President Joe Biden chuckled and walked off when he was asked about allegations of bribery from his time as vice president pushed by congressional Republicans.
“Are there tapes that you accepted bribes, President Biden? Is that true?” Mr Biden was asked by the New York Post on Tuesday as he left an event attended by US diplomats at the White House.
Mr Biden stopped walking for a moment before smiling and chuckling, shaking his head as he carried on down the hall.
On 3 May, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee put out a press release quoting its chairman, Representative James Comer of Kentucky, saying: “Information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.”
A letter sent by Mr Comer and Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley to the FBI requested the sharing of the documentation of an interview that took place in June 2020 claiming that it “describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions”.
Republicans pushed for the June 2020 document to be released over the course of the next month. The FBI then made it available to members of Congress, with the information on the confidential source redacted.
A number of outlets tweeted the footage of Mr Biden chuckling at the question, including Russian state media outlet Sputnik.
The GOP is now trying to bring attention to a secondhand claim from a single source. The allegation was made when Trump Attorney General Bill Barr was in charge of the Justice Department, but the allegation still didn’t prompt any legal action.
Republicans are grasping for any opportunity to show that the FBI and DoJ are treating Mr Biden with kid gloves and that he deserves to be indicted just as much as former President Donald Trump, a Washington Post analysis noted.
“That provides the space that Comer and Grassley are filling, running far ahead of their extremely limited evidence,” it states.
Lawmakers who have seen the document say it outlines an allegation that Joe and Hunter Biden were both offered $5m by an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where the younger Mr Biden was a board member.
Mr Biden addressed the allegations during a press conference with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this month.
Mr Trump’s first impeachment came out of his pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to probe the Bidens’ activities in the country. Mr Trump falsely claimed that Mr Biden blocked a corruption probe into the company to help Hunter.
Then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani continued to try to find dirt on Mr Biden in Ukraine, leading to federal law enforcement warning the Trump administration that Mr Giuliani might be being used as a vehicle for Russian misinformation.
Reports have indicated that Mr Giuliani may have been the source of the allegations of bribery against the Bidens.
This week, Mr Barr appeared on Fox News saying the allegation came from the FBI itself, something The Washington Post noted may be a “semantic distinction” between how the FBI received the information and how it reached US Attorney Scott Brady, who was put in charge of vetting the claim.
On Monday, Mr Grassley said on the Senate floor: “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden.”
“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden,” he added.
“What, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?” he asked.
The claim that the recordings exist comes from the same individual who made the claims about the bribe payments, The Washington Post notes.
Appearing on Newsmax, Mr Comer was asked if the recordings are “legit”.
“We don’t know if they’re legit or not,” he said, mentioning that the executive who spoke to the FBI source claimed that the recordings were real.
On Fox News, Mr Grassley was asked if the document is “damning” for Mr Biden.
“There’s accusations in it, but that’s — it’s not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not,” he said. “It’s … my job to make sure the FBI is doing their job.”
Journalist Marcy Wheeler tweeted that Mr Comer is “using shady information from Russian assets laundered [through] a paid FBI informant”.
New York Democratic Representative Dan Goldman blasted the bribery allegations on Wednesday.
