Representative James Comer is doubling down on his claim that Hunter Biden repaying his father for a loan is proof that the president is corrupt.
Comer, who has spearheaded the investigation into the Biden family, released more of Hunter’s bank records on Monday, claiming they showed illicit payments to his father Joe Biden. In reality, the documents likely showed repayments for a truck.
But Comer remained adamant that Hunter paying his father back in any form meant Biden had benefited from his son’s overseas business.
“You can loan people money. If they pay you back, then you benefited directly from the influence-peddling!” Comer insisted on Newsmax Monday night.
The Kentucky Republican also claimed no one in his family repays him after he loans money. “When my son needs help, or my daughter, who’s in college, needs it, I just give her money. Nobody ever pays me back!” Comer said.
Comer made no mention of his own business deals with his brother, which reportedly include Comer loaning his brother Chad $200,000 in 2019. His brother repaid him through land swaps.
The bank record released Monday shows Hunter transferred $1,380 to his father in September 2018, when Joe Biden was not in office. Comer’s accompanying press release does not mention that Hunter made only two additional payments to his father in the same amount, on October 15, 2018, and November 15, 2018—a total of less than $4,500.
Comer also does not mention the previously reported emails from Hunter’s laptop that indicate those transfers were paying his father back for a pickup truck. Instead, he makes it seem that Hunter has been making shady monthly payments to his father for years.
Republicans have claimed for months that Biden has benefited from his son’s foreign business dealings, but they have yet to produce any actual evidence of wrongdoing by the president. Ranking Oversight Committee Member Jamie Raskin slammed Comer for pushing the loan repayment as proof.
“Chair Comer is digging up old public reporting, distorting the facts, and presenting it as ‘breaking news,’” Raskin said on X (formerly Twitter).
“If Chairman Comer had any actual evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, he would not repeatedly resort to distorting the facts and recycling Trump-Giuliani conspiracy theories.”