A new report that Hunter Biden’s business partner visited the White House or the vice president’s residence at least 36 times during the Obama administration has cast even more doubt on President Biden’s repeated assertions that he “knew nothing” about his son’s business affairs. This comes as Speaker McCarthy again says that the matter of “‘paying-to-play’ with the Biden family …  is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry.”  

Mr. Biden fils’s associate, Eric Schwerin, worked as a lobbyist alongside the younger Mr. Biden at Rosemont Seneca Partners, which was founded by the two men’s friend and partner, Devon Archer, and Secretary Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, the ketchup heir. Mr. Schwerin also worked as a lobbyist alongside Mr. Biden between 2002 and 2008.

The number of his visits to the White House and the Naval Observatory, Vice President Biden’s official residence, was first reported by Fox News. Before that, the Washington Post reported in 2022 that Mr. Schwerin had visited the White House and Naval Observatory 19 times during President Obama’s tenure. 

The visits included stops at a 2015 Christmas party hosted by the Bidens, which Archer also attended. Archer recently confirmed to the House Oversight Committee that Hunter Biden would often call his father during business dinners to introduce him to would-be partners and investors. 

Archer said that the president’s long-running claims that he “knew nothing” about his son’s business dealings were “categorically false.”

Mr. Obama twice appointed Mr. Schwerin to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, first in 2015 and then again in 2017. Another person with close ties to the Biden political apparatus, Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Democratic fundraiser, was appointed to the same commission by the incumbent president. Ms. Naftali was recently unmasked as a purchaser of paintings by Hunter Biden, which he now creates as his primary vocation.

Mr. Schwerin’s involvement with the Bidens was long standing and very intimate, according to one member of the family. The first son’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, disclosed in a 2022 memoir that Mr. Schwerin “managed almost every aspect of our financial life” during his and Mr. Biden’s friendship and partnership. Mr. Biden also noted in a 2015 email that Mr. Schwerin had been asking him for an appointment to one of the many pseudo-ceremonial presidential commissions “the day after the 2008 election.”

In the White House and Naval Observatory visitor logs, Mr. Schwerin was identified as a “personal guest” of the Biden family, meaning he would never have to disclose any relevant financial information pertaining to potential conflicts of interest.

Mr. Schwerin, like Archer, could soon come under scrutiny by the Oversight Committee. The chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, has said that the investigation will pull on many threads related to the Biden family’s business dealings that could include interviewing associates like Schwerin. 

On Monday, Mr. McCarthy was interviewed by Fox News’s Sean Hannity to discuss the progress Republicans have made in investigating these matters. “This isn’t about Hunter Biden, it’s about ‘paying-to-play’ with the Biden family,” he said to the host. 

Mr. McCarthy had previously told Mr. Hannity that the Oversight Committee investigation — along with probes being conducted by the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees — has made the impeachment of Mr. Biden more likely. 

“This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed,” Mr. McCarthy said in July. 

On Tuesday, the White House spokesman for oversight matters and congressional investigations, Ian Sams, hit back at Mr. McCarthy for allegedly pandering to the most conservative members of the House Republican conference. 

Mr. Sams said Mr. McCarthy has “continued lying about President Biden — making a series of plainly false, widely debunked attacks in order to promote the extreme far right’s baseless impeachment stunt that even some members of McCarthy’s own caucus are expressing concerns about pursuing.”

Meanwhile, attorneys for Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors have about two weeks to finish an amended version of his controversial plea deal and bring it before the federal judge who threw out the original on July 26. If the judge does not approve the amended deal, Mr. Biden will likely face a criminal trial on tax evasion and firearms charges that could lead to prison time.