House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says he is confident that President Joe Biden and his family will be held accountable for overseas business deals that add up to an influence-peddling.
“Impeachment is still on the table,” Comer said shortly after his remarks Tuesday at a government weaponization symposium at The Heritage Foundation, parent organization of The Daily Signal.
Congressional Republicans and other observers have been particularly concerned, because presidential son Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family have struck lucrative business deals in foreign nations such as China, Russia, and Ukraine.
But as a House impeachment of Biden seems less likely because of the razor-thin Republican majority, Comer said he is considering making criminal referrals to the Justice Department—and that Biden’s own law enforcement agency could be forced to take the referrals seriously.
“The main goal for me is to provide accountability, because they have done wrong,” Comer said in a brief interview with The Daily Signal about the Biden family’s influence-peddling scandal. “I think there will be accountability.”
“Because of our investigation, were it not for our investigation,” the Kentucky Republican added, “Hunter Biden would have gotten blanket immunity several months ago.”
Last year, the president’s son reached a plea agreement with the Justice Department. However, after a federal judge scrutinized the deal, it fell apart. Two federal grand juries later indicted the younger Biden on a gun charge and unrelated tax charges.
“We provided an infrastructure to ensure there is a chance of getting accountability in the Justice Department now, in the Merrick Garland Justice Department,” Comer said, referring to the attorney general appointed by Biden.
“With respect to the other crimes, I think there is going to be [accountability]–because of our investigation—an opportunity to have real accountability for the Bidens and the crimes that they’ve committed.”
During his remarks at the Weaponization of the U.S. Government Symposium held by Heritage’s Oversight Project, Comer also stressed that accountability is the next step but didn’t mention the House’s impeachment inquiry.
“Right now, we are going to try to figure out the best way to hold this family accountable,” Comer said at the symposium. “We’ve proven they were influence peddling. We’ve proven [the] many financial crimes they’ve committed. This was never an investigation of Hunter Biden. This was always an investigation of Joe Biden.”
Comer noted that three Biden family business associates—Tony Bobulinski, Jason Galanis, and Devon Archer—have said the business enterprises revolved around Joe Biden.
“What we’ve proven, three Biden associates testified under oath that Joe Biden was the central figure in the influence-peddling scheme,” he said.
Another goal of his oversight committee will be to pass legislation to discourage influence peddling by officeholders, the Kentucky Republican said. He compared Biden to Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who was recently indicted on corruption charges.
“I don’t think the American people approve of that. I don’t think they approve of our president or vice president being for sale,” Comer said. “We are going to try to figure out the best path forward. Then we are going to focus on, from my committee, how to pass legislation to keep the Bidens and the Menendezes from doing this again—because the law is pretty murky.”
Moreover, the House probe into the Biden family’s activities has expanded to include the actions of government agencies.
“What we’ve found in the Biden investigations is there were numerous government agencies that were investigating the Bidens—the Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI, the Department of Justice in several different jurisdictions, the IRS,” Comer said.
“Each time they were told to stand down. So in addition to the financial crimes that we’ve discovered, we found a massive government coverup in many different agencies.’