One of the House Republicans’ most prominent investigators promise he won’t spend time going into fever swamp conspiracy theories “unless we have proof.”
But just a few days after taking a strong new position and with no evidence to tell, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) promoted a wild conspiracy theory: that Joe Biden’s former executive assistant, Kathy Chung, was right. a foreign agent working for the Chinese Communist Party.
The hand-in-glove efforts of the top House Republicans and the right-wing media have steered the relatively banal classification document scandal into a basic, xenophobic fantasy.
The accusations and innuendos come from classified documents from vice president Biden that the FBI and Biden’s attorneys recently recovered from his former DC office and home in Delaware. Federal investigators are looking into the situation – thanks to classified documents from Donald Trump´s Mar-a-Lago resort. (In the latter case, Trump waited months against authorities’ efforts to recover the document.)
NBC News reported earlier this month that Federal investigators have interviewed Chung, who is now to work at the Pentagon as deputy director of protocol, as part of a review of recovered classified documents. A few days later, The Washington Post reported that Chung has expressed concern that he may have inadvertently been involved in moving or storing classified documents, which were eventually discovered by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. Both news organizations cited unnamed sources.
Chung’s lawyer, Bill Taylor, confirmed to HuffPost that he had spoken with federal investigators and that in January 2017, he was involved in packing the office of vice president Biden, a box that later arrived at the Biden Center. Chung did not know there was classified material in the box, Taylor said.
There is no public evidence that Chung – who was born in South Korea – has any ties to China or its government. But that hasn’t stopped Comer from playing along with conspiracy theories from a host of right-wing media outlets.
On Newsmax Tuesdayhost Jenn Pellegrino asked Comer, “Do you believe that Chung’s relationship with Hunter Biden, possibly the Chinese Communist Party, and his role in transferring this classified document is something that the House Oversight Committee should investigate?”
“We’re investigating,” Comer replied. “It’s very sad and disturbing to see so many ties of the Biden family to the CCP.”
Although he did not mention Chung specifically, Comer later mentioned the process of moving the secret documents: “When you start to trace back, you will see that there are people who have suspicious connections with some of the enemies involved in the moving process.”
Comer did not respond to HuffPost’s questions about what evidence he had to support the cable news innuendo about Chung, nor did representatives of Fox News or Newsmax.
Chung’s lawyer blasted a line of attack. “It’s ignorant and absurd,” Taylor said. “It’s disgusting in this kind of partisan atmosphere, where people don’t think someone is a traitor without proof, and frankly that’s not true.”
Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
Comer reiterated the points he made in the interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo Wednesday and tried to connect the story to the president’s son Hunter Biden, saying there was “definitely a connection” between the documents and the younger Biden’s business dealings in China.
Bartiromo said Chung “supervised this packing,” referring to presidential documents. “Do we know if he reported back to the CCP on this?” he asked.
“We’re looking. We’re looking for at least three people directly involved with Hunter Biden who have close ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” Comer said.
Back and forth between Comer and Bartiromo has been going on for days. On January 22, Bartiromo was introduced interview with Comer by saying “we do not know that [Chung] eventually reporting back to the Chinese Communist Party. Bartiromo asked Comer about “the relationship between Joe Biden and Communist China” and whether that has dictated the way Biden views the country.
“Most Americans would be shocked to see how many connections the Biden family has with people directly connected to the Chinese Communist Party,” Comer said.
“It’s disgusting in this kind of partisan atmosphere, where people don’t think someone is a traitor without proof, and frankly that’s not true.”
– Bill Taylor, attorney for Kathy Chung
Conspiracy theories about former Biden aides have been circulating the right-wing web for months, stemming from various email exchanges with Chung reportedly taken from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
In one exchange, Chung emailed Hunter Biden about working in his father’s vice presidential office. He previously worked for former Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), a longtime staffer and friend of Joe Biden who ultimately recommended him for the job, in the first Post reported. Taylor confirmed the details to HuffPost, saying Chung and Biden’s son met while he was working at the Commerce Department.
“Call me if/when you want me to tell Dad you’re interested,” Hunter Biden the news told Chung about the project in a 2012 email, asking in another, “Would you like me to see when you can meet with the VP?”
In a 2015 email, Chung sent an invitation to State Department luncheon co-hosted by Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry honored Chinese President Xi Jinping. In February 2017, a month after Joe Biden left the White House, Hunter Biden asked Chung to work with him; he reportedly responded that he wanted to “stay” with Joe Biden. Chung never worked for Hunter Biden, Taylor said.
Referring to the email, Pellegrino Newsmax said in an interview with Comer, “Laptop Hunter continues to give us a lot!”
None of the emails between Chung and Hunter Biden hinted that Chung was a Chinese secret agent rather than a regular mid-level political aide. But this is the narrative now blessed by top Republicans on the Oversight Committee. It’s a business noted master from tying it all back to Hunter Biden.
“Hunter Biden is responsible for electing those people to pack boxes and transport boxes from point A to point B,” he told Bartiromo on Wednesday. (“That’s not true,” Taylor told HuffPost.)
On Thursday, Comer uttered the same line to Sean Hannity: “We learned in the investigation that Hunter had a role in determining who would be responsible for taking documents from the vice president’s office to the first delivery point for those documents.”
Separately in the interview, Hannity referred to a reported 2015 email from Chung to Hunter Biden, sent the day after Beau’s brother Hunter’s funeral. In it, Chung included a list of phone numbers for famous people, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and several senators and members of Congress.
Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
This email has especially become a chum for the right-wing web. Trump pardoned recipient Michael Flynn gushed a few days before the 2020 presidential election, “Any foreign power would love to have this information!!!”
And G News, a website associated with Steve Bannon that focuses on China, published an article the same day titled, without evidence, “Hunter Biden Sold Clinton’s Phone Number to CCP.” The article refers to a Bannon-connected Chinese internet personality, Lu De, whose real name is Wang Dinggang. The New York Times and NBC News have reported Wang as the source of several Hunter Biden rumors.
The G News post states “the purpose of sending this email to Hunter is to forward the phone list to CCP.” (“Crazy and absurd,” Taylor said.)
In an interview with Hannity, Comer dove down the rabbit hole.
Hunter Biden, he said, will “try to prove his worth to these people in other countries who are paying him a lot of money,” in part by “showing that he has a cell number for a powerful individual.”
When the music came out of Fox News became big, Comer quickly completed the point: “Influence peddling! This is what we are investigating, and more evidence is emerging every day to prove that this family has been involved, and Joe Biden is an integral part.