James Comer’s Biden corruption claim a “desperate” distraction: White House

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s revelation of a supposedly “shady” payment to President Joe Biden is a “desperate” distraction from House GOP chaos, according to a White House spokesperson.

Comer, who is leading the Republican impeachment inquiry into Biden, released what he suggested was evidence proving Biden’s corruption on Friday, sharing an image of a $200,000 check sent to the president by his brother James Biden in 2018.

The oversight chair said that court documents showed James Biden had received “shady” loans totaling $600,000 from a failing hospital firm based on claims that his family name would “open doors” and could help secure a “large investment from the Middle East.”

The payment was “troubling,” Comer said, in part due to a $200,000 loan payment being sent to James Biden on the same day that the check was written to his brother, the then-future president.

However, the check made out to Joe Biden also clearly indicated that the money was sent as a “loan repayment”—a fact that was highlighted a short time later by Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

Sams argued that Comer’s release of the check image was intended to distract from the continuing inability of Republicans to select a new House speaker after ousting former speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month.

“Jamie Comer is pretty desperate to try to distract from Republicans’ speaker mess,” Sams wrote. “It’s a loan repayment from when President Biden loaned his brother money. When he was out of office in 2018, no less. It’s right there on the check!”

Sams went on to say that Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who filed the motion that ousted McCarthy earlier this month, was “right” while previously accusing House GOP leadership of engaging in “failure theater.”

Newsweek reached out for comment to Comer’s office via email on Friday evening.

Comer acknowledged that Biden, who was neither in office nor a candidate for office in 2018, may have received the money as a personal loan repayment in a video announcing that Republicans had “found some” evidence of corruption.

“Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still troubling that Joe Biden’s ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his family’s shady financial dealings,” Comer said.

The oversight chair insisted that the president “must answer” questions about the transaction.

“Does he have documents proving he lent such a large sum of money to his brother and what were the terms of such financial arrangement?” said Comer.

According to a September 2022 Wall Street Journal article on James Biden settling a lawsuit over not repaying his $600,000 loan from now-bankrupt hospital firm Americore, the president’s brother never delivered on his promise to help the firm by securing a Middle East investment.

While Comer and other Republicans pushing for Joe Biden’s impeachment have argued that they have a large amount of evidence for the president’s corruption, they have yet to publicly produce any evidence that proves Biden committed a crime.

Meanwhile, the House remains rudderless following GOP infighting that saw Representative Jim Jordan‘s bid for speaker go down in flames on Friday after three consecutive rounds of failed votes this week.