House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Sunday that congressional investigators probing President Biden’s family over foreign influence-peddling allegations have lost contact with a leading informant.
The Kentucky Republican and other top GOP lawmakers in the House have alleged that Mr. Biden’s family members, including his son Hunter, received millions of dollars from foreign entities in China and Romania, including when Mr. Biden was vice president.
“Well, unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant,” Mr. Comer said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo.” “We’re hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible.”
The committee has not alleged that the foreign payments to members of Mr. Biden’s family were illegal, but its Republican members have accused the Biden family of enriching themselves from his power and say Mr. Biden was potentially influenced by foreign sources.
Mr. Comer suggested that the White House was behind the informant’s unknown whereabouts, but he declined to elaborate and did not produce evidence. He said he is withholding that information “for a later time” and that the informant is in the “spy business” who does not “make a habit of being seen a lot.”
“The nine of the 10 people that we’ve identified that have very good knowledge with respect to the Bidens, they’re one of three things,” Mr. Comer said. “They’re either currently in court, they’re currently in jail, or they’re currently missing.”
The FBI has not denied it has a whistleblower document alleging that the then-vice president engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national. But the bureau won’t turn the document over to Congress, telling Mr. Comer’s panel last week that it would not comply with a subpoena seeking the whistleblower report.
The FBI argued it must shield such documents in order to protect “confidential human sources and information.”
Although laser-focused on public corruption claims about former President Donald Trump, Democrats have not given the accusations against Mr. Biden the same sort of scrutiny. They have largely dismissed House Republicans’ findings and say Mr. Comer hasn’t proved Mr. Biden has personally profited or altered any public position if he had.
“Comer is asked for a single Joe Biden policy they believe has been unduly influenced,” White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote in a recent tweet. “He cannot name a single one. Incredible.”
Democrats on the Oversight Committee say the allegations are only meant to damage Mr. Biden politically and that Republicans should instead be focused on Mr. Trump’s children and their profits from the family’s private businesses when their father was president.
“Once again, Chairman Comer has failed to provide factual evidence to support his wild accusations about the president,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, said last week.
“He continues to bombard the public with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago. Unable to implicate the president directly, committee Republicans have resorted to using cherry-picked bank records, misrepresentations about confidential and unverified bank reports known as SARs, and baseless conspiracy theories to attack the president’s family, including his grandchildren,” he said.
• Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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