House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer scolded an NBC correspondent Tuesday during a testy exchange about money transfers to President Biden from his son Hunter and brother James — at one point calling the reporter “financially illiterate.”
The Peacock Network’s Capitol Hill correspondent, Ryan Nobles, grilled Comer (R-Ky.) over the evidence, contending that bank records suggest the transactions were loan repayments to the now-president.
“You say there’s evidence proving it’s a loan. I’ve never seen evidence that proves it’s a loan. I’m from a banking background,” Comer replied during an interview on “Meet the Press NOW.”
Nobles pushed back, insisting that there are bank records to prove that that money came from loan repayments, while Comer accused him of “providing talking points from the White House and the Biden legal team.”
“You’re calling it an influence-peddling scheme, and you don’t even know definitively whether or not it’s a loan,” Nobles shot back.
“You don’t understand. It’s like you’re financially illiterate. You look like a smart guy on TV,” Comer replied. “The money that the Bidens paid Joe Biden back with came from influence peddling.”
Comer then likened the situation to loaning money to a drug dealer and emphasized the questionable sources from where Hunter Biden may have earned that money.
House Republicans have flagged multiple transactions involving the first son and his father.
On Monday, the GOP-led Oversight Committee released documentation showing that Hunter’s law firm Owasco PC began making monthly payments of $1,380 to his father starting in September 2018.
The payments began three months after a bank money laundering officer issued a warning that the Owasco account was taking in millions from Chinese government-linked businesses without “any services rendered.”
In August 2017, Hunter Biden received a $5 million wire transfer from a Chinese company to his Hudson West III account, but then moved some of that money to Owasco, according to records from House Republicans.
Later, money from there was shifted to an account belonging to the future president’s brother James and sister-in-law Sara Biden.
Comer has speculated that money was used to finance a $40,000 check to the future president marked as a “loan repayment” in September 2017.
In a separate maneuver that Republicans have linked to Americore Health, James Biden cut a $200,000 check in March 2018 to his brother that was also labeled as a “loan repayment.”
When pressed by Nobles, Comer acknowledged that the transfers in question took place while Joe Biden was not an elected official.
“The money and the shell companies were created while Joe Biden was vice president,” Comer argued. “Much of the money the Bidens accumulated from the foreign nationals actually happened while Joe Biden was vice president.”
Still, Comer appeared to concede that he wasn’t entirely sure that Joe Biden had substantive conversations about business with his son’s associates.
“I don’t know what they talked about. We’re bringing the president’s son and the president’s brother in to ask him those questions under deposition,” he said.
White House spokesman Ian Sams gloated over the exchange.
“Comer is Big Mad that independent reporting that actually scrutinizes his claims, versus the fawning treatment he got during his ~300 appearances on Fox this year, has revealed he’s lying,” he posted on X Wednesday morning.
During the interview, Comer also defended his impeachment inquiry, which Republicans are looking to formally authorize as soon as this week.
The Kentucky Republican argued that formalizing the probe was mainly a matter of process and necessary because “the White House has obstructed us every step of the way.”