Top Republicans zero in on who gave Biden's company nearly $10 million amid bribery allegations

Top congressional Republicans are questioning who gave President Joe Biden's company, CelticCapri Corp., nearly $10 million in 2017, amid allegations that the Biden family received $10 million as part of a bribery scheme involving a Ukrainian national.

Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, had their income jump from $400,000 in 2016, Biden's last full year as vice president, to $11 million in 2017, The Associated Press reported in 2019.

"It would shock no one in this town if Joe Biden received millions of dollars from selling out the country in a bribery scheme and then hid that money in shady shell companies," Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz, tweeted earlier this month.

The Bidens have used CelticCapri Corp. as a business entity for their post-White House work, and the wire service states that most of the Bidens' income came from his memoir, "Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose."

The tax return has come under renewed scrutiny after it was revealed earlier this year that an FBI informant came forward in 2017 with allegations that two Biden family members were paid $10 million in exchange for having Biden use his influence to pressure the government of Ukraine to fire then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was probing the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings where Hunter Biden worked.

Shokin was fired in March 2016, for what the Obama administration officials said was not investigating corruption in Ukraine.

Biden's campaign had provided financial disclosures online (the link has since been replaced with a Biden 2024 campaign fundraising page), but Bob Anderson, a writer at The Federalist, noted that the campaign only gave individual returns, none pertaining for any S-corporation returns such as that for CelticCapri Corp. 

As of 2019, "Promise Me, Dad" had sold more than 300,000 copies, but using the typical blended royalty rate of 7.5% for paperback sales and 15% for hardcover sales, Biden would have only made around $800,000, so millions of dollars in income are still unaccounted for, Anderson argued.

"You're looking at a tax return that has $10 million in cash that came from a mystery source," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said earlier this month on an episode of his podcast, "Verdict with Ted Cruz."

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who has tirelessly worked to investigate corruption allegations involving the Biden family, said last week he thinks the corruption extends to the federal government as well. 

"For years I've been saying there is a much larger story than Biden family corruption. The corruption inside our federal agencies and MSM is extensive," he tweeted. "We need more whistleblowers to come forward and tell us the truth. That is the only way to restore integrity and credibility."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.