Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee are renewing their demands that a New York City art dealer provide documents related to Hunter Biden’s painting sales.
Oversight Committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky initially requested the records from Georges Bergès, owner of the Georges Bergès Gallery in lower Manhattan, in late January. Bergès declined to provide details about the sale of Biden’s art through a letter submitted by his attorney, arguing that to do so would violate confidentiality rules established by the White House to prevent influence-peddling. Ethics experts criticized the agreement, noting that the confidentiality rule prevents the public from knowing who could potentially be buying access to the Biden family.
Comer argued Monday in a letter, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller, that the Oversight Committee has a legitimate interest in investigating apparent corruption.
“Your client’s arrangement with Mr. Biden raises obvious ethical red flags and Mr. Bergès’s purported ‘safeguards’ are insufficient and troubling,” he wrote to Berges’ attorney, William Pittard. “Instead of fostering transparency, Mr. Bergès and Mr. Biden struck an opaque arrangement that demands congressional oversight. The Committee is reviewing legislative solutions that address the ethics and money laundering issues raised by certain high-end art deals, and your information is critical to our investigation.”
Read the letter here:
Letter to Pittard – 03-13-2023 by Michael Ginsberg on Scribd
Hunter Biden has sold paintings for as much as $500,000, even as critics have panned their quality. New York Times art critic Jason Farago wrote in 2021 that viewers will “forget them days or minutes later” and suggested that the paintings might be found in a “posh hotel room, or the end papers of a first edition.” (RELATED: ‘What Is Being Sold Is The Biden Name’: Critics Go After Hunter Biden’s Art, Which Is Raking In Up To $500,000)
Hunter Biden has struggled financially in recent years, despite lucrative business dealings with Burisma Holdings and a Chinese government-linked energy firm. The Internal Revenue Service took out a $113,000 lien against Biden in 2015, and he is currently under investigation in the Federal District of Delaware over his failure to pay taxes. Federal officials reportedly believe that they have enough information to charge Biden for lying on a 2018 firearm permit application.
In addition to documents detailing Biden’s art sales, the Oversight Committee is also requesting that Bergès sit for a transcribed interview.
“For decades, Hunter Biden has peddled influence and access to his father and engaged in shady business dealings with foreign adversaries around the world. Given Hunter’s history of suspicious activity, it is deeply concerning that the President’s son continues to sell his amateur artwork to anonymous purchasers for sky-high prices,” Comer said in a statement to the Daily Caller. “Foreign adversaries, including China, have used transactions involving sham art sales to launder money and evade sanctions imposed by the United States. Hunter’s art dealer, George Bergès, now seems to be running cover for Hunter Biden and is obstructing the Committee’s effort to obtain information on who is buying Hunter’s artwork. George Bergès needs to cooperate with this investigation, and I fully expect him to provide all information and appear for a transcribed interview.”
