Comer read the same reviews we did this morning and he knows how badly his smut smear inquisition backfired. Today’s continued assault on the privacy of Hunter Biden – and now Biden’s brother James — is just a desperate distraction to make us all forget that the first angle he took as head of the Oversight Committee was trying to force a public platform to post nonconsensual naked photos where kids could see them.
Comer’s new line of attack might not be as lewd, but it’s just as desperate. Just like a Chinese surveillance balloon under the watching eye of a Democratic administration, this too will be shot down.
And since yesterday’s hearing yet again showed that it was actually Trump engaging in the behavior Republicans were falsely accusing Biden of…maybe any real “oversight” of foreign conflicts should include the Trump family.
Trump Family Foreign Conflicts
January 2023
This memo includes 13 different conflicts of interest between the Trump family and foreign actors with a special focus on the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC, Trump World Tower, and Trump properties worldwide. Special attention is given to conflicts of interest in countries and regions most relevant to the foreign policy of the United States, including China, Russia, Ukraine, and countries in the Middle East, though the Trump family conflicts of interest extend far beyond those areas. It’s hard to quantify the exact amount the conflicts of interest were worth due to lack of disclosure, incomplete information, varying types of conflicts, or conflicts that don’t lend themselves to a clear dollar amount. From what is known about the conflicts in the memo, amounts range from six digits to over $100 billion, but it is by no means a fully complete list.
A more complete – though less detailed – overview of the Trump family conflict of interests through the beginning of 2020 was compiled by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and can be found here. In total, they found 3,740 conflicts of interest, with at least 250 attributed to foreign actors.
This research could be pursued further in other countries, by building out a more complete report on a single country or region of interest, by doing a deep dive on a single member of the Trump family, or even Trump himself. The report could also be enhanced through a close examination of Trump’s newly-released tax returns, adding relevant information to any of the outlined conflicts or highlighting additional conflicts.
