The top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, has come under fire for his comments about Hunter Biden’s assistant.
Mr Comer appeared on Fox News on Monday night to talk about the Biden family’s purported relationship with China, as Republicans continue to use controversy around the president’s son and his laptop in calls for impeachment.
”You know when looking through the hard drive you saw the PowerPoint presentation, which was a map of America in Chinese,” Mr Comer claimed. “And you saw that this was something that was given to Hunter for a presentation to the Chinese. We traced it back and it was submitted by his assistant.
“I googled a picture of his assistant. She's a very attractive girl. So I started looking even more. We discussed with the whistleblower, and according to the whistleblower, they were more than just business associates if you know what I mean,” Mr Comer added.
As he spoke, the chyron on the screen read: “Hunter has a Fang Fang too.”
The Washington Post reported in March of this year that the assistant, JiaQi Bao, worked with Mr Biden on business dealings with the conglomerate CEFC China Energy.
“This is another potential Eric Swalwell situation, another national security nightmare that Hunter Biden's involved in,” Mr Comer claimed.
In 2020, Mr Swalwell, a California Democrat, was named in an investigation by Axios outlining a Chinese spy operation targeting politicians in the state. An agent called Fang Fang reportedly took part in fundraising for Mr Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and helped place an intern in his office.
“Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn’t seen in nearly six years — to the FBI. To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story,” Mr Swalwell’s office told Axios in a statement in 2020. Mr Swalwell was never suspected of any wrongdoing.
“I was told about this individual and I offered to help,” he told CNN in December 2020. “All I did was cooperate and the FBI said that yesterday.”
According to The Hill, Mr Comer has said that the committee has a copy of the hard drive from Mr Biden’s laptop that was left at a Delaware repair shop and later leaked to the media.
Mr Comer has said that the hard drive would allow him to investigate if some of President Joe Biden’s decisions may have been influenced by his son’s business, something which has been rejected by the Bidens.
A clip of Mr Comer’s Monday interview with Fox News quickly drew the ire of social media users who branded his comments about the assistant “disgusting”.
“This is the kind of doofus who will be a committee chair if the Republicans win the majority in the House,” Norman Ornstein tweeted.
“What a super creepy thing to say,” Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko said.
“Keep talking it’s going great,” one Twitter user said.
“Hunter Biden is not President. Hunter Biden does not work in the White House. Jared and Ivanka actually worked in the WH and made millions doing so,” another account holder said.
“I figure half the right-wing Hunter Biden coverage is political desperation, and half is jealousy,” a third added.
“In which Republicans admit to cyber-stalking Hunter Biden’s assistant,” Dr Jorge Caballero said about the clip.
“So they refer to all Asian women this way, now?” Heather Thomas asked.
“Lmao they are s**t scared of the upcoming J6 committee hearing, not to mention the FBI/DOJ catching Trump red-handed stealing classified documents,” one Twitter user said.
In late June, Mr Comer told Fox News that “we view Hunter Biden as a national security risk” and that he would be a priority for the panel if the GOP takes the House in November.
“There are decisions that Joe Biden’s making every day in this White House that are questionable, that go against what I think the majority of Americans would expect from the White House, and yet, these decisions are made in my opinion, because he was compromised by his son’s shady business dealings,” Mr Comer said.
Hunter Biden revealed earlier that a federal investigation into his tax affairs was taking place, but there’s no evidence that his business has ever affected the work of the president, as noted by Insider.
