James Comer is going after Biden companies — but his own business activities are 'opaque at best'

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) is among the House Republicans who has been leading the charge to impeach President Joe Biden based on his son Hunter Biden's alleged business activities. But Comer's critics have been slamming Comer's efforts as a pointless fishing expedition, stressing that there is no evidence that the president did anything wrong.

Comer's own business activities are the focus of a report by the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger published on January 9. According to Sollenberger, Comer's recordkeeping for his shell company Farm Team Properties is "opaque at best."

"As Rep. James Comer (R-KY) plows ahead with his sensationalized impeachment inquiry premised on Hunter Biden's business dealings," Sollenberger explains, "the Oversight Chairman has alleged that Biden's opaque financial operations merit investigation, and that people who own corporations have a 'responsibility' to maintain proper 'books and records.' But a review of dozens of tax, real estate, and business filings in Kentucky and Tennessee indicate that Comer's own personal 'books and records' are opaque at best — and improper at worst."

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The reporter adds, "Those records include the dealings of Comer's shell company, Farm Team Properties LLC, which the state of Kentucky has dissolved twice for failure to file annual reports — first in 2020, then again in 2022."

Sollenberger notes that in December, Comer told Fox News that Farm Team Properties "manages" properties in addition to holding them. A Kentucky Department of Revenue official told the Daily Beast that a company in dissolution cannot legally conduct business in that state.

"The 'books and records' questions also run to Comer's real estate holdings, which directly contradict his recent public statements about his LLC," Sollenberger notes. "For one, Comer reports rental income from all of his farmland holdings, but it's not clear whether that income derives from Farm Team's alleged hunting leases. If so, experts told The Daily Beast, his records should reflect that, and they do not."

Sollenberger adds, "The opacity of Comer’s disclosures — along with his contradictory defenses of the shell company — mean the public still doesn't have a clear picture of his finances. And Comer's broadsides targeting Hunter Biden's cloudy corporate entities would seem to invite parallel scrutiny into the similar haze that has settled over his own business dealings."

READ MORE: James Comer's own business dealings 'risk undercutting' Biden impeachment push: report

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).