One of Hunter Biden’s closest friends and business partners, Eric Schwerin, will appear before the House Oversight Committee in the coming weeks to answer questions about the Biden family, their finances, and Mr. Biden’s businesses. 

Mr. Schwerin’s appearance was announced by the chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, who said he expected Mr. Schwerin to shed light on Biden family “influence peddling,” which was “kind of illegal.” 

Mr. Schwerin, he said, is “going to come in very soon and have an opportunity under oath to answer questions,” Mr. Comer told Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow. “There have been some initial communications between Schwerin and our office but, you know, he holds a lot of answers to our questions.”

Mr. Schwerin worked alongside Mr. Biden as a lobbyist for years. His involvement with the Biden family was very intimate, according to first son’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle. In a 2022 memoir describing her life and relationship with Mr. Biden, Ms. Buhle wrote that Mr. Schwerin “managed almost every aspect of our financial life” during his and Mr. Biden’s friendship.

Mr. Comer said Mr. Schwerin is likely to provide valuable information about the Biden family’s finances. “He did the books for Joe Biden,” the chairman said. “He apparently had the authority to deposit checks and write checks on behalf of Joe Biden, and his name is also affiliated with some of these shell companies.” 

Previously, the Oversight Committee had discovered a web of limited liability companies set up by the younger Mr. Biden and his associates, Rob Walker and Devon Archer, in order to receive payments from overseas business partners with whom they leveraged what Archer called “the Biden brand.” 

An Oversight Committee source did not immediately respond to a question about when Mr. Schwerin might appear and whether the testimony would be public. 

In total, the committee claims to have  uncovered more than $20 million that passed to members of the Biden family from foreign entities in Russia, Communist China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania. In addition to the first son, these funds were disbursed to President Biden’s brother, James, and Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie, who also dated her brother-in-law. The committee says another member of the Biden family received funds, though that person’s identity has not yet been disclosed. 

In July, Archer — who worked with Messrs. Biden and Schwerin as a lobbyist — told members of the Oversight Committee in a private interview that the value Mr. Biden brought to the lobbying world was the Biden family “brand,” or the perception of access to power. During Mr. Biden’s partnership with Mr. Schwerin and Archer, his father was serving first as a senior member of the Senate, and later as vice president. Archer also confirmed that on at least 20 occasions, the elder Mr. Biden would be put on speaker phone while his son was in business meetings, though only pleasantries were discussed.

Mr. Comer says Mr. Schwerin will have valuable insight into that business. “The business was influence peddling and that’s kind of illegal because that would require you to be a registered foreign agent if that’s what they were doing,” he said. “And the fact that they were putting Joe Biden on the phone and possibly commingling funds with Joe Biden, that puts Joe Biden in a very, very bad place at the end of this investigation.”

A new report from Fox News disclosed more than three dozen visits Mr. Schwerin had made to the White House and the vice presidential mansion, the Naval Observatory, during the Obama administration. Alongside Archer, Mr. Schwerin attended a 2015 Christmas party at the Naval Observatory hosted by the Bidens. For every visit, Mr. Schwerin was listed as a “personal guest” of the second family, so he would not have to make any disclosures about finances or potential conflicts of interest that are typically made for White House visitors. 

Through his friendship with the first son, Mr. Schwerin won a position on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, to which President Obama appointed him twice. In a 2015 email that was uncovered from his laptop, Mr. Biden said to an associate that Mr. Schwerin had been asking him for an appointment to one of the many pseudo-ceremonial presidential commissions since “the day after the 2008 election.” 

The string of witnesses who have come before the Oversight Committee to describe the first son’s business practices have made it ever more likely the president faces an impeachment inquiry once Congress returns to work in September. 

On Monday, Speaker McCarthy, in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, said the investigation “isn’t about Hunter Biden, it’s about ‘paying-to-play’ with the Biden family.” Mr. McCarthy had previously told Mr. Hannity that the investigation 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.