MEMORANDUM

To: Interested Parties

From: Austin Dieter, DNC Research

Date: Thursday, November 17, 2022

Subject: MEMO: Conspiracy Theorist, Trump Sycophant, & Proven Liar. Three things to know about James Comer. 

As Rep. James Comer holds a press conference today to rehash false attacks against the president’s family that the American people overwhelmingly rejected in the 2020 elections, here are some important facts you need to know about him. 

1. He is a fringe conspiracy theorist.

James Comer is trying to reinvent himself as a reasonable person searching for the truth, but his record tells a very different story. As a Washington Post columnist noted, according to Comer, “Hunter Biden controls cobalt in Congo, fentanyl in Mexico, coronavirus in Wuhan and war in Ukraine. It is just a matter of time until Republicans find a Hunter Biden angle in Jeffrey Epstein’s demise and UFOs off the coast of California.”

Here are just a few of Comer’s outrageous conspiracy theories. (While he hasn’t yet claimed Hunter Biden staged the moon landing, we wouldn’t put it past him.)

• Comer has repeatedly argued that Hunter Biden is the reason Joe Biden has not supported GOP investigations into the origin of Covid-19 or fentanyl.
• Comer has said Hunter Biden is the reason why the Biden-Harris administration supports the Paris Climate Accords. 
• Comer argued that Gen. Mark Milley’s warnings to Chinese generals during the Trump administration could somehow only be explained by Hunter Biden.

In short: Before accepting anything from Republicans on the House Government Oversight Committee, remember their leader is a conspiracy obsessed extremist who cannot and should not be taken seriously.

2. He is a Donald Trump sycophant who made excuses for his misconduct.

James Comer has no credibility when it comes to government oversight. He spent four years making excuses for Donald Trump’s gross misconduct and is now attempting to use his sham investigations and staged hearings to hurt President Biden and help Trump.

Here are just a few examples of Comer covering up for Trump’s misconduct:

• Comer is an election denier who backed Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
• Although Trump’s dangerous rhetoric indisputably incited the January 6 insurrection, Comer made excuses, saying Trump was speaking figuratively. 
• Comer said he would support an independent commission to investigate January 6, but refused to break with his party and vote in favor of one.
• Comer defended Trump’s racist tweets about four Democratic women of color congresswomen, saying they were “overblown.” 
• Comer said Trump “may have been joking” when he tried to shut down former FBI Director James Comey’s investigation into Michael Flynn. 

In short: James Comer is a Trump apologist who has made clear that his phony investigations are political exercises designed to hurt President Biden. 

3. He’s a proven liar who can’t be trusted.

James Comer has repeatedly stressed that his Hunter Biden investigations would not be partisan and that he would only make “factual” statements. However, Comer has already made multiple objectively false statements about Hunter Biden, including during congressional hearings. 

• In an April congressional hearing, when trying to make the already far-fetched argument that Joe Biden’s support for electric vehicles was somehow shaped by a cobalt mine deal an investment firm previously connected to Hunter Biden had made, Comer made multiple objectively false statements about the deal.
  • Comer claimed that Hunter Biden personally “orchestrated” the deal – however, multiple people involved in the cobalt deal said Hunter Biden was not involved, and many did not even know he was connected to the investment firm. 
  • Even more false, James Comer claimed the cobalt deal was connected to CEFC, in connection with the claim that CEFC’s payments to Hunter Biden were somehow China paying to change U.S. energy policies. However, this statement Comer made in Congress is objectively false – the cobalt deal in question did not involve CEFC.
• Comer has also repeatedly made objectively false claims about Hunter Biden and sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Comer on multiple occasions claimed that the SPR sales actually went to CEFC, in a far-fetched attempt to try to further connect Joe Biden to the sales. 
• James Comer has repeatedly given false descriptions of a type of bank report to claim that banks were “confident” Hunter Biden had committed a crime. These claims are demonstrably false.
  • In fact, Comer has been called out by independent fact checkers for misleading Americans about the claims. The Washington Post said Comer “needs to get his facts straight. Even if as many as 150 SARs were filed concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings — a number that remains unconfirmed — that does not mean that he committed ‘serious crimes’ or that banks were ‘pretty confident’ that a serious crime was committed. Instead, these reports are merely tips that something may be suspicious — raw intelligence that still needs to be vetted, confirmed and possibly investigated. Comer earns Three Pinocchios.”
• In September, James Comer said he discovered that a DOJ official had previously worked with Hunter Biden’s lawyer and framed it as a major new revelation, saying “no one ever knew” this.
  • It’s flatly untrue that it was a new revelation – that story had been reported on since the very start of the Biden-Harris administration in January 2021. Comer’s suggestion of impropriety is also untrue. The DOJ sent a letter that the official had recused himself of all matters involving his former law firm. For the House GOP’s chief Hunter Biden investigator – who has even bragged about having Google alerts set up for Hunter Biden – it’s impossible to believe he just discovered this and wasn’t just making a false claim to generate a news cycle for himself.

In short: How do you know when James Comer is lying? Well, if his lips are moving, it’s a sure bet.