Rep. Comer prepares scrutiny of Hunter Biden, COVID-19, border

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) is preparing to hit the ground running as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a possible GOP majority, overseeing a large portion of an investigation into President Biden’s administration that Republicans are promising. 

Comer, who has been ranking member on the committee since mid-2020, has three top priorities for those probes and committee hearings: Hunter Biden’s business dealings, the origins of COVID-19 virus and management of the U.S.-Mexico border.  

While Comer has to wait until he has the chairman’s gavel to call hearings on those topics, Republican investigations have already started. 

“We’re ready to go in January. I mean, we are ready to go,” Comer said in an interview last week, praising the GOP staff and investigators on the Oversight and Reform Committee. 

Committee Republicans have already been pouring through a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive. Earlier this year, Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, released the contents of redacted portions of emails between Anthony Fauci and other top public health officials discussing the possibility of the COVID-19 virus originating in the Wuhan lab. Comer has made multiple trips to the border with Oversight Republicans. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is aiming to become Speaker if Republicans win control of the chamber, is crafting a list of items that the House GOP wants to advance, calling it a “Commitment to America.” But even if Republicans also win control of the Senate, President Biden will remain in office, making it unlikely that conservative legislation would become law in the next Congress. 

That means investigatory actions will be some of the most potent tools for a House GOP majority. 

But Comer insisted that his investigation into the president’s son “isn’t a political witch hunt.” 

“We fear that several of the decisions that Joe Biden has made that were bad decisions for the American people were made because of being compromised, because of Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings,” Comer said. 

Such an investigation is likely to elicit criticism from Democrats. Former President Trump’s interest in Hunter Biden’s business activities, and his request that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “do us a favor” and investigate the Bidens, led to Trump’s first impeachment. 

Comer teased that he is “pretty certain” that President Biden did have knowledge of his son’s business associates and involvement in his bank accounts, contrary to what the president has said. 

He pointed to an alleged email from a Hunter Biden associate directing President Biden’s tax refund to Hunter. Comer has also asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen whether a Russian oligarch was left off a sanctions list due to a connection to Hunter Biden. 

“Hunter Biden is a national security risk. That’s why he’s a priority for the Oversight Committee,” Comer said. 

On the origins of COVID-19, Comer said that “there was an effort early on” among top health officials “to try to spin the lab leak theory.” 

And with the border, Comer said he planned to press Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on some of his decisions. 

Aside from the marquee hearings and investigations, Comer also said that subcommittees will be active in working to root out waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the federal government. 

“We have identified countless programs that are obsolete, countless government programs that need to be reformed,” Comer said. “We are doing lots of investigation and probing around fraudulent unemployment insurance claims, fraudulent PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] loans.” 

Comer criticized Democrats for not focusing enough on oversight of the federal government. At a committee hearing last week focused on allegations of workplace harassment and sexual misconduct in the Washington Commanders football organization, Comer asked why the committee was probing that issue rather than issues in the government. 

Comer said he has studied all of the prominent Oversight and Reform Committee hearings going back to former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who chaired the committee from 2007 to 2009. 

Previous GOP chairs have been involved with notable, headline-grabbing investigations into Democratic administrations and officials. 

During the 2016 presidential race, then-Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) probed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to handle classified information. 

As chair of the committee from 2011 to 2015, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) led probes into the IRS allegedly targeting conservative groups and into Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program allowing illegal gun sales to track sellers and purchasers, some connected to Mexican drug cartels. The latter investigation eventually led to the House holding then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents. 

The “secret” to being an effective chairman, Issa said, “is an open secret.” 

“Henry Waxman was a very effective chairman. He sent out an almost unlimited amount of inquiries, and then picked and chose the follow-up based on answers, no answers,” Issa said. 

Some previous Oversight chairs have leaned heavily on the committee’s subpoena power, but Comer indicated that he does not plan to do so.

“Elijah Cummings sent out so many subpoenas when he was chairman of the Oversight Committee that people disregarded those subpoenas,” Comer said. “It was almost like junk mail.” 

Comer said that he only wants to use subpoenas when “absolutely necessary,” worrying that abuse of subpoena power can create long-term damage for the committee. 

“I want to be fair,” Comer said. “I want to hope that when my time is done as Chairman of the Oversight Committee, they will say, ‘He was fair, we didn’t try to do anything overtly political.’ ”