Hunter’s art dealer Georges Bergès failed to provide requested information on Hunter Biden’s anonymous art sales before Monday’s deadline, the House Oversight Committee told Breitbart News.
On March 14, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer demanded Bergès comply with requests for “any information regarding who is buying Mr. Biden’s art” or face a subpoena.
Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, February 8, 2023. (Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This information will inform our legislation on matters that are within the jurisdiction of this Committee,” said Comer, who has said he is 95 percent sure Hunter’s sold artwork has found its way to China, potentially compromising the president.
Upon failing to provide information on who might have bought Hunter’s artwork, priced for sale at between $75,000 and $500,000, the Oversight Committee told Breitbart News it has received correspondence from Bergès’ attorney and will follow up with him soon.
It is not yet known what Bergès’ attorney conveyed to Comer.
“Give Me a Break, Man”: Biden SNAPS at Reporter Asking About Family’s Business Relations in China:
The White HouseThe committee chair has threatened to compel the information if he continues to stonewall relevant information regarding Hunter’s anonymous art buyers and high-dollar art transactions.
Comer’s demand for transparency from Hunter and his art dealer comes as the art market is known for corruption. A Senate subcommittee report detailed in 2020 how the art market serves as a vehicle for money laundering:
The art industry is considered the largest, legal unregulated industry in the United States. Unlike financial institutions, the art industry is not subject to Bank Secrecy Act’s (“BSA”) requirements, which mandate detailed procedures to prevent money laundering and to verify a customer’s identity. While the BSA does not apply to art transactions by art dealers and auction houses, sanctions do. No U.S. person or entity is allowed to do business with a sanctioned individual or entity.
Despite the corruption in the art market, the White House has defended Hunter’s art sales to anonymous buyers.
In 2021, it praised Hunter for his art venture and defended him against ethical concerns. “The president remains proud of his son,” former White House press secretary Jen Psaki replied to concerns:
The president’s 53-year-old son has also remained defiant toward his critics, responding “f*ck’em” when asked.
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.