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House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s crusade against President Joe Biden has struggled mightily all year, but Republicans’ hopes were buoyed last month by a new revelation.
“We have found a $200,000 DIRECT payment to Joe Biden,” the Kentucky Republican’s panel declared in a message via social media.
The facts proved to be far less interesting than the GOP hoped. Based on the information Republicans uncovered, Joe Biden — in his personal capacity, two years after serving as vice president — loaned his brother James Biden some money. Then, his brother paid him back. In case there were any ambiguities about the purpose of the no-interest repayment, James Biden literally wrote on the check itself, “Loan repayment.”
As we discussed soon after, this just wasn’t that interesting. Indeed, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California noted online soon after, “[Comer] proves Joe Biden generously loaned his family money and they responsibly paid him back. Nice work, detective!”
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the Oversight panel, added in a press statement, “The more than 1,400 pages of additional bank records just show what these witnesses and thousands of prior pages of records have already established: that the President was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures.”
Republicans nevertheless continued to treat this as fascinating — I’m honestly not sure why — acting as if the loan and repayment were evidence of something nefarious. The claims have never made much sense, and after seeing this Daily Beast report, the GOP’s line of attack suddenly looks worse.
According to Kentucky property records, Comer and his own brother have engaged in land swaps related to their family farming business. In one deal—also involving $200,000, as well as a shell company—the more powerful and influential Comer channeled extra money to his brother, seemingly from nothing. Other recent land swaps were quickly followed with new applications for special tax breaks, state records show. All of this, perplexingly, related to the dealings of a family company that appears to have never existed on paper. But unlike with the Bidens, Comer’s own history actually borders a conflict of interest between his official government role and his private family business—and it’s been going on for decades.
The Daily Beast added, if Comer genuinely believes the Biden family’s transactions clear the “shady business practices” bar, “he might want to consider a parallel inquiry into his own family.”
It’s worth emphasizing that this reporting has not been independently confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News. What’s more, when the Daily Beast sought comment from the Kentucky Republican, Comer’s office did not respond.
But it appears that some of Comer’s Democratic colleagues have taken a keen interest in the allegations. Swalwell asked online, for example, “Why did lead MAGA investigator James Comer channel $200,000 to his brother? What is going on? Will he answer questions and turn over documents?”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, another Democratic member of the Oversight panel, raised related points and suggested that the committee “subpoena the records“ related to Comer’s deals.
I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of this one.