James Comer is going after Joe Biden because he loaned his brother, James Biden, $200,000. If that's the standard, James Comer may want to investigate himself.
Published Nov. 09, 2023 4:51AM EST
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) on Wednesday subpoenaed President Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden, who Comer has implicated in unsubstantiated allegations of “shady business practices” in the Biden family.
Comer has in particular been trying to make hay out of two personal loan repayments from James Biden to his brother, for $40,000 and $200,000—with all transactions occurring in 2017 and 2018, when Joe Biden was neither in office nor a candidate.
But if Comer genuinely believes these transactions clear the “shady business practices” bar, he might want to consider a parallel inquiry into his own family.
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.
While Comer and House GOP allies have tried to cast the Biden transactions as evidence of unsavory and possibly impeachable offenses, multiple news organizations—including CNN, The Wall Street Journal, FactCheck.org, and the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner—have all thrown cold water on the notion that the payments are evidence of anything other than a brother helping a brother.
That hasn’t stopped Comer. But hypocrisy hasn’t stopped Comer before, either.
Earlier this year, The Daily Beast reported that Comer’s probe into the “weaponization” of government resources resounded with echoes of Comer’s own investigation-meddling scandal. The Daily Beast also reported that Comer’s first blockbuster oversight hearing this year—into abuse of the COVID loan program—also happened to invoke Comer, as well as his brother.
This time, the irony is even richer.
“Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still troubling that Joe Biden’s ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his family’s shady financial dealings,” Comer said in a press release last month.
But Comer’s investigative efforts have so far failed to show that Joe Biden’s loans have any connection to family business dealings—let alone to actions while holding elected office. Comer, however, exercised government influence directly over his family’s industry for nearly 20 years.
Comer has held important positions in agriculture oversight since 2003, while running a family farming business, and those roles overlapped in 2019, the year of the land swaps. He only stepped back from an agriculture oversight role recently, in 2020—one year after the family business pivoted away from farming.
Delaney Marsco, senior counsel for ethics at nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that Comer’s overlapping public and private roles raise concerns about whether he may be trying to “game a personal business advantage.”
“Conflicts of interest can occur when members serve on committees overseeing industries in which they are heavily invested or in which their business interests are intertwined,” Marsco said. “Voters have a right to know that lawmakers are using their considerable power in the interest of the public, not to game a personal business advantage.”
A Comer spokesperson did not return The Daily Beast’s comment request.
Comer’s official positions afforded him both insight and power in the agriculture industry, and he held them while he and his family ran a multimillion-dollar farming business.
For instance, in 2018, Comer—a member of the House Agriculture Committee—was selected to negotiate the Farm Bill. He was the first representative from Kentucky to do so in 30 years, according to an office press release at the time.
The press release characterized the position as “an important role in shaping America’s agriculture and nutrition policy,” with Comer calling the bill “the most impactful legislation signed into law this year.”
Comer had held a seat on that committee since he was first elected to Congress in 2016. Prior to that, Comer was the Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner, and before attaining that office he sat on the state legislature’s agriculture committee for eight years. The whole time, Comer, his brother, and his father were running a farming business, with Comer valuing his third of the company between $1 million and $5 million by the time he got to Congress.
But Comer’s family company also has its own curiosities. For instance, it doesn’t appear to exist on paper.
For years, the company Comer ran with his brother and father has been identified in news reports, official statements, Comer’s financial disclosures, and livestock sale bulletins as “Comer Land & Cattle.” But there is no record of an entity by that name in business filings with the commonwealth of Kentucky—or apparently with any other jurisdiction. A statewide search for business officers only associates Comer with three defunct entities—an insurance outfit, “Four Dips, Inc,” and “CFB Foods, Inc”—and the still-active Tompkinsville-Monroe County Chamber of Commerce, where he was a founding member but has since been removed.
Roger Sollenberger
Senior Political ReporterPublished Nov. 09, 2023 4:51AM EST
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) on Wednesday subpoenaed President Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden, who Comer has implicated in unsubstantiated allegations of “shady business practices” in the Biden family.
Comer has in particular been trying to make hay out of two personal loan repayments from James Biden to his brother, for $40,000 and $200,000—with all transactions occurring in 2017 and 2018, when Joe Biden was neither in office nor a candidate.
But if Comer genuinely believes these transactions clear the “shady business practices” bar, he might want to consider a parallel inquiry into his own family.
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.
While Comer and House GOP allies have tried to cast the Biden transactions as evidence of unsavory and possibly impeachable offenses, multiple news organizations—including CNN, The Wall Street Journal, FactCheck.org, and the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner—have all thrown cold water on the notion that the payments are evidence of anything other than a brother helping a brother.
That hasn’t stopped Comer. But hypocrisy hasn’t stopped Comer before, either.
Earlier this year, The Daily Beast reported that Comer’s probe into the “weaponization” of government resources resounded with echoes of Comer’s own investigation-meddling scandal. The Daily Beast also reported that Comer’s first blockbuster oversight hearing this year—into abuse of the COVID loan program—also happened to invoke Comer, as well as his brother.
This time, the irony is even richer.
“Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still troubling that Joe Biden’s ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his family’s shady financial dealings,” Comer said in a press release last month.
But Comer’s investigative efforts have so far failed to show that Joe Biden’s loans have any connection to family business dealings—let alone to actions while holding elected office. Comer, however, exercised government influence directly over his family’s industry for nearly 20 years.
Comer has held important positions in agriculture oversight since 2003, while running a family farming business, and those roles overlapped in 2019, the year of the land swaps. He only stepped back from an agriculture oversight role recently, in 2020—one year after the family business pivoted away from farming.
Delaney Marsco, senior counsel for ethics at nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that Comer’s overlapping public and private roles raise concerns about whether he may be trying to “game a personal business advantage.”
“Conflicts of interest can occur when members serve on committees overseeing industries in which they are heavily invested or in which their business interests are intertwined,” Marsco said. “Voters have a right to know that lawmakers are using their considerable power in the interest of the public, not to game a personal business advantage.”
A Comer spokesperson did not return The Daily Beast’s comment request.
Comer’s official positions afforded him both insight and power in the agriculture industry, and he held them while he and his family ran a multimillion-dollar farming business.
For instance, in 2018, Comer—a member of the House Agriculture Committee—was selected to negotiate the Farm Bill. He was the first representative from Kentucky to do so in 30 years, according to an office press release at the time.
The press release characterized the position as “an important role in shaping America’s agriculture and nutrition policy,” with Comer calling the bill “the most impactful legislation signed into law this year.”
Comer had held a seat on that committee since he was first elected to Congress in 2016. Prior to that, Comer was the Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner, and before attaining that office he sat on the state legislature’s agriculture committee for eight years. The whole time, Comer, his brother, and his father were running a farming business, with Comer valuing his third of the company between $1 million and $5 million by the time he got to Congress.
But Comer’s family company also has its own curiosities. For instance, it doesn’t appear to exist on paper.
For years, the company Comer ran with his brother and father has been identified in news reports, official statements, Comer’s financial disclosures, and livestock sale bulletins as “Comer Land & Cattle.” But there is no record of an entity by that name in business filings with the commonwealth of Kentucky—or apparently with any other jurisdiction. A statewide search for business officers only associates Comer with three defunct entities—an insurance outfit, “Four Dips, Inc,” and “CFB Foods, Inc”—and the still-active Tompkinsville-Monroe County Chamber of Commerce, where he was a founding member but has since been removed.
