Amid Hunter Biden art scandal, GOP rep introduces transparency bill targeting POTUS family members
ui 'Fox & Friends' hosts question the ethics of Hunter Biden's art sales
Hunter Biden's art sales spark controversy due to a proposed $500,000 price tag.
EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., is set to introduce a bill aimed at having the president and vice president disclose their non-dependent children's finances as President Biden's son prepares to attend art shows where he could meet potential buyers of his paintings.
Fox News exclusively obtained Waltz’s bill, the Preventing Anonymous Income by Necessitating Transparency of Executive Relatives (PAINTER) Act, which will require that presidents and vice presidents provide financial disclosures for all of their non-dependent children.
A requirement already exists under the Ethics in Government Act for spouses and dependent children of presidents to disclose their finances.
HUNTER BIDEN’S ART DEALER SAID HE WANTED TO BE THE ‘LEAD GUY IN CHINA’ IN 2015
Waltz told Fox News the bill is "aimed at stopping" what he thinks is "the obvious and shameless grift that's going on with Hunter Biden's art sales, for which he is obviously not qualified to do and is only doing to continue to profit off of his family name."
"Look, this is just an obvious and despicable trend," Waltz told Fox News over the phone on Tuesday, pointing to the president's son being "an equity holder in the China nuclear power group that is blacklisted for trying to steal American warhead technology" as another example.
"I mean we can keep going down the list of egregious act after egregious act, and we have to put a stop to it," Waltz continued. "And I'm going to do my best to get it into legislation."
The Florida Republican also said that, while this act is focusing on expanding the disclosures outside of spouses and dependent children "to get to grown children," he "would be open" to expanding it from there.
"The PAINTER Act, at this point, would expand it to the president's grown children," Waltz said.
The congressman also said that President Biden pledging to disclose who is buying his son's art – which the president has not done yet – "falls in the right-thing-to-do category."
"And that's really what this is all about, is just getting some transparency and shining a light on this," "We should know who is backchanneling, backdooring and buying influence — which Hunter Biden has a long history of selling — to the President of the United States."
When asked if Hunter Biden's art dealer, Georges Berges' ties to China could pose ethical and national security issues, Waltz answered that "Hunter's ties to China pose a national security problem."
"I was in business, myself. I've had to raise money and fund a business," Waltz said. "The fact that he flew on Air Force Two on official business and weeks later was given a billion dollars from the central bank of China – and then, months later, another half a billion – given his total lack of qualifications is a disturbing and obvious grift in and of itself."
"But, what I want to get to the bottom of is: At the direction of his Chinese business partners – which are still business partners right now as we speak – what type of technologies has Hunter been facilitating? Are these technologies that normally would have had export controls? Do they have dual uses for civilian and military uses?"
"I can tell you again – I'm on the China task force – the Chinese aren't looking to find investors like Hunter Biden to buy into shoestring factories," the congressman continued. "They want artificial intelligence, advanced materials, quantum computing, robotics."
Waltz said he thinks there is "a lot to be learned" about how the younger Biden "is profiting off of his family name" and "what kind of damage it's doing to the United States because of the coziness with our greatest adversary."
"What this is about is putting some transparency in place," Waltz said. "And it's sad the Biden family won't do it voluntarily, that we have to legislate this. So that's what it's getting after."
"Separately, I know people are going to point to the Trump family and children," the congressman continued. "I think there's a distinction here in that if you have adult children with long, established careers both before office and then continuing into office… I have no problem with that."
"But when you're seeing the brand-new venture, money-making venture, with zero qualifications that are clearly hanging solely on the family name with anonymous buyers, that is a completely different matter and that's what really gives me pause," Waltz said.
"And then you add that to the Chinese dealings, the Burisma dealings and the kind of long, sad history of selling the Biden name for influence," he added. "We have to do something about it."
Specifically, the PAINTER Act amends the Ethics in Government Act "to require the financial disclosures regarding all children of the President and the Vice President" and defines a non-dependent child as any individual who is a son, daughter, stepson, or stepdaughter of the reporting individual that is over the age of 17 and that is not a dependent child of such reporting individual.’’
The bill comes as the president's son ventures into the art world, where his paintings are expected to be sold to anonymous buyers for between $75,000 and $500,000 by Georges Berges Gallery.
A representative for Berges previously told Fox News that the sales of Biden’s art will be kept "confidential." The White House has said they have an ethics plan in place to ensure the president's son doesn’t know who the buyers are, though Hunter Biden has raised eyebrows with plans to attend art shows where potential buyers will be in attendance.
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Berges said in a 2015 interview with Resident that he wanted to be the art world’s leader in China.
"My plan is to be the lead guy in China; the lead collector and art dealer discovering and nurturing talent from that region," Berges said. "I plan to find and discover and bring to the rest of the world those I consider China’s next generation of modern artists."
Waltz plans to drop the bill on Wednesday.
