As the White House scrambles to mitigate the damage of its classified document scandal, the controversy could cascade further as new questions emerge about Joe Biden's role in his family's business deals abroad.

Top Republican investigator James Comer (KY) tells the Washington Examiner that Republicans are prepared to "trace the money" after some classified documents were uncovered at a think tank with possible ties to communist China. 

Biden's cascading scandal

The White House has consistently failed to be transparent about the documents, which were initially found in November at the Penn Biden Center but not disclosed until this month, raising questions about what Biden might be hiding.

Most press coverage has centered on the classified documents themselves, but there is speculation the controversy will develop and expose an influence-peddling scheme surrounding Biden that has long eluded scrutiny from left-leaning media.

Writing in the New York Post, columnist Michael Goodwin predicted that the new Special Counsel probe of Biden's documents will eventually "merge" with the Hunter Biden probe, "which could doom the Biden presidency."

Like father, like son?

Biden has long denied any knowledge of his son's murky business deals in Ukraine and China, and he has received aid from partisan media that initially dismissed the Hunter Biden story as a "conspiracy theory" and later, "Russian disinformation."

Those excuses are no longer tenable, not even to most Biden-friendly media, and the document scandal isn't helping Biden's cover story.

The University of Pennsylvania, with which the Penn Biden Center is affiliated, allegedly received millions in anonymous Chinese donations after the Biden think tank opened, and former staffers at the think tank went on to work for the Biden administration, raising suspicions of foreign lobbying.

Joe Biden also had a cushy, do-nothing sinecure at the University of Pennsylvania, where he drew a six-figure salary nearing $1 million, a close echo of his son's notorious gig at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Nothing to see here...

More classified documents have been discovered at Biden's house in Delaware, where his son lived for a time.

"We’ll be looking at bank statements. We'll be looking at bank violations. That's the next phase of our investigation because we're trying to figure out who these anonymous sources are that are sending so much money to the Biden family schemes," Comer said.

True to form, Biden has already dismissed any Republican probes of his family's business deals as driven by "debunked" conspiracy theories, and he insists there's nothing to see in his newly uncovered classified documents.

"If there's nothing there, then the president should be more than willing to cooperate with House Republicans because he could make us look bad," Comer said.

What's Biden afraid of?