House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s crusade against President Joe Biden didn’t go especially well in 2023, but the Kentucky Republican and his allies live in hope that 2024 will produce better results.
That said, the first interview of the year apparently didn’t produce much for GOP investigators to work with. Politico reported on a closed-door interview the panel had with Georges Bergès, who owns an art gallery that exhibited Hunter Biden’s work.
Gallery owner Georges Bergès told the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday that Hunter Biden knows the identities of the individuals “who purchased roughly 70% of the value of his art,” according to Oversight Republicans. But that percent, a person familiar with the meeting cautioned, represents approximately three of the 10 buyers who purchased Hunter Biden artwork. Bergès, the individual added, told the committee he did not disclose the identity of any of the buyers to the president’s son, and did not say during the interview that Hunter Biden knew the identity before the sales.
The Politico report added that the gallery owner went on to say that Biden knew the identity of a buyer by way of public reporting and having seen the artwork at an individual’s house.
What does any of this have to do with President Joe Biden? As best as I can tell, nothing.
In fact, I confirmed with a source with direct knowledge of the transcribed interview that Bergès told the Oversight panel that he had no communications at all with the White House. The gallery owner also confirmed that he did not target Democratic donors to sell Hunter Biden’s paintings.
“Just like every other witness in this embarrassing slapstick investigation, George Bergès stated he had no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Oversight Committee’s ranking member, said in a written statement. “Hunter Biden made art that Bergès sold in his gallery, and President Biden had no knowledge of, or role in, these art sales.”
The Maryland Democrat added, “It’s not illegal to buy and sell abstract art in America. If Chairman Comer doesn’t like Hunter Biden’s paintings or modern art in general, he doesn’t have to buy it. But Hunter Biden is allowed to create art and sell it. The GOP’s allegations of influence peddling and money laundering are unfounded and were, once again, totally refuted by today’s witness.”
What must be especially discouraging for House Republicans is how often they’ve found themselves at this point. As regular readers know, in August, Comer and his colleagues appeared quite excited about an interview with a Hunter Biden business associate, right up until Devon Archer ended up debunking all of the core allegations against the president.
A month later, GOP officials held a hearing in the hopes of advancing the impeachment cause against Biden, and their own witnesses said they didn’t see sufficient evidence to impeach the Democratic president. Last month, a trustee for a now bankrupt health care company that worked with James Biden sat down with the panel’s investigators, and she also didn’t tell Republicans what they wanted to hear.
All the while, GOP members took a keen interest in a 2019 text from Hunter Biden that the right characterized as incriminating — right up until it, too, was debunked.
The pattern of failure is tough to miss.