Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that Gal Luft, Comer’s chief witness in alleging crimes by President Biden, was being charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, trafficking in arms, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, and making false statements to federal agents. Now, Republicans are doubling-down, standing by the indicted agent and arms dealer whose whereabouts are currently unknown. These charges add to six months of misery and failure for MAGA Republicans whose political stunts have failed to uncover a single piece of evidence linking President Biden to any wrongdoing whatsoever, and further demonstrate that Comer is desperate to push partisan stunts as his house of cards continues to crumble. But don’t just take our word for it:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): “Think about how far this White House has fallen from the last president to this president. Not only do you have people flashing in the Rose Garden — now you have cocaine being found.” [Fox News, 7/12/23, VIDEO]
House Republican Conference Chair (R-NY): “The corruption of Biden’s DOJ runs deep.” [Twitter, 7/11/23]
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY): “Anyone who says that we shouldn’t take Gal Luft’s allegations seriously discounts the fact that the Bidens wanted to share office space. We definitely want to hear more about these allegations. Gal Luft was interviewed by the FBI and allegedly provided information about the Bidens and CEFC. The House Oversight Committee intends to obtain these records at the FBI.” [Fox News, 7/11/23, VIDEO]
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY): “Gal Luft was paid by CEFC, the CCP-linked energy company. The Bidens partnered with CEFC. Joe & Hunter planned to have office space. Bank records show CEFC wired millions to the Bidens. Luft supposedly shared info with the FBI on the Bidens & CEFC. I will request this record.” [Twitter, 7/11/23]
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI): “Is [the] DOJ trying to silence Dr. Gal Luft from publicly exposing Biden family corruption? The American people deserve the truth and Dr. Luft must have the chance to testify before Congress.” [Fox News, 7/9/23, VIDEO]
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): “I don’t trust the DOJ or the FBI. They are trying to silence our witnesses. This is a way to do that. He deserves to testify before the Oversight Committee. We have a lot of questions. We want to know why the evidence he brought forward to the FBI in that Brussels meeting in 2019 was not followed up on. And the irony here is not lost on anyone charging him for failing to register as a foreign agent.” [Fox News, 7/11/23, VIDEO]
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): “Time and time again, the DOJ and FBI have stonewalled @GOPoversight investigations. The American people have a right to know if this Administration was for sale.” [Twitter, 7/11/23]
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): “[T]he amazing thing is we don’t prosecute foreign corruption and failure to register as a foreign agent when it’s Hunter Biden. We do when it’s somebody who specifically is accusing and says they have information about the wrongdoing of the Biden family. Again, this is the kind of questions that the FBI director won’t answer. But he will be asked.” [Media Matters for America, 7/11/23]
Stories
Washington Post: Republicans Say They Would Like To Call Witness Despite Criminal Indictment. “House Republicans on Tuesday said they still hope to call a man indicted on charges of arms trafficking and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Chinese entities as a witness in their investigations of President Biden and his son Hunter. Senior Republicans dismissed the importance of the charges against the fugitive defendant and instead accused the Justice Department, the FBI and other authorities of orchestrating a vast conspiracy on behalf of the first family, providing no documentation or other evidence to support their accusations. […] Rather than distance themselves from Luft, House Republicans accused law enforcement agencies of orchestrating these charges — filed before last year’s midterm elections actually gave the GOP the majority in the chamber — to block their own congressional investigation. […] “If you thought James Comer couldn’t drop the ball anymore, think again,” the Congressional Integrity Project, an outside liberal group formed to defend the White House from GOP investigations, said in a statement Tuesday. “Time and time again Comer hypes up his bombshell evidence, and each time, his evidence is refuted, and his house of cards continues to crumble,” the group added.” [Washington Post, 7/11/23]
The New York Times: The G.O.P. Backed Him on Hunter Biden Claims. Now He Has Been Indicted. “The co-director of a Maryland-based research group who claims to have damaging information about Hunter Biden has been charged with arms trafficking, sanctions violations and acting as an unregistered agent for China, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Monday. In an eight-count indictment, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Gal Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, of violating the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Agents Registration Act in brokering arms deals between Chinese companies, Iran and countries in the Middle East. Mr. Luft, promoted by some congressional Republicans as a keystone witness in their efforts to show corruption by the Biden family, is a fugitive from justice. He was detained by law enforcement officials in Cyprus in February in connection with the indictment, but fled after being freed on bond while awaiting extradition. If convicted, he faces up to 100 years in prison. […] Democrats said that Mr. Comer and other Republicans have shown they are willing to go to any lengths to smear the Bidens, even to the point of accepting the word of a man accused of being a Chinese agent and illegal arms dealer over that of federal law enforcement officials. ‘These recent revelations naturally raise serious concerns that congressional Republicans’ purported ‘whistle-blowers’ are manipulating them by tailoring misinformation to support unfounded and baseless allegations made by Chairman Comer,’ said Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who served as the lead counsel for the House Intelligence Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.” [New York Times, 7/11/23]
Washington Post: Indictment Of GOP’s ‘Missing’ Informant Becomes Conspiracy Fodder. “This has been the pattern on the right for months. Anyone making any allegation against Biden and/or his family is accepted as inherently credible, however shaky the evidence or, as in the case of Luft, however obvious the conflict of interest. Not only are anti-Biden claims taken at face value, any skepticism about those allegations or, again as in the case of Luft, external indicators of unreliability are themselves folded into a voluminous conspiracy theory. […] The pattern here is not that government investigators are seeking to throw roadblocks in Comer’s path. Instead, it is that Comer and others on the right keep building paths into quicksand, and then have to pretend they are not sinking. You might recall the allegation raised two months ago that Joe and Hunter Biden had received a bribe from a Ukrainian executive.” [Washington Post, 7/11/23]