White House, Hunter Biden’s team keep shifting goalposts in denying Joe’s involvement with businesses

Hunter Biden’s lawyer declared last Thursday that the first son "did not share" his business or his profits with his father, marking another notable shift in the narrative responding to allegations linking President Biden to his son’s shady business dealings.

Abbe Lowell, who has been aggressively defending Hunter, said he can "categorically" declare that Biden was not involved in Hunter's previous business dealings and did not profit from any of them.

"I can tell you that Hunter did not share his business with his dad," Lowell told CNN on Thursday. "I can tell you that he did not share money from his businesses with his dad. And as the evidence out there, his dad, like all good parents, tried to help Hunter when Hunter needed that help."

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House Republicans who are investigating the Biden family have accused the White House of shifting its narrative in denying that Biden was involved with his son’s businesses. In 2019, Biden emphatically denied ever discussing business matters with his son, despite Hunter's longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, handling the elder Biden's finances throughout the entirety of the Obama administration. 

Then- Vice President Biden also met with over a dozen of Hunter’s foreign business partners, as previously reported by Fox News Digital.

"First of all, I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period," Biden said in August 2019. "There wasn't any hint of scandal at all when we were there. It was the same kind of strict, strict rules. That's why I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else, even distant family about their business interest, period."

"I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," a frustrated Biden told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a month later. "You should be looking at Trump. Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum. … Everybody’s looked at it and said there’s nothing there. Ask the right question."

"I don’t discuss business with my son," Biden said again the next month in October 2019.

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The narrative, however, took a drastic turn in June when the White House began saying Biden was not "in business" with his son during his vice presidency. 

"As we have said many times before, the president was not in business with his son," White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said in a June 29 statement.

"The answer remains the same," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a July 24 briefing. "The president was never in business with his son. I just don’t have anything else to add."

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House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith wrote a letter to White House Counsel Stuart Delery in July seeking clarity on the shifting message, but their July 27 deadline was ignored.

Additionally, Hunter’s lawyer’s claims last week about Hunter not sharing profits with his father do not appear to hold up when looking at Hunter's text messages and emails from his abandoned laptop, according to previous Fox News Digital reports.

In a January 2019 text message, Hunter expressed frustration with his daughter, Naomi, and revealed that his dad forced him to fork over half his salary.

"I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro (sic) 30 years. It's really hard. But don't worry unlike Pop I won't make you give me half your salary," Hunter wrote. 

In a 2018 WhatsApp message with his uncle, Hunter fumed about now-first lady Jill Biden and called her a "f---ing moron" after she shot down a proposal about him teaching and said he needed to get sober first, or he would not be able to support his family.

"I suooorted [sic] my GM [sic] family including some of the costs you should have used your salary to lay [sic] for- for the last 24 years," Hunter said. 

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In another text message exchange from 2018, Hunter claimed to have paid his father's bills for more than a decade, which received backlash from House Republicans.

"Too many cooks in the kitchen," he wrote on April 12, 2018. "Too many profile changes and such. Happened 10 days ago too. What do you need? I’m going to bank in a few. Need to verify identity in person."

"I need to pay AT&T," Hunter's assistant Katie Dodge responded.

Hunter then instructed Dodge to put the payment on both his debit card and his "Wells Fargo credit line."

"My dad has been using most lines on this account which I’ve through the gracious offerings of Eric [Schwerin] have paid for past 11 years," Hunter wrote.

It is not clear whether Hunter was claiming to have a shared AT&T account or a shared Wells Fargo account with his father. The White House declined to clarify when previously reached by Fox News Digital.

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A 2010 email from Schwerin, Hunter's longtime business partner, said he was transferring funds from Biden’s tax refund check into Hunter’s account because "he owes it to you."

House Democrats acknowledged Wednesday that Schwerin, the former president of Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca Advisors, handled Biden’s finances for the duration of his vice presidency.

A 2016 email from Schwerin to Hunter indicated that Hunter was expected to pay an AT&T bill in the amount of $190 for "JRB."

