The refrain after every Hunter Biden revelation is, “It doesn’t prove that Joe Biden benefited from it.” Just because Hunter was taking in money from every foreign special interest and Joe would call into business meetings or eat out with Hunter’s clients doesn’t prove that the vice president (and now president) was personally benefiting from it (as opposed to merely corrupting his office for his son’s benefit.)

Well, the House Oversight Committee is getting closer and closer to making that argument.

By 2010, laptop emails show, Hunter was routinely paying Vice President Biden’s household expenses, with longtime business partner Eric Schwerin, president of Hunter’s Chinese-linked investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, serving as the go-between.

“There a few outstanding bills that need to be paid and I am not sure which ones are a priority and which should get paid out of ‘my’ account,” Schwerin wrote to Hunter in a June 5, 2010 email with the heading “JRB Bills.”

“There is about $2,000 extra in ‘my’ account beyond what is used for monthly expenses,” he explained.

The bills in question included several relating to the upkeep of Joe Biden’s sprawling 6,850-square-foot lakefront mansion in the wealthy Greenville enclave of Wilmington, Del.: $1,239 in repairs to an air conditioner at “Mom-Mom’s cottage” on the grounds of the 4-acre estate; $1,475 to a local house painter for “back wall and columns”; $2,600 for a “stone retaining wall”; and $475 for shutters.

Routine bills like that add up to quite a lot of money, but perhaps not that earth-shattering by D.C. standards.

At one point, Hunter claimed his father “has been using most lines” of a Wells Fargo credit account – “which I’ve through the gracious offerings of Eric have paid for the past 11 years.”

With a credit account we’re talking about potentially a whole lot more money. Someone burning through that much money would also be considered a security risk, but obviously such rules don’t apply to Bidens.

The commingled family finances also caused some embarrassing mix-ups – as when Hunter Biden used a shared account to transfer about $25,000 to a Los Angeles prostitute named “Gulnora.”

He soon received a series of agitated text messages from a former Secret Service agent who repeatedly reminded him, “This is linked to Celtic’s account” — referring to Joe Biden by his vice-presidential code name.

That’s the Secret Service covering for Hunter’s wrongdoing instead of reporting a crime.

The bottom line is that there was no red line between Hunter and Joe Biden’s finances. Hunter was earing money that was used for the benefit of the whole family. Why was he being so generous about it? The obvious answer is that he was only able to cash in because he was using the family name.

Joe Biden ‘helped’ Hunter out and the son covered the family bills. Including his father’s bills.