issued by 51 former intelligence community officials, indicating that the story exhibited “all the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation.
As it turns out, shortly after the New York Post story broke, then-Biden campaign advisor and now Secretary of State Antony Blinken contacted former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and encouraged him to draft that intelligence community statement.
Morell testified to the committee that he began drafting the statement following the directive of the Biden campaign, and that it “would not have happened but for Blinken’s communication.”
The House Judiciary Committee’s Report found that:
The public statement by 51 former intelligence officials was a political operation to help elect Vice President Biden in the 2020 presidential election
The Biden campaign took active measures to discredit the allegations about Hunter Biden by exploiting the national security credentials of former intelligence officials
Blinken’s outreach to Morell was the impetus for the public statement
The Biden campaign coordinated dissemination of the statement to members of the media
The Committees have evidence that an employee affiliated with the CIA may have assisted in obtaining signatories for the statement
That letter led subsequently to the censoring of the New York Post’s reporting by large social media corporations, including Facebook and Twitter.
Major news outlets, including NPR and the Washington Post, followed suit, agreeing not to cover the true information about Hunter Biden for fear — supposedly — of advancing Russian interests.
No aspect of the New York Post’s reporting on Hunted Biden has been disproven.
So the Press Herald and Bangor Daily News can rest assured knowing that they join the CIA, the FBI, and multi-billion dollar media corporations in having turned a blind eye toward credible accusations of corruption made against Biden and his family.
Edward Tomic is a reporter for The Maine Wire based in Southern Maine. He grew up near Boston, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Boston University. He can be reached at tomic@themainewire.com
