James Comer attacks Joe Biden for using email aliases. He himself has used two of them

James Comer, chairman of the powerful Republican-led House Oversight Committee who has attacked President Joe Biden for using email pseudonyms, did not use email during his four years as Kentucky’s agriculture secretary, a spokesman claimed.

“The Congressman has no recollection of logging in or using email accounts during his time with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA),” the spokesperson told The Daily Beast this week.

That claim appears to be false, according to emails obtained by The Daily Beast.

The statement came in response to questions about Comer’s use of two pseudonyms on Kentucky government accounts.

Comer has been circulating suggestions for months that Biden’s use of email pseudonyms indicated an attempt to evade public records disclosure and cover up wrongdoing – particularly regarding a failed deal his son, Hunter Biden, negotiated with a Chinese company after his father left the vice presidency in 2017 and before running for the White House in 2020.

But emails show that Comer used pseudonyms to conduct government business during his time as a high-ranking Kentucky state official — including a pilot program for industrial hemp using Chinese seeds that were later tested as illegal marijuana, The Daily Beast revealed this week.

For example, in January 2014, in a message sent from one of two accounts named after his son, Harlan Comer, Comer wrote to a KDA employee: “I will be in touch today about hemp. A few things happened overnight regarding hemp, so we may grow it this year.”

This email was in response to an inquiry about hemp regulations in Kentucky, including Chinese imports. Harlan Comer was about seven years old at the time. His father signed the email “James Comer.”

The following month, Comer, under a pseudonym, revised a presentation together with a partner from the hemp program.

“Ok. I’ll set it up so I just look into the production aspects and then resend it to you for approval,” Comer wrote. The email was signed “Jamie” and “Sent from my iPhone.”

This program partner – a Comer campaign donor who considered the commissioner a “good friend” – sent numerous emails to Comer pseudonyms, some of them to “Jamie.”

The Daily Beast discovered the pseudonyms – [email protected] and [email protected] – while reviewing documents the Kentucky government produced in response to a third-party public records request. The request was only for material related to the hemp initiative. The full extent of Comer’s use of alternate email addresses remains unclear.

But the pseudonyms appeared in dozens of emails, many about Chinese imports, sometimes alongside Comer’s official “james.comer” address. Records show that KDA officials knew about the aliases, as did the hemp program’s outside consultant – a Comer employee who addressed one of the Harlan accounts as “Jamie.”

Comer’s spokesman did not answer why alias emails bore Comer’s signature.

“As Secretary of Agriculture, Congressman Comer’s email accounts were monitored and managed exclusively by staff,” the spokesperson said. “All communications are publicly available through the Kentucky Open Records Act.”

(The KDA rejected the third party’s request for private email addresses on the grounds that it lacked “the necessary knowledge as to whether and, if so, which private email addresses Mr. Comer might have used.”)

The spokesperson did not respond to questions about who managed Comer’s emails, how the messages were forwarded or whether emails were forwarded to a non-government account. The KDA did not respond to a request for comment.

While the claim that Comer did not use email seems implausible – and is contradicted by the signatures – it may contain a grain of truth. Of the hundreds of emails that concerned the official “james.comer” account, only one was sent from this address: a forwarded email with no further content.

Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general for the state of Kentucky and a public records specialist, told The Daily Beast that it was “inconceivable” to her that Comer did not use email. While alias accounts are consistent with state law, that analysis depends on intent, she said.

“It’s quite common to have an account to ensure that important official documents are stored separately,” Bensenhaver said. “But if the purpose is to hide them, it’s wrong, it’s illegal.”

Bensenhaver called Comer’s denial “a foolish statement, especially in light of the evidence that he actually used the email,” adding that it gave the impression that he was “trying to evade responsibility.”

In this way, Comer has criticized Biden in numerous media appearances.

In a Newsmax interview last August, Comer claimed, “Joe Biden used pseudonyms to hide the fact that he was working with his son to gain access to our enemies around the world.”

In a podcast this month, he said Biden “used a false name in a government email because he knew that emails, as you know, are subject to FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act, and he wanted to obscure his communications.”

Last August, Comer also received several hits on a FOIA request about Biden’s pseudonyms. When they were released, The New York Times The perpetrators reported that the alias emails had been known for two years and refuted Comer’s allegations by revealing only “banal content and personal information”.

Months later, Comer was still attacking.

“Joe Biden told the American people he had built a wall between the government and his family’s business plans. But what we can see from these emails is that there was no wall,” he told Newsmax in December.

Sensitive information came to light under Comer’s pseudonyms – including that of a campaign donor who, thanks to Comer’s personal intervention, established a hemp partnership.

A few weeks after Comer took office, a staff member “starred” a message to the harlan.comer account from that donor, Dan Caudill of Caudill Seed. The email thanked Comer for reducing a fine for several fumigation violations by 90 percent.

“Regarding the fumigation violations for which we received a warning, we had a meeting with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture today to seek mitigation. They reduced the fine from $2,500 to $250 and ordered my chief fumigator to take two more courses on fumigation,” Caudill’s email said.

“That’s obviously better than paying the $2,500. So again, it looks like the Kentucky Department of Agriculture is being much fairer than it was under the previous administration, and I give you credit for that.”

Months later, the same employee forwarded another email from Caudill to harlan.comer, thanking Comer for a “Partner in Excellence Award.” Comer later called personally to involve Caudill in his hemp initiative, The Daily Beast reported. Caudill Seed then imported Chinese hemp seeds, which, when tested, turned out to be marijuana.

Both “Harlan” accounts were later closed during Comer’s tenure.

On May 27, 2015, the account harlan.comer received an invitation to celebrate Hemp History Week with Kentucky Hempsters (“James, you’re invited!”) The following month, however, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kelly emailed a colleague: “Harlan Comer’s account is not active – please send all emails to James Comer.”

Comer had just lost a bitter Republican primary for governor, in which he reportedly engineered a counter-scandal that included the publication of a journalist’s emails. The following year, Comer ran for Congress and won.

The Biden email crusade is not over yet. Comer’s spokesperson told The Daily Beast they are waiting for more documents.

“The White House continues to refuse to allow the National Archives to make publicly available all emails associated with President Joe Biden’s pseudonymous email accounts,” the spokesman said.