Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has declared his intention to investigate “anyone that was in business with the Bidens.”
As the House Oversight Committee prepares to hold its first public hearing in its investigation of President Joe Biden, Comer spoke with reporters at the National Press Club about the matter.
The Kentucky congressman noted that he expects Hunter Biden’s “bank records” as part of his effort to shed light on the Biden family’s potentially criminal business practices.
“Anyone that was in business with the Bidens, that was on these accounts, that were partners in these LLCs, they need to tell everyone exactly what the business was,” Comer stated. “You got a two-, three-million-dollar wire from this company that’s affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, what service were you providing? Because it wasn’t real estate. They weren’t manufacturing anything. What were they doing?”
The Oversight Committee chairman’s comments come just a few days after the Treasury Department denied the committee’s “request to disclose 150 suspicious reports flagged by U.S. banks concerning Biden family business transactions,” according to Breitbart News.
Financial institutions have a policy to flag suspicious wire transfers over $10,000 to review, and those transfers are also reported to the IRS.
According to Breitbart News, “The suspicious records will provide details about how the family business operates and desired transparency on Hunter’s anonymous art sales and foreign business transactions, along with knowledge of whether Joe Biden remains compromised by foreign governments through his family’s business.”
In a letter sent to Hunter Biden’s New York art dealer George Berges, Comer expressed his concern over the president’s son being “the recipient of anonymous, high-dollar transactions — potentially from foreign buyers.”
Despite his concerns about Hunter Biden, Comer told reporters at the National Press Club that he does not have any plans to bring the president’s son in to testify at the moment.
“Right now, we just want the bank records,” he said regarding Hunter Biden.
“We’re investigating the president,” Comer added. “[This] isn’t a Hunter Biden investigation. This is an investigation of the president.”
.@emrwilkins: "Are you planning on asking Hunter Biden to appear in front of the Oversight Committee?"@RepJamesComer: "Right now we just want the bank records…we're going to go wherever the investigation leads us." pic.twitter.com/2ajCnid8tD
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2023
The Kentucky congressman went on to condemn the Treasury Department’s refusal to comply with the Oversight Committee’s request for the suspicious activity reports about the Biden family.
“If they’re no big deal, then why won’t they let us have access to them?” Comer asked. “I would find it very surprising that a bank would file a suspicious activity report on the son of a sitting vice president of the United States unless there had been some type of major violation.”
He also discussed the concerning deals between the Biden family business and China.
“This family has made millions of dollars from China,” Comer stated. “If China or anyone pays you billions of dollars, they expect to get a return on that investment. I don’t know what that return was. We want to find out.”
“The administration has had every opportunity to say, ‘look, this is legitimate work.’ If they would explain that then I think a lot of these problems would subside a little bit,” he added.
Comer also noted that he hopes he can work alongside Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) to create a “bipartisan legislative fix” regarding the issue of classified material during presidential transitions — which comes amid revelations of mishandling of classified documents by Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, as well as former President Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents.
“Jamie Raskin and I both just said that we’re going to work together in a bipartisan way to try to come up with a legislative fix, prior to this administration leaving and the next administration coming into office, on how — what role those Archives play,” Comer said. “Somebody needs to oversee all the documents that are going into boxes to make sure that they’re not classified. And if there’s a problem, then they need to iron it out before that document is put into that box and loaded onto the truck.”
The Oversight Committee chair then made sure to emphasize that this fix needs to happen “prior to this administration going out of the office and before the next administration comes into office.”
.@RepJamesComer discusses classified documents and investigations. pic.twitter.com/UMYgP2ZCLq
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2023
The first hearing on the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business will be held on February 8.
