At least two Republican DAs want to prosecute Bidens: Rep. James Comer
WASHINGTON — At least two local GOP prosecutors are looking at ways to charge President Biden and his family amid Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed Wednesday.
“I had two calls yesterday, one from a county attorney in Kentucky and one from a county attorney in Tennessee,” Comer (R-Ky.) told “Fox & Friends.” “They were Republican, obviously, both states are heavily Republican. They want to know if there are ways they can go after the Bidens now.”
Comer is leading a House Republican investigation into Joe Biden’s role in his family’s international business dealings in countries such as China and Ukraine. The lawmaker’s staff recently reviewed Suspicious Activity Reports filed by banks to the Treasury Department regarding possible criminal activity by the Biden family.
There are a number of possible legal theories under which President Biden and his relatives could face non-federal criminal charges — after Bragg, a Democrat, unfurled a novel legal theory Tuesday to charge Trump, who is the leading candidate to run against Biden in the 2024 election.
President Biden is already under federal investigation by special counsel Robert Hur for his alleged mishandling of classified documents dating to his vice presidency and Senate tenure. Biden also repeatedly involved himself in his son Hunter and brother James’ foreign business relations during and after his eight years as vice president — which are also a focus of a federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
The first son, 53, has for years been under investigation by the US Attorney’s Office in Delaware for tax fraud, money laundering, illegal foreign lobbying and lying about his drug use on a gun purchase form. Hunter wrote in communications retrieved from his former laptop that he handed over as much as “half” of his income to his father. The FBI has been in possession of the laptop since December 2019.
Republican legal activists last week told The Post they expect Republican prosecutors to target the Bidens after Bragg made history by bringing the first-ever criminal case against a former president — perhaps by citing uncharged federal offenses, as Bragg did.
“You can be sure that there are prosecutors across Florida and Texas right now who are looking for a state law hook into the Biden family,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “And if they’re not, they’re not doing their jobs.”
Mike Davis, a former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee and president of the Article III Project, floated legal theories for possible prosecutions.
“I think our Republican AGs and DAs should get creative,” Davis said.
“You just need probable cause. A grand jury can indict a ham sandwich. We just saw that in New York. And the Bidens actually committed real crimes. These are real crimes that the Bidens committed. There is smoking-gun evidence that the Bidens were corruptly and illegally on Chinese and Ukrainian oligarchs’ payrolls.”
Davis pointed to Hunter and James Biden’s partnership with CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, which also allegedly involved Joe Biden, as potential grounds for charges.
An October 2017 email from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about Chinese energy company CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas — an effort that appears to have had corporate links to both Louisiana and Texas. A May 2017 email referred to the “big guy” getting a 10% cut in the business partnership, and Joe Biden allegedly met with one of his son’s partners the same month.
“I understand the Bidens may have had some oil and gas deals that deal with Texas. I think maybe Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should start looking at this long and hard … and Louisiana with [Republican state Attorney General Jeff] Landry,” Davis told The Post. “Paxton and Landry, they need to look at this. And if you can find a conspiracy and any of the overt acts of a conspiracy are committed in any of those states, you can bring charges.”
Hunter and James Biden ultimately received at least $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018 from CEFC — a since-defunct arm of Beijing’s foreign-influence “Belt and Road” initiative — according to a Washington Post review of laptop records.
Joe Biden also met as vice president with his relatives’ associates from Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine — and Hunter’s boss from a different Chinese business venture called BHR Partners, which was formed in 2013 within weeks of Hunter Biden joining his father aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing.
Davis added that Republican prosecutors should review whether their jurisdictions have “long-arm” corruption statutes and whether the Bidens might owe state taxes for work performed within their borders.
“If you are making money in a state and you’re liable for state taxes, you’re not paying them — sure [that’s illegal],” he said. “These Republican state attorneys general and Republican DAs and Republican prosecutors need to make sure that any and all allegations against the Bidens get a full and fair consideration.”
Bragg on Tuesday charged Trump, 76, with 34 felonies for allegedly falsifying business records by not accurately describing hush-money payments to women alleging affairs in 2016. That charge ordinarily would be a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, but Bragg elevated the counts to felonies by alleging the infraction occurred to conceal other crimes, apparently federal campaign finance violations.
Federal candidates are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on their own campaigns, but then-Trump fixer Michael Cohen would have exceeded the federal contribution limit if he used his own money to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal, whose story was purchased by the National Enquirer in a “catch and kill” contract.
Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to unrelated tax evasion charges and to making unlawful campaign contributions by brokering the payments. Trump at the time said Cohen was admitting to non-existent crimes to get lesser punishment for his other offenses.
Bragg said at a press conference Tuesday that he was prosecuting Trump because “we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct” — even though the progressive prosecutor has downgraded more than half of felony cases in New York to misdemeanors.
The Justice Department previously chose not to prosecute Trump on the campaign finance charge following its failure in 2012 to convict former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), who used more than $1 million in donor money to conceal his relationship and love child with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.
Trump could face additional criminal charges in three other investigations — one in Georgia into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and two federal probes overseen by special counsel Jack Smith: one into Trump’s actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and another into his handling of classified records after leaving office.
