GOP Rep. Comer: Legislation Needed on Relatives of High-Ranking Government Officials Doing Business with Adversaries

Representative James Comer (R-KY) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that legislation addressing “relatives of high-ranking government officials with respect to doing business with adversaries overseas.”

Partial transcript as follows:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about — more about your oversight responsibilities. You made it clear you are going to be looking at Hunter Biden, and his financial entanglements with foreign countries, including China. I want to put up a front page from The Washington Post this morning detailing Jared Kushner’s ties to the Saudis. ‘After helping prince’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds.’ A $2 billion investment in Kushner’s funds from the Saudis. We know that President — former President Trump has also received funds related to the Saudi golf tour. Senator Ron Wyden said these financial entanglements deserve investigation. Will you be investigating that as well?

COMER: I think everything’s on the table. Look, we’re investigating Joe Biden. We — we know that Joe Biden said during the presidential campaign that he had no knowledge of his son’s business interests. He wasn’t involved. He didn’t benefit from them. We have evidence that would suggest otherwise. And this is very concerning. You know, Americans are outraged that China flew a balloon over the United States. Americans are outraged that China is trying to buy farmland. I think Americans would be outraged to know how much money the Biden family has taken in from China. And for what, we don’t exactly know. So this is something we’re concerned about. But we’re also concerned about a legislative fix. Now I don’t disagree with the Democrats and their criticism of the previous administration. We have a problem here that needs a legislative solution. That’s why this Biden investigation is so important. There’s a legislative solution to this, and it can be bipartisan. The Democrats complained about Kushner’s foreign dealings. Republicans are certainly complaining about the entire Biden family’s foreign business dealings. We need to know what is allowable and what isn’t allowable. We need to have strict ethics laws. And we need to significantly increase the disclosure laws in America. So I think this investigation is going to be very important to fix a problem before it gets out of hand.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And so but to be clear, you believe that — that this should apply to Kushner and Trump as well as the Bidens at this point?

COMER: I believe that when we talk about passing legislation to set a line as to where you can be with relatives of high-ranking government officials with respect to doing business with adversaries overseas, then it would apply to everyone. We need to fix this before it gets worse in the next administration. The Democrats complained about the Trump administration, but obviously we’re complaining about the Biden administration. The difference between Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden is that Jared Kushner actually sat down with was interviewed. He was interviewed by investigators. So he’s already been investigated. Thus far Hunter Biden’s attorneys, the president’s attorneys, the president’s White House, they’re doing everything they can to block our investigation. Hopefully the Biden family will be as cooperative as Jared Kushner with our investigation as they were with the January 6th investigation and all the other investigations of the Trump administration. So I think this is a problem. I think that there can be a bipartisan legislative solution. But we can’t get to that point until we know the extent of what the Biden family influence peddling involved, especially with respect to Communist China.

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