James Comer's Biden Subpoenas Backfire

House Democrats have shot back at the subpoenas Republicans issued this week for President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and his brother James, after a report surfaced Thursday of Comer allegedly engaging in questionable business dealings with his brother.

In a video shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday, Comer, from Kentucky, announced that he had signed subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden, along with a subpoena for Hunter's business associate Rob Walker, to appear for depositions before the Oversight Committee. The requests are part of the House GOP's impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which focuses on the president's alleged involvement with his son's foreign business dealings while he served as vice president under former President Barack Obama.

A day later, Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz posted a video imitating Comer's, in which Moskowitz is portrayed signing a subpoena for the House Oversight chair. The video seems to be in response to a report by the Daily Beast Thursday morning, which found that, according to Kentucky property records, Comer has allegedly engaged in several "land swaps" with his brother that involved their family's farming business. In one such swap, Comer sent his brother $200,000, according to the report.

"Today, @RepMoskowitz signed 'subpoena' for: James Comer," read the caption in Moskowitz's post. "It has been reported that Comer also loaned his brother $200k. We fully expect James to comply, just like the Trumps."

In a statement sent to Newsweek, Moskowitz said that while he doesn't have the "power" to subpoena Comer, "based on the Chairman's own statements about loans between brothers, I think the Chairman owes it to the committee to explain himself."

"They have been running an impeachment circus for the last 10 months," Moskowitz added. "We thought they had no credibility before--clearly they have zero now."

House Republicans previously raised questions regarding James Biden's bank records, which revealed that a $200,000 personal check was paid to President Biden by his brother and sister-in-law, Sara Biden. The check was issued in 2018, before Biden took the Oval Office and after his time as vice president.

According to the Daily Beast, Comer's deal with his brother also involved a $200,000 check that was sent in addition to a land swap between the relatives. A date was not provided for the alleged exchange. The outlet also reported that other recent land swaps between Comer and his brother were followed by "new applications for special tax breaks," according to Kentucky state records.

Newsweek was unable to verify the information in the Daily Beast's report and reached out to Comer's office via email for comment Thursday afternoon.

GOP members on the House Oversight Committee have been investigating the Biden family for over 10 months, and have yet to uncover evidence of President Biden being directly involved with his son's business dealings.

In a statement on Wednesday, White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote, "With just over a week to go until House Republicans may again thrust the country into a harmful and chaotic government shutdown, the most extreme voices in their party like James Comer are trying to distract from their repeated failures to govern."

"Instead of using the power of Congress to pursue a partisan political smear campaign against the President and his family, extreme House Republicans should do their jobs," Sams added.

Republicans like Comer, however, maintain that there is a "record of evidence" that shows Biden was involved and benefited from his family member's business, and Comer double-downed on his investigation in a statement Wednesday.

"Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family's business schemes, bank records don't lie," Comer said. "These records reveal how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around to the world to benefit the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself, to the detriment of U.S. interests."

Update 11/09/23, 4:08 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional comment from Moskowitz.