Resurfaced comments catch James Comer promising not to use FBI informant in 'witch hunt'

Less than a year ago, House Oversight and Reform chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) gave a press conference demanding the FBI hand over a claim from a confidential source — and promising never to use unverified information on the form as part of a "witch hunt."

It hasn't turned out that way.

On May 10, 2023, Comer stood before the press, flanked by Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Jake Laturner (R-KS), to name a few.

"A week ago, I sent a subpoena to the FBI for a form a whistleblower has alleged is in the FBI's possession," Comer told the press. "We hope the F.B.I. will be transparent and forthcoming and provide us with the 1023 form we have subpoenaed.

"If they do, the committee will assess the form it has subpoenaed from the FBI and, as has been my practice, we will report to you only the facts when they are verified and indisputable. This committee will not pursue witch hunts or string the American people along with false promises of evidence that is beyond circumstantial evidence, as represented by Adam Schiff and the Democrats did for years. I trust the whistleblower."

But Comer and the GOP took that information and made it key to their investigation in Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden.

On Feb. 15 the informant, Alexander Smirnov, was arrested by the FBI and charged with making false statements. One of the allegations he made was that the president and his son scored a $5 million bribe from the head of the Ukraine energy company known as Burisma.

Prior to releasing the 1023 form, the FBI maintained that they had not been able to confirm the details in it, one official said.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) told CNN's "The Source" on Feb. 22: “We were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known, and yet my colleagues went out and talked to the public about how this was credible and damning."

“And yet," he continued, "people, my colleagues went out and talk to the public about how this was credible and how it was damning and how it proved President Biden’s — at the time Vice President Biden’s — complicity in receiving bribes."

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“It appears to absolutely be false, and to really undercut the nature of the charges. We’ve always been looking for a link between what Hunter Biden received in terms of money and Joe Biden’s activities or Joe Biden receiving money,” Buck told CNN. “This clearly is not a credible link at this point.”

“I certainly didn’t have any evidence outside the statement itself that it was credible. And as a prosecutor for 25 years, Kaitlan, I never went to the public until I could prove the reliability of a statement," he told host Kaitlan Collins.

See the May 2023 press conference below or at the link here.