Hunter Biden looking over a wall of money. Joe Biden is in front not paying attention to him. The background is red.
Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Samantha Lee/Insider
  • Hunter Biden will probably be subpoenaed by the new House majority.

  • Hunter Biden's work as a consultant and artist is shrouded in mystery.

  • Hunter Biden is being investigated by the Justice Department.

The Republican House majority promised to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of the president.

The incoming chairs of the House oversight and judiciary committees talked about corruption by the Biden family at a press conference.

For Americans who accept the lawful result of the 2020 election, the sight of these two election deniers talking about "whistleblowers," "schemes" and a dated laptop might remind them of the House Republicans' investigation into the 2012 death of four Americans in Libya.

Hunter Biden is not the same person as the one in Libya.

The scandal in Libya was not real. The career of Hunter Biden has a lot of the same things. The evidence underpinning the allegations of Hunter Biden's corruption is troubling, even though the Trump-MAGA election deniers are lining up to push them. The Biden White House will not be protected from the Justice Department's criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, which is still going on.

Let's take a quick look at what's known about Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was trading on the Biden family name. He charged six and sometimes seven-figure fees for his work as an international business consultant, which seems to have been little more than Beltway access and high power introductions. One prospective partner reported that despite reports of Hunter's womanizing and substance abuse, he could still be a valuable partner because of his access to the State and Treasury departments as well as the highest level in China.

Hunter accompanied his father on an official visit to Beijing, where he met a Chinese venture capitalist. Hunter and his partners had contracted with Li to start a fund. Hunter Biden was given a 3-carat diamond. He told the New Yorker that he didn't want to take it. That is what he did.

According to documents from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, his associates were managing some of Joe Biden's finances and paying the vice president's utility and Delaware home repair bills out of his son's accounts. According to a report in the New York Times, there is a possibility of a connection between Joe Biden's diplomacy in Ukraine and Hunter Biden's lucrative role on the board of Burisma. Hunter asked his father to have his own key to the office of his company.

Hunter reinvented himself as an artist after his father was elected president. Questions about his business dealings have not gone away. The names of the art patrons who pay six figures for his paintings are not known. Hunter's own legal team conducts the vetting, not the White House's. There is an "absolute wall" between his policymaking and his family's business interests, according to Joe Biden. Biden wouldn't ask Hunter about his clients, and Hunter wouldn't tell his father about them. Joe Biden has not explicitly banned family members from taking money from people trying to influence them.

A 31 page interim staff report was released by the House Oversight Committee. The document contained excerpts from Suspicious Activity Reports filed with the Treasury Department concerning some of Hunter Biden's financial transactions.

Treasury didn't respond to a request for comment, and a committee spokesman told Insider that the SARs were obtained from a "whistleblower."

The lawyer for Hunter Biden didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on Friday. The White House counsel's office characterized the GOP effort as politically motivated and full of long-debunked conspiracy theories.

Why is this important?

Hunter Biden's dealings with foreign clients are not fully known. With the GOP's new majority comes subpoena power, which can be used to uncover new information. There was a chance that Hunter Biden would get a subpoena.

One thing that is clear, however, is Joe Biden's approach to the many Hunter Biden controversies, which reiterates his love for the troubled son while denying any involvement with his dealings. It's possible that Joe Biden was actually in the loop, as opposed to just being mentioned by other people. It hasn't yet.

Donald Trump and others have failed in their attempts to exploit Hunter Biden's vulnerabilities as a political strategy. The Ukrainian president was not coerced to investigate Hunter Biden. His first attempt to be impeached was related to that.

There is a lot of influence peddling going on in Washington. Hunter Biden may have crossed the line. There's no evidence that Joe Biden had anything to do with it. Some people still believe that the first family should serve as an example, even though they are avoiding criminal liability. According to Walter Shaub, who led the government's ethics office under President Obama, less of a grifter than Trump cannot become the standard.

Business Insider has an article on it.