Comer: The Bidens Sell Joe Biden

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today delivered opening remarks at a hearing on “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office.” Chairman Comer outlined how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around the world to enrich the Biden family. He described how Joe Biden acted as the closer by dining, attending meetings, speaking on speakerphone, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates as they funneled millions to the Biden family. Chairman Comer concluded by pointing to the only two explanations for the Bidens’ scam: either Joe Biden knew what he was doing and is complicit, or he had no idea what his family was doing and is incompetent.

Below are Chairman Comer’s remarks as prepared for delivery.

Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hear from witnesses who have previously provided information during our deposition and interview phase regarding the Biden family’s business practices in China, Ukraine, Russia, and other places around the world.

At the start of this Congress, the Oversight Committee has investigated what product or service the Biden family and their associates were selling that would justify over $24 million in foreign payments.

We’ve reviewed emails, bank records, text messages, Suspicious Activity Reports at the Treasury Department, and other evidence normally compiled during an expansive investigation such as this.

The Oversight Committee has found no credible evidence of the Bidens providing any work product. The Committee has identified no legitimate value or document or even one single hour of work that the Bidens have provided their business partners.

What is apparent, after over a year of investigation, is that the Bidens do not work in any traditional sense of the word. They do not work as consultants. Or lawyers. Or advisors. The Bidens don’t sell a product or a service or a set of skills.

The Bidens sell Joe Biden.

For months we have heard Democrats desperately proclaiming that witnesses have told this Committee that Joe Biden had no involvement in his family’s business dealings. But where are those witnesses today?

It’s telling Democrats haven’t invited one of these witnesses to today’s hearing. That’s because they know their testimonies would not withstand public scrutiny.

Democrats have relied on these witnesses’ opening statements and have willfully turned a blind eye to the facts that have come out in these interviews once the witnesses were questioned about our record of evidence.

Democrats now must rely on bringing in a distraction witness to talk about nonsense and who can’t talk about any of the facts brought by today’s witnesses who worked with the Bidens.

Now, President Biden cannot control his adult son. He cannot control his brother, his sister-in-law, or the nine family members who have received money from these transactions.

All President Biden can do is control his own actions, and that is what we are here today to discuss with the witnesses.

Because in the course of this investigation, we have learned that Joe Biden has taken action after action to further his family’s plans to get rich.

He shows up to meetings, gets on phone calls, shakes hands and tells people to “look after my family.”

He goes to dinners with foreign oligarchs and a Ukrainian executive paying his son millions of dollars.

He gets paid with money from Chinese businessmen who he has meetings with and tells other business associates he’ll see what he can do to help their situations. He writes letters of recommendation for foreign business associates’ children.

The scam is simple. The Biden family promises they can make a foreign partner’s problems go away by engaging the U.S. government.

The problems can be anything. A Ukrainian corruption investigation. Moving Russian money to the United States. A Romanian criminal prosecution. Access for China to American energy resources. Joe Biden shows up, shakes a few hands in front of his son, and says “take care of my boy,” or something similar. And the money flows.

It’s done over and over again. The Biden family promises Joe’s power, Joe Biden shows up, and millions of dollars come into the Bidens’ pockets. Joe Biden is the Biden family’s closer.

How could he not be? The Bidens aren’t doing any other work for these foreign companies that would warrant tens of millions of dollars.

There are only two explanations for this. The first is that Joe Biden knows exactly what he is doing, and knows a handshake, a wink, and a smile is enough for him to maintain, as Jim Biden called it, “plausible deniability.”

Or Joe Biden is being led around by his family and has no idea who he is meeting with or what message he is sending and is truly “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

There is no other explanation: either Joe Biden is complicit, or Joe Biden is incompetent.

Since becoming Chairman of this Committee in January 2023, I have promised the investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling would be based on bank records, witness testimony, and verifiable facts.

After years of Democrats using this Committee as a mouthpiece for every conspiracy theory they could find, like the Russian collusion hoax, under my leadership the Committee has returned to real investigations.

If Democrats want to spin another Russia collusion hoax, I will ask them to answer one question: what services did the Bidens provide to earn them and their business associates over $24 million from foreign sources?

Democrats have the same bank records as we do, and the bank records do not lie.

The witnesses today are here to talk about Joe Biden. Republicans are here to talk about Joe Biden. If Democrats wish to spend their time beclowning themselves with another Russia collusion hoax for the sake of protecting President Biden, they can do so.

As I said I would, I have invited Hunter Biden here today to sit alongside his business associates and provide his side of the story. Hunter Biden demanded a public hearing. I’ve given him one.

Maybe he will show up; he has said he isn’t, but he loves saying one thing and doing another. At some point, Hunter Biden saying one thing and doing another begins to reflect poorly on his ability to tell the truth at all.

But this hearing is not about Hunter Biden. This investigation is not about Hunter Biden. It is about Joe Biden and the lies he continues to tell the American people.