Here's how dishonest James Comer's Biden allegations are - The Washington Post
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Over the past 24 hours, with a vote to formalize the impeachment investigation into President Biden looming in the House, Republican lawmakers have been pressed to identify what, exactly, they think Biden did. After all, a lot of Republicans — including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) — have publicly rejected the idea that evidence implicating Biden in wrongdoing exists.
So what is their much-hyped evidence pointing at? Asked that question, lawmakers' answers varied dramatically, which is what happens when you ask a novice fisherman what he hopes to catch.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), for example, told CNN that "there's plenty of proof" of Biden wrongdoing, presumably involving the crimes Donalds identified during a speech from the House floor: "bribery, co-conspirator to [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations — and we can go on and on." He did not go on and on.
Asked by Fox News's Sean Hannity whether Republicans were looking at the investigation as "a bribery scandal, a money laundering scandal and an influence-peddling scandal" involving the president, the three Republicans running the impeachment inquiry offered different answers. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.) said it could be "a multitude of numerous items." House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said "bribery," "abuse of power" and "obstruction of justice" were what they were looking at.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), and Oversight Committee's Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) discuss the Biden impeachment inquiry. (Video: Ross Godwin/The Washington Post)
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) offered Hannity a briefer answer: Yes, that's what they were investigating. All of that. At once. In obvious hopes that something incriminating might shake loose.
On Tuesday morning, he appeared on Fox Business to speak with Maria Bartiromo, one of the primary boosters of this Republican effort.
"We've talked about the potential of money laundering and bribery," Bartiromo said. "What can you tell us about the evidence?"
Comer's response was a very useful distillation of the purported evidence — and a good demonstration of why he and his allies are scrambling to figure out how to summarize their argument.
Here's what he said — and how it is misleading or dishonest.
"We've got over $24 million that we know of — we think there's more — $24 million that the Bidens have taken in." This is untrue. In August, The Washington Post looked at the payments on which Comer's committee has focused. (There has been no significant new revelation from Oversight since that point.) We found that, yes, millions of dollars were paid to Joe Biden's son Hunter and his business partners — but that most of that money went to people other than Hunter Biden, James Biden (the president's brother) or any other member of the Biden family.
Our assessment "works out to be about $23 million in total payments from foreign sources," we wrote at the time. "Of that, nearly $7.5 million can be fairly attributed as going to 'Bidens,' but virtually all of it went to Hunter Biden." None of it, we added, had been traced to Joe Biden. Since that point, the Oversight Committee has invested a great deal of energy highlighting payments from James Biden to his brother and from Hunter Biden's law firm to his father — in both cases, demonstrably in repayment of loans.
Notice, though, how this all nonetheless becomes "the Bidens," shoving Joe Biden up against his son and brother in hopes that he'll be stained by implication.
"They've run them through a series of LLCs that even the banks said serve no purposes. We call that a shell company. [A] shell company is a company that doesn't produce a good or service or has any assets or anything like that." In that August assessment, we also considered this issue of "shell companies," noting that the term has a gauzy definition. But most of the corporate entities formed by Hunter Biden and his partners did have stated purposes. One, for example, was the aforementioned Biden law firm.
On Thursday morning, the Associated Press reported that Comer himself used a "shell company" for real estate purposes — something that some of the "shell companies" involved in his investigation also did. (Bartiromo asked him about it; Comer claimed that it was an example of the reporter's "financial illiteracy.")
"And then they laundered the money down to the Biden family members — 10 Biden family members — and we say 'launder' through the Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed with Treasury. Six different banks accused the Bidens of money laundering. That's a serious crime, Maria." It is true that money laundering is a serious crime. It is not demonstrably true that six banks accused "the Bidens" of money laundering.
Comer has for months pointed to Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) centered on "the Biden family," which here again primarily means Hunter Biden. House Democrats note that many of the SARs include "erroneous or unfounded claims" and none focus on the president.
