House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer dropped what was supposed to be a big bombshell on Monday. As he put it, “Hunter Biden's business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden.” The response he was looking for was: “Direct monthly payments! Wow, sounds like evidence of corruption to me!” The response he got was: “Uh, that was car payments Hunter was making after his father got him a vehicle at a time when his credit was in the toilet. And it was three monthly payments of $1,380. And Joe Biden was not in office at the time.”
Here’s The Washington Post, apparently having lost all patience for Comer’s misleading claims. Headline: “Comer mischaracterizes Hunter Biden car payment reimbursement to his dad.” Opening paragraph:
As House Republicans move toward a floor vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has again mischaracterized evidence of payments from Hunter Biden to his father.
It goes on like that, tying Comer’s claims on this story to his broader pattern: “Comer has consistently oversold or misrepresented the committee’s investigative findings as he has argued to initiate impeachment proceedings.”
Here’s a headline from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal: “GOP Sees Skulduggery in Hunter Biden Paying His Father Back for Truck.”
As House Republicans move toward a floor vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry … this is probably not the kind of coverage they want that effort to be getting. What’s more, as Rep. Jamie Raskin noted, it's not even new. The Murdoch-owned New York Post reported those car payments in 2022.
Nonetheless, Comer got himself in front of a Newsmax camera Monday evening to try to make fetch happen. He was determined to make those car loan repayments look like evidence of corruption, no matter how foolish it made him look. (Extremely foolish.)
“You can loan people money,” Comer said. “If they pay you back, then you benefited directly.” I mean, you benefited in the sense that you did not lose the money, but you did not profit. That would be quite the redefinition of corruption: avoiding losing money on loans to family members.
Comer also said, “when my son needs help, or my daughter who’s in college needs it, I just give her money. Nobody ever pays me back.” And as we all know, if you personally do not expect your children in their teens or early 20s to repay you for a car, then no one could possibly expect their nearly 50-year-old son to repay them for a car loan. This stuff really shows the degree to which Comer is just blurting out nonsense without thinking things through. But let’s turn to some pictures to fully get the contrast here. Here’s Comer and his kids over the weekend:
Here’s Hunter and Joe Biden getting that truck for which Hunter paid his dad back:
One of these is a picture of a grown-ass man, while the others show people of an age to pick up some lawnmowing or babysitting jobs for extra cash. Almost a year after Hunter and Joe Biden got that truck, Comer’s son—who is now taller than him—didn't reach his shoulder. Can Comer not see the difference between a teenager and an adult? Or is this just one more measure of his dishonesty?
The president must be thrilled at this latest evidence of “corruption.” Comer looks like such a lying partisan hack, the media is losing patience, and this is the story Republicans launched to propel themselves into a vote on an impeachment inquiry. This impeachment inquiry is going to increase public sympathy for Biden as he comes under one baseless, nasty attack after another. Republicans are going to remind us again and again that the president is a father who has loved and supported his troubled son through thick and thin—but also expected him to pay for his own vehicle as he was able. Joe Biden is the decent, compassionate father of an extremely troubled son, and Republicans keep trying to use that as an attack on him. This is not a course of action that’s going to benefit from more exposure and attention.
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