(PresidentialDaily.org)- On Monday, House Oversight and Accountability Committee chairman James Comer sent a letter to the attorney of gallery owner Georges Bergès requesting information related to Hunter Biden’s anonymous art sales.
In his letter to attorney William Pittard, Comer noted that Pittard’s client has so far refused to cooperate with the committee’s requests for information in an apparent attempt to “shield” Hunter and those who purchased his art “from congressional oversight.”
The Oversight Committee is investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals and their possible connections to President Biden. When Hunter’s so-called “art” first went on sale, ethics watchdogs expressed concern that foreign buyers could use the purchase of Hunter’s art as a way to curry favor with the Biden White House.
In 2022, the Treasury Department called for the creation of further safeguards against using high-end art purchases as a way to launder money, Comer explained. He said Bergès’s “arrangement” with Hunter “raises obvious ethical red flags,” and added that the safeguards Bergès put in place were “troubling” and “insufficient.”
Former director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub previously raised the alarm about the safeguards Bergès arranged with the sale of Hunter’s art, saying in 2021 that the Biden White House was effectively outsourcing “government ethics” to an art dealer and hoping that the anonymous buyers “help keep the secret.”
Bergès’s lawyer previously argued that agreeing to keep the names of the buyers anonymous would safeguard against any ethical concerns.
In his response to one of Comer’s previous requests for information, William Pittard wrote that providing the committee with the information requested would “defeat the efforts” of the White House to “avoid” the ethical concerns Comer cited.
In his letter on Monday, Comer argued that the Oversight Committee is requesting the information to review “legislative solutions” that could address the issues of money laundering and ethics that have been raised by “certain high-end art deals.” Comer added that the information requested from Burgès was “critical” to that investigation.
