Hunter Biden’s consulting firm — which did business for clients in Ukraine, Russia, and Communist China — made regular payments to his father starting in 2018, House Republicans alleged on Monday, though their records showed only one payment. The transfer came from the first son’s business entity, Owasco PC, where he kept his earnings “from China and other shady corners of the world,” according to the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer.  Owasco has provided a trove of information to committee members as they ramp up their impeachment efforts. 

According to the bank records released by the committee, President Biden received $1,380 in September 2018 from Owasco, which brought in millions of dollars from overseas clients. On the bank transfer authorization agreement, it says that the president would receive that same amount on a “monthly” basis beginning in September 2018.

The bank records only show one payment sent to the president, on September 17, 2018 — 18 months after he left the vice presidency and more than six months before he declared his candidacy for president in 2019. It is not clear if or when the payments stopped. A spokesman for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Mr. Comer said in a video released Monday that “Hunter Biden’s legal team and the White House’s media allies claim Hunter’s corporate entities never made payments directly to Joe Biden. We can officially add this latest talking point to the list of lies.”

The president has long said that there was and always would be “an absolute wall” between him and his relatives’ overseas business affairs. He often said on the 2020 campaign trail that he “knew nothing” of his son’s activities, even though the younger Mr. Biden traveled on Air Force Two to conduct business and his father called into more than 20 of his son’s business meetings and dinners. Over the past several months, House Republicans have released a steady stream of evidence refuting the president’s claims of ignorance of, and noninvolvement in, his son’s business affairs.

“At this moment, Hunter Biden is under an investigation by the Department of Justice for using Owasco PC for tax evasion and other serious crimes,” the chairman continued. “And based on whistleblower testimony, we know the justice department made a concerted effort to prevent investigators from asking questions about Joe Biden. I wonder why?”

A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did a spokesman for the Oversight Committee’s Democratic leader, Congressman Jamie Raskin. 

According to a plea agreement the first son attempted to make with Special Counsel David Weiss earlier this year, Owasco and Mr. Biden himself were deep in debt to the Internal Revenue Service after improperly claiming personal expenditures as business expenses. 

“He … negotiated and executed contracts for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco PC,” the plea deal states. It also says that Mr. Biden made $4.4 million from his overseas business dealings over the course of 2017 and 2018. 

Speaker Johnson has indicated he wants the House to vote to authorize Mr. Comer’s impeachment inquiry soon. Congressional authorization is not required legally, but such a stamp of approval would give the inquiry a greater air of legitimacy and help convince the courts to order Mr. Biden to comply with Mr. Comer’s subpoenas and give a sworn deposition behind closed doors to committee lawyers. 

Mr. Johnson can only lose three GOP votes if he wants the impeachment inquiry resolution to pass, but the members who’ve expressed doubts about the inquiry appear to be falling in line, Politico reports, due in part to the White House resisting the subpoenas.

Mr. Biden is currently refusing to give a closed-door deposition to the Oversight Committee and is insisting on only testifying in a public hearing. Mr. Comer has rejected his offer. He has also subpoenaed the president’s brother, James, as well as a wealthy Democratic donor, Elizabeth Naftali, who purchased paintings created by Mr. Biden for amounts that Republicans say grossly overvalued the artwork and could be seen as an illegal campaign contributions.