The Republican uses the word "launder" specifically because it sounds nefarious. "Shell companies laundering money" sounds worse than "Hunter Biden's law firm paid one of his kids a couple hundred bucks." Which describes one of those "10 family members": A source with direct access to the bank records provided to Oversight tells The Post that one of the president's grandchildren, then under 18, received $200 and $500 (several months apart) from Owasco PC, the LLC that was Hunter Biden's law firm. In total, Hunter's child received $9,000 in 10 payments from the firm over two years, according to the available records — most $500 or less. Why isn't clear, but this does not seem like the traditional understanding of "money laundering."
Other payments to family members include those loan repayments to Joe Biden and payments to Hallie Biden, Hunter's former sister-in-law with whom he was "sharing expenses," according to a statement made to NBC News earlier this year. That is not evidence of a serious crime.
"So we know they got tens of millions of dollars from bad people in bad countries. We don't know what exactly they did." Comer uses this argument a lot, too, in part because it differentiates Biden's work (legal and consulting) from the more tangible work of the Trump family, which involved a lot more LLCs and a lot more foreign money. Devon Archer, once Hunter Biden's business partner, offered testimony explaining that this is what Hunter Biden provided to clients. But it's more useful for Comer to imply that it's vaguer than it is — and that the people with whom Biden worked were uniformly "bad people."
"We fear Joe Biden is compromised. We fear this is one reason that he's soft on China. We fear this is one reason that he obviously fired the prosecutor who was investigating Hunter's corrupt energy company in Ukraine when he was vice president." We can set aside the "soft on China" thing as subjective. But Comer also makes two objective claims about Biden's actions, the first of which is the one about Hunter Biden's work for that energy company, Burisma.
Comer's presentation is a mixture of falsehood and exaggeration. Joe Biden didn't fire anybody: He was the face of the Obama administration's effort to get Ukraine's prosecutor general fired in 2015, an effort joined by other international actors. There's no evidence that the prosecutor general was investigating the energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat and plenty of evidence that the prosecutor was, in fact, corrupt.
Archer, whose testimony is so often cited by Comer and his allies because he mentioned that Hunter Biden would at times put incoming calls from his father on speakerphone, testified that he was told that the prosecutor's firing was bad for Burisma.
"We fear this is why he didn't put sanctions on the Russian oligarch after she had given his family $3.5 million." Archer had something to say about this, too.
Comer is referring to the former wife of the mayor of Moscow. In April, The Post looked at the assertion that Hunter Biden had been paid this money ("his family," in Comer's presentation) and found no evidence for it. Instead, we reported, it appeared that the money had gone to Archer.
In his testimony, that's what Archer said.
The payment from Elena Baturina was "a total Rosemont Realty" venture, he said, referring to his own real estate corporation. He said that Hunter Biden met Baturina once, and that he was "on the advisory board for a minute" but that Hunter Biden "was not involved" in the deal. He was asked later whether Hunter Biden had raised any capital from Baturina and replied, "No."
But here's James Comer, four months later, suggesting not only that Hunter Biden did receive this money, but that it somehow influenced his father's policy decisions. Because, at the end of the day, that's what he and his colleagues want to convey. No evidence about Joe Biden's unacceptable actions but, instead, that Joe Biden is somehow linked to a seedy universe of criminality — a link and a universe they're still struggling to manifest.
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It is funny that Democrats think calling Hunter Biden's business partner "a Chinese spy weapons dealer" is a defense of Hunter Biden. It's like a mobster denying he's mobster at trial by pointing out that its just a coincidence all his associates are mobsters.
Comer is the epitome of all hat and no cattle.
another epic face plant by comer is in the bullpen...
what a pathetic maga meat puppet...
Always fun to guess the hysterical progressive author based on the headline. Phillip Bump was the easy winner.
Bump is the guy who was humiliated on a podcast so badly he became a national laughing stock for admitting he didn't know or want to learn anything about Hunter Biden's business relationships. It's no secret why he's the Posts go to guy for Hunter Biden denialism, he's admits he doesn't want to know anything about the topic.
