A top House Republican called Joe Biden “hypocritical” over his suggestion that Twitter owner Elon Musk should be investigated over his relationships with foreign countries even as the president laughed off GOP investigations into his son’s overseas business dealings.
Biden held a press conference Wednesday where he dismissed GOP concerns about Hunter Biden’s financial dealings in places like China and Ukraine, calling potential investigations into him, his administration, and his family as “almost comedy.” Yet businesses tied to Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from Chinese businesses linked to Beijing’s government and to Chinese businessmen whom the president’s son himself believed were tied to China’s intelligence services.
But when asked about Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the president said that was “worthy of being looked at.” A Saudi prince and Saudi holding company had held shares reportedly valued at $1.89 billion even before Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company, and when the Tesla CEO bought Twitter, those Saudi ownership shares carried over.
JAMES COMER ASKS ELON MUSK TO HAND OVER TWITTER CENSORSHIP DOCS ON HUNTER BIDEN
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has been leading a GOP investigation into Hunter Biden, and he blasted Joe Biden’s apparent double standard on Thursday.
“That’s a big deal,” Comer said on Fox & Friends First on Fox News on Thursday morning. “The fact that Joe Biden said that there should be an investigation into Twitter over foreign investment will go down in history as one of the most hypocritical statements ever made by a president of the United States once our investigations into the Biden family’s influence peddling are concluded.”
Comer added, “I mean, the fact that he is concerned about policing Twitter instead of policing our southern border is astonishing, but to say that should be under investigation but then that Congress should turn a blind eye to his family’s influence peddling with China, with Russia, with Ukraine, and, yes, with the Middle East is amazing that he would say that.”
Musk closed the deal on purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in late October. Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company and the private office of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal announced the “roll over” of their existing $1.89 billion in “existing Twitter shares” and said they were now “jointly the second largest investor” in Twitter, following Musk himself.
“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at,” Joe Biden said Wednesday. “Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that — I’m suggesting that it is worth being looked at.” The president added that “there’s a lot of ways” to investigate that.
Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, went even further than the president on Thursday, suggesting the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States should investigate Musk’s Twitter ownership because that is where “transactions that might have a national security nexus get reviewed.” CFIUS includes the Justice Department as well as Treasury and other executive departments.
Joe Biden was also asked about Republican plans to investigate his family and, in particular, Hunter Biden’s business endeavors, and the president laughed it off, saying his coach used to say, “Lots of luck in your senior year.” Joe Biden has used the dismissive phrase repeatedly in the past, including in reference to Trump when he was the outgoing vice president in 2017 and on the Senate floor in the 1990s.
“I think the American public wants us to move on and get things done for them,” the president said Wednesday. “And, you know, I heard that there were — it was reported — whether it’s accurate or not, I’m not sure — but it was reported many times that Republicans were saying, and the former president said, ‘How many times are you going to impeach Biden?’ … I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s just almost comedy.”
Comer retorted on Thursday, “Well, if the president thinks that tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, securities fraud — if he thinks those things are comedy, then he has a sick and twisted mind because I can tell you I don’t think the American people are going to think that Hunter Biden receiving millions of dollars from unmarked accounts in China and Russia is very funny when they’re struggling to pay their energy bills.”
The House Republican said the president would come to regret a lot of his remarks.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I think the president is wrong,” the House Republican said. “I have bad news for the president — if he thinks Republicans are going to turn a blind eye like the Democrats have to the Biden family influence peddling, this is something that we’ve been investigating for months, and we’re prepared in January in a Republican majority to press forward and press forward in a big way.”
