[4][5] Nevertheless, in September 2023, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed committee chairman James Comer to lead a formal three-committee impeachment inquiry.
[7] In 2006, Joe Biden's brother James joined his son Hunter in purchasing a New York City-based hedge fund, Paradigm.
[9] The U.S. State Department expressed concerns about Hunter's involvement with Burisma due to its history of corruption, and potential conflicts with Obama administration policy.
[11] When Joe Biden announced his candidacy for president in 2019, the Trump presidential re-election campaign sought evidence of possible financial impropriety and influence peddling.
[22] Committee chairman Comer launched the investigation on January 11, 2023, with a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen regarding alleged Biden family "foreign business practices and international influence peddling schemes".
[23][24] As Vice President during the Obama administration, Joe Biden had spearheaded the effort to encourage adopting economic and democratic reforms for the government of Ukraine.
[33][34][35][36] Prior to the hearing, many Republicans had alleged Twitter and the FBI had colluded to suppress the October 2020 New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop.
"[38][39] In March 2023, Jamie Raskin, Democratic ranking member of the Oversight Committee, disclosed that the chairman had quietly issued sweeping subpoenas of fourteen years of banking records of Hunter Biden associates involved with CEFC China Energy.
[40][41] On May 3, 2023, Comer and Republican senator Chuck Grassley wrote to attorney general Merrick Garland and FBI director Christopher Wray a whistleblower allegedly revealed policy decisions being made in exchange for money from a foreign national.
[42] A year later, in February 2024, Smirnov was indicted by the US Justice Department on allegations he had fabricated his account based on Russian intelligence officials' instructions.
[44][45] On December 12, 2024, it was reported that Smirnov agreed to plead guilty to lying to the FBI and to admit that he fabricated the Burisma bribery story about Joe and Hunter Biden.
A dual US-Israeli citizen, Luft was arrested in Cyprus in February 2023 at the request of American authorities seeking extradition; he was released on bail and became a fugitive.
In July, the US Justice Department unsealed an indictment of Luft on eight counts related to arms trafficking, and in 2016, paying a high-ranking government official and advisor to Donald Trump, as an unregistered agent for Chinese interests.
Asked by reporters if he could name a specific official policy decision Joe Biden had made that may have been directly influenced by foreign payments, Comer said he could not.
[81] Weiss told a closed-door session of the House Judiciary Committee on November 7 that he was the decision-maker in the investigation, he was not hindered in any way and there were no political considerations involved.
[85] Archer contradicted a claim made by Trump and the Comer committee that in 2014 Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina wired $3.5 million to a shell company account controlled by him and Hunter Biden.
[86][88][89] On Hannity, Comer and Jim Jordan alleged that in December 2015 Hunter Biden phoned his father asking him to help Burisma and that the vice president traveled to Ukraine five days later to call for Shokin's removal, though the trip had been publicly announced weeks earlier.
Comer released a statement[90] asserting the testimony "confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son's business dealings and was not involved".
[93][94][95][96] Comer also presented an email from a bank money laundering investigator who wrote the Owasco account activity "appears unusual with no current business purpose."
Another email showed a more senior bank investigator had found the activity "reasonable and consistent with the business profile" of the company and "clearly written in operating agreements," recommending the matter be waived.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's attorney, rebuffed the request, responding in a letter that the committee did not have any legitimate legislative purpose and that Comer had "shamelessly maligned" his client.
"[107][108][109] The Washington Post reported that during a November 7 luncheon with the Republican Governance Group, House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated there was insufficient evidence to initiate formal impeachment proceedings.
[110] Despite lacking evidence of wrongdoing by the president, on December 13 majority House Republicans unanimously approved a resolution to initiate formal impeachment proceedings.
[113] In August 2023, Glenn Kessler, the lead fact-checker for The Washington Post, analyzed the committee's presentation of its interim findings in staff memos and Comer's comments in conservative media and on Twitter.
Kessler found the memos, while written in a partisan tone that ignored or downplayed contrary information, tended to use more restrained language than did Comer in public statements.
[114] Analysis by The Washington Post in late May 2023 noted that the letter and documents Comer and Grassley had publicly released made an allegation of bribery.
[62] In a May 22, 2023, Fox News interview, Comer said he believed the media attention his investigation had drawn "absolutely" affected Joe Biden's lower polling relative to Trump's.
On December 12, 2024, it was reported that Smirnov agreed to plead guilty to lying to the FBI and to admit that he fabricated the Burisma bribery story about Joe and Hunter Biden.