YouTube podcast
Live From The Table: Philip Bump Battles Hard on Hunter Biden (youtube.com)
Oh, I thought it was a where's Hunter game. I was looking for a guy with white powder on his face, dressed in only underwear, lying on the street with a guy standing over asking where his overdue Ukraine payment was.
Perhaps Comer should investigate his own shell companies, lots of smoke there.
it's different when republicans do it...
When memes are all you have- you have nothing.
When will Garland charge Hunter for refusing to testify in front of the House? He already set the standard twice. The only way he doesn't is if he is a complete partisan jackass tha doesn't give a shit about the law, Constitution, or impartiality- which he has proven time and again he doesn't.
Maybe Comer should be charged for refusing to take yes for an answer. Could Republicans be any more transparent in their blatant attempt to mischaracterize a testimony from the President’s son?
Hunter hasn't given testimony, he's refused. Hard to take what Hunter said as a yes.
So they have learned from the dems
he's refused
Nope. Republicans have refused to let him do it on camera. Why?
Yes, the same way that Steve Bannon did. The request is for a private deposition, just like the democrats demanded.
Merrick Garland will once again be engaged in a biased handling of "justice."
lol. Good luck with that. It’s the son of the POTUS, not a run of the mill testimony, and to date those who want to grill him with questions have obtained nothing by way of evidence of wrongdoing involving Joe Biden. America would definitely like to see how this plays out, not hear about it through alternate fact channels.
Why should the House allow him and Democrats turn it into an on-camera circus? On camera has different rules then a closed door deposition where there's really no time limits and all questions get asked. On camera is a circus where each member has five or 10 minutes and wastes how much grandstanding for votes, not to mention the partisan shit that would defend Hunter and by extension Joe Biden.
During the Trump impeachment investigations the Democrats did not allow only public testimony, it was always to be a behind-closed-door deposition first. Why should this investigation be treated differently?
Good to know you believe in favoritism with subpoenas, of course, when the favoritism favors a leftist....ESPECIALLY the son of the president.
For liberals.....because of this...
"During the Trump impeachment"
"
We had recordings and video of Trump committing crimes...
That is the committees choice, not his. Maybe they don't want a bunch of leftist self serving ramblings to try and get on MSDNC during a serious investigation.
Their phrase of choice is "This is not a serious investigation". I have seen several people mouth the same exact words. Seems like they are afraid of something and had a meeting to come up with a groupthink response.
like?
Life is so hard for Trumptards.
And many dems are still not over it.
Probably cowering in a basement afraid of what might be in a year.
I doubt that she even knows who Trump is.
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Hunter wants to testify in public so republicans can't misstate his words. Republicans want him to testify behind closed doors so they can.
No. If they do it an public Hunter won't have to answer any questions since the dems on the committee will trip over each other trying to get a soundbite on MSDNC and the hearing will become just another Jan 6th choreographed production..
No. See 4.1.33
Signed, Gym Jordan.
You do realize closed door interviews are transcribed word for word, right?
How do you believe Republicans will misstate his words?
BTW...Hunter wants to testify in public so democrats can make the deposition into a circus, like they do with most depositions.
What crimes were those and what has be been convicted on?
See Trump's 91 criminal indictments...
The grand jurors saw all the evidence!
As did those watching Jan 6 hearings.
As did all watching mainstream media.
Where is your evidence against Biden?
Much harder for sky screamers
Edit: “Soory for the repeat but it fits”
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
You have never watched a congressional investigation?
Can’t expect a one trick pony to learn a new one
In spite of some lefties trying to distract and deny, Joe and Hunter's troubles are not going away, and will only get worse because now the public perception is that the Biden's are trying to hide something. The evidence of their crimes is overwhelming. Bribery, money laundering, and influence peddling is serious stuff.