One of the most infamous emails from Hunter's abandoned laptop was the email that refers to the elder Biden as the "big guy" and says, "10 held by H for the big guy?" which is shorthand for 10% held by Hunter Biden for his father. Hunter's former business partner Tony Bobulinski previously confirmed "big guy" was a reference to now-President Biden.

The 2017 email about the equity split proposition for the joint venture with CEFC, a CCP-linked energy company, was sent by business associate James Gilliar, who also infamously told Bobulinski on WhatsApp, in May 2017 not to "mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid."

"OK they should be paranoid about things," Bobulinski said.

"For real," Gilliar said.

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The House Oversight Committee recently included a few of these examples as their "evidence" that Biden was involved with Hunter's business dealings and that he profited, including testimony from a pair of whistleblowers. 

One of the whistleblowers, who claimed Justice Department, FBI and IRS officials interfered with the investigation into Hunter Biden, said earlier in the summer that Hunter invoked his father to pressure a Chinese business partner while discussing deals. IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley oversaw the IRS probe into the president's son and said the agency obtained a July 2017 WhatsApp message from Hunter to Harvest Fund Management CEO Henry Zhao showing Hunter alleging he was with his father to pressure Zhao to pay him $10M.

"I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled," Hunter wrote in the WhatsApp message to Zhao, according to the documents. "Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight," Hunter wrote.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy's, R-Calif., announced an impeachment inquiry last week for Biden, prompting the White House to release a 14-page memo pushing back on Republican claims and calling on media outlets to increase scrutiny.

"After nearly 9 months of investigating, House Republicans haven’t been able to turn up any evidence of the President doing anything wrong. But House Republicans led by Marjorie Taylor Greene are nonetheless opening a baseless impeachment inquiry of President Biden — despite many House Republicans openly admitting there is no evidence on which to support it," White House spokesperson Ian Sams wrote last week. 

"Impeachment is grave, rare, and historic. The Constitution requires ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’" Sams continued. "But House Republicans are publicly stating they have uncovered none of these things."

The White House and Hunter's attorney did not respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.

Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

Top Oversight Dem trashes Comer’s Biden probe as a ‘total bust’

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is dismissing Chairman James Comer’s probe into the Biden family as "a complete and total bust."

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., released a 14-page memo on Monday morning attacking House Republicans’ bid to investigate President Biden and his son Hunter. It comes just a day before representatives return to Capitol Hill after the August recess, and GOP leaders are expected to weigh whether to open a formal impeachment inquiry over allegations of impropriety stemming from Hunter Biden’s business dealings. 

"Instead of working on legislation to promote the common good or even just keep the government running, House Republicans are weaponizing their offices and exploiting congressional power and resources to promote debunked and outlandish conspiracy theories about President Biden," Raskin’s memo, sent on the 22nd anniversary of September 11, said. 

In a possible preview of Democrats’ rebuttal strategy, the Democrat accused Comer of trying to stage a "false moral equivalency" between Biden and former President Donald Trump. Raskin played a top role in Trump’s second impeachment, over the Capitol riot, as House Democrats’ Lead House Impeachment Manager at the time.

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"This is a transparent effort to boost Donald Trump’s campaign by establishing a false moral equivalency between Trump—the four-time-indicted former president now facing 91 federal and state criminal charges, based on a mountain of damning evidence for a shocking range of felonies, including lying to the FBI, endangering national security by illegally keeping classified documents, and conspiring to subvert the U.S. Constitution—and President Biden, against whom there is precisely zero evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever," Raskin wrote.

"House Republicans constantly insist that they are investigating President Biden, and not his adult son. In that case, we can form an obvious judgment on their investigation: it has been a complete and total bust—an epic flop in the history of congressional investigations."

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A spokesperson for the House Oversight majority told Fox News Digital that the committee would continue its investigative efforts and argued that evidence was "mounting" against the president.

"Mounting evidence reveals that then-Vice President Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his family sold around the world to enrich the Bidens," the spokesperson said Monday.

