NEWSMAKER INTERVIEW:
The charges that the U.S. attorney in Delaware is preparing against Hunter Biden are part of a strategy to protect the president’s son from a planned congressional investigation, said Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican.
Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, voicemails and former business associates “coming out of the woodwork” have provided more than enough evidence to show the president’s son is “guilty of everything,” Mr. Comer said.
The mountain of evidence, however, doesn’t guarantee that the Justice Department will throw the book at President Biden’s son, said Mr. Comer, who is positioned to become chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee if Republicans win the House majority in November.
“He’s got a lot of serious legal issues — more than any relative of a president in our history. And I think that the DOJ, if they indict him, or do a special counsel, it’s to protect him from having to testify in front of a congressional committee,” Mr. Comer said in an interview with The Washington Times.
He said an indictment of Hunter Biden on small charges could be used to inoculate him against answering more significant questions in front of Congress.
“If we subpoena Hunter Biden, and he refuses the subpoena, then it’s going to go to court, and their argument in court is going to be, ‘Well, he’s already indicted. There’s a special counsel, you’re just muddying the water.’ That’s been my fear,” Mr. Comer said.
Mr. Comer predicted that the Justice Department will indict Hunter Biden and then “do like Durham and ride the clock out.” He was referring to special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origin of the FBI’s probe of unproven Trump-Russia collusion to rig the 2016 election.
Some conservatives criticize Mr. Durham’s investigation for taking more than three years and, with no sign of wrapping up soon, hasn’t produced a big revelation or a conviction of a major FBI or political figure.
The federal probe into Hunter Biden is reportedly reaching a pivotal phase as prosecutors decide whether to bring charges five months before the midterm elections.
The Department of Justice is discussing Hunter Biden with Delaware-based prosecutors and consulting guidelines about politically sensitive cases, according to CNN, citing sources close to the talks.
Indictments against Hunter Biden have zeroed in on potential tax violations and making a false statement about his drug addiction on a federal form for a firearm, which otherwise would have prevented the sale, the report stated.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Delaware declined to comment.
Former Justice Department official Jim Trusty suspects a plea deal could be in the works.
“We’re not hearing the word ‘conspiracy,’ and we are hearing and seeing an awful lot of drug addiction vignettes, so I think the ‘critical phase’ could be more about reaching a plea agreement designed to end the entire inquiry rather than seeing a fully investigated ‘pay-to-play’ scheme, he told the New York Post.
The investigation of Hunter Biden’s business and taxes was launched in 2018. David Weiss, who was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. attorney in Delaware, is spearheading the case.
Mr. Comer said the Oversight and Reform Committee’s investigation into the Biden family’s overseas business deals will advance regardless of what the U.S. attorney does — even if, as expected, Hunter Biden gets a “slap on the wrist.”
“That’s the least of his problems. We’re not even looking into the stuff they’re going to indict him on,” he said. “We think he’s a U.S. national security threat. We think that he’s compromised this White House. We will proceed. And our investigation is expanding from Hunter Biden to Jim Biden.”
Mr. Comer said the committee plans a deep examination of the president’s brother, Jim Biden. Mr. Comer described him as the “brains” of the Biden family business operation.
The committee’s investigators, he said, are delving into recent filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky that accuse Jim Biden of fraudulently inducing Americore Holdings to provide loans to him that were never repaid.
According to the lawsuit, Jim Biden promised to use his political connections to benefit Americore and in exchange, Americore lent him more than $600,000. The lawsuit accuses Jim Biden of failing to secure promised funding from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which forced the company into bankruptcy.
“That’s a problem — peddling influence in the Middle East at a time when the president is going over there begging for more oil. So, we’re looking into Jim Biden. We’re probing Jim Biden,” Mr. Comer said. “We haven’t spent the time on Jim Biden that we spent on Hunter Biden, but Jim Biden’s name keeps popping up in all of our Hunter investigations, so we’re probing Jim Biden, and I can see this investigation quickly expanding into Jim Biden as heavily as it is Hunter.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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