It would be serious if it was any more than Comer lies and innuendo.
now the public perception is that the Biden's are trying to hide something.
By volunteering to testify on transparent terms? This is just more of the ridiculousness that now defines the Republican Party. If the right had anything at all they would leap at the chance to expose the Bidens directly in front of the citizens. They have nothing, and their only hope for fabricating something is to keep the public’s eyes off of actual reality and on their fictional reality tv programming.
Why do you think the Republicans could not pick who would be on the public Jan 6th hearings?
Answered in 4.1.33
He was subpoenaed for a deposition, just like pretty much every other witness subpoenaed by both parties during their committee investigations. They are about fact finding, not performance. After the deposition, they give public testimony, which Comer has said Hunter will as well. No surprise the Biden cheerleaders demand special treatment for their special little boy, who's entire life has been about avoiding the rules that apply to everyone else. Democrats, with their fetishization of the powerful, are more than happy to make sure Hunter doesn't have to go through the process all the rest of us peasants would.
This is how our legal system operates. It's why there aren't "surprise witnesses" at trials, because it's very easy to lie at trial when the person asking the questions has no idea how the witness will respond. It's much harder to catch liars when their story isn't already committed to record. Given Biden's record as a liar, it makes perfect sense he'd want to avoid committing to a story under oath and not be questioned about it again. The last thing he wants is a questioner who is prepared to fact check his evasions in real time.
Maybe Republicans should subpoena Taylor Swift too, since they’ve got as much evidence of her involvement in Hunter Biden’s business as Joe.
aybe Republicans should subpoena Taylor Swift too, since they’ve got as much evidence of her involvement in Hunter Biden’s business as Joe.
Deflect! Deflect! Nice pivot from arguing that Hunter Biden deserves special treatment.
Why do you think Hunter is above the rules that apply to everyone else? He doesn't have to pay his taxes, he doesn't have to comply with gun laws, he doesn't have to register as a foreign agent, he can use his dad to threaten business associates....
He doesn't have to pay his taxes, he doesn't have to comply with gun laws
Yes, he does. I assume you’re aware of that. But this isn’t about Hunter for you guys.
So, probably about 65% of Americans think Biden is hiding something
How compelling. How many dumbasses believe Jesus was born of a virgin. Btw, who is the R party going to nominate for POTUS?
Over Joe Biden and democrats objections. Have you paid attention to the news this decade?
That's all democrats do, whine about Hunter Biden being held to rules the rest of have to follow, as this entire thread demonstrates.
How do you know that if he doesn't testify?
He will testify for the whole world to see but they won’t let him.
Why did Dems demand folks appeared behind closed doors before they testified in public during the Trump impeachments?
Why do you keep saying that? He was offered Public testimony after his deposition
this is how it works for witnesses, private testimony than public. Why do you keep arguing daddy’s special little boy deserves more preferential treatment?
He’s refusing a private deposition and Republicans are having a meltdown over it. I don’t blame him. The alternative facts crowd is only showing interest in arguments that the public is not allowed to witness.
No, he's defied a subpoena from the House. Don't believe you held the same beliefs when Steve Bannon was sentenced for defying a Congressional Subpoena? What will you say when the House comes back into session in January if they vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress?
It's not his choice here. He should be treated the same as the Democrats demanded during the Trump impeachment inquires and the Jan 6th hearings where the deposition is behind closed doors. That was the demand by the Democrats at the time, why do you want to rules to be different now?
And I don't see all that many Republicans having a meltdown over it. Now if the DOJ declines to prosecute a contempt of congress charge that could change.
You are a having a meltdown because Republicans are treating him like pretty much all witnesses are treated by congressional committees, whether they are led by Republicans or Democrats. You want special treatment for Biden and are mad his desires aren't being catered to.
, ly showing interest in arguments that the public is not allowed to witness
Again, they've said he will testify publicly.
I am sure MSDNC, CNN and even the view would be happy to have him on and say anything he wants for as long as he wants.