"The Oversight Committee has a duty to continue to follow this pattern of corruption and hold President Biden accountable for abusing public office for the financial benefit of his family. Unfortunately, Democrats would rather play Biden family defense lawyer instead of working for the American people."

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Investigating whether Biden profited off of his son’s business deals while he was vice president in the Obama administration has been a marquee item for Congress’ House GOP majority this year. 

Revelations made by former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer and elsewhere have heaped scrutiny on how much Biden knew about his son’s business, and to what extent Hunter Biden used his powerful father as leverage.

Archer said to Oversight Committee staff and several lawmakers last month that the president was on the phone with Hunter Biden at least 20 times while the latter was with business associates, across a ten-year span. Archer did not say he heard the president discuss business matters at those times.

But Biden’s allies have insisted that the hours of testimony and pages of bank records seized upon by House Republicans fail to show any proof that the president did anything improper.

User’s Manual to Devon Archer’s closed door interview tomorrow

Former Burisma Board member Devon Archer appears tomorrow morning before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door, transcribed interview. 

Fox is told that Archer is expected to appear this time - even though he ducked the committee three times before and is under subpoena. 

Moreover, one senior Republican close to the investigation believes the DOJ tried "an intimidation tactic" Saturday, asking a judge to set a date for Archer to report to begin serving jail time. 

Archer was found guilty of defrauding Native American tribes in 2022. 

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Fox is told investigators intend to ask Archer about previously undisclosed bank records and the purpose of those transactions. In particular, the committee wants to know what role if any the President had in those transactions. 

'IMPEACHMENT WEEK'

There are also questions as to whether legal counsel for the Bidens contacted Archer. 

The committee believes Archer will tell investigators about meetings or phone calls he had with President Biden regarding potential business deals. 

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Archer is slated to appear at 10 am ET. The discussion is scheduled to go for four hours, total. Two hours per side. 

The Republicans will go for an hour. The Democrats for an hour. And so on. 

With breaks, this likely does not conclude until 3 pm ET or so. 

Fox is told to expect maybe a couple of lawmakers there. Fox is told that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio will likely attend. 

Fox is also told that the committee intends to release the transcript of the transcribed interview "in three or four days."

House Republican warns GOP to be ‘better than Nancy Pelosi’ in possible Biden impeachment: ‘Follow the facts’

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., admitted that Republicans are currently split over the possibility of impeaching President Biden over allegations related to possible involvement with his son Hunter Biden's business dealings, warning that if it does happen, her party has to make sure they have a strong case.

In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," the South Carolina Republican noted that the GOP can use an impeachment inquiry as "another tool in the toolbox" without taking the step of impeachment itself, while warning that controversial moves like impeachment can come with a price.

"I will tell you, every time we walk the plank we put moderate members – members that won Biden-won districts – we are putting those seats at risk for 2024. We are putting the majority at risk," she said, noting that this applies to other polarizing issues as well, like abortion.

Mace also accused Democrats of politicizing the impeachment process with their impeachments of former President Donald Trump, noting that Republicans need to base their actions on their findings, not on any political agenda.

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"Whatever the evidence shows us, we ought to follow the facts, and we have to be better than Nancy Pelosi," Mace said. "Pelosi really politicized the impeachment process. We do not want to do that here."

Mace approached the subject of impeaching a president seriously, stating that if the House were to take that step, she and her colleagues would need to have a strong case.

"We have to show overwhelming, undeniable evidence in order to move this thing forward, and if we can’t then we should not. But if we do, then we ought to use every tool in the toolbox to make sure the American people see it for what it is, and we can hold everyone accountable."

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on "Hannity" last week that the situation was "rising to the level of impeachment inquiry," but Mace is not the only Republican to note that impeachment should be based on standards, not politics. 

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said Wednesday it is irresponsible for Republicans to be "raising the I-word" because it "sends a message to the public and sets expectations. Buck did acknowledge that House committees' probes are fair and that such an investigation is indeed the chamber's responsibility.

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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., also added that no official should be impeached unless the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors" has been definitively reached.

"I'm not going to support impeaching somebody just because I don't like their politics," he said.

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.