Democrats in the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Wednesday sent a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is chairman of the committee, to turn over everything provided by Gal Luft.
Mr. Luft, co-director of the think tank Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, was on Monday charged with eight counts, including working as a foreign agent for China, arms trafficking, and making false statements to federal agents.
Days before the indictment was made public, Mr. Luft filmed a video from an undisclosed location detailing the timeline of events from his own perspective. He had originally been arrested in February in the Republic of Cyprus and fled after being released on bail. The video was first obtained by the NY Post.
In March 2019, Mr. Luft participated in a two-day interview with six FBI personnel. Mr. Luft, who holds U.S.-Israeli dual citizenship, was in Brussels at the time, and the FBI personnel flew overseas to meet with him. In the meeting, Mr. Luft says he gave insider information about the Biden family’s financial dealings with CEFC China Energy. In his think tank position, he had had an advisory position with CEFC China Energy and said in the video the information he provided was similar to the information found on the laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, but it appeared it was not acted on.
Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on April 10, 2023. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Mr. Luft said in the video his motive was never political; he only wanted to prevent another lengthy “Russia collusion” type scandal with a sitting president but that it happened again anyway.
Veracity of the Brussels Interview
Mr. Comer has been investigating the Biden family’s financial dealings with foreign nationals and has said on multiple occasions that Mr. Luft was a credible witness, one the FBI had flown six people to Brussels in order to interview for two days.
According to the indictment, the information Mr. Luft gave was false. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) emphasized in their letter that Mr. Luft was no whistleblower but instead a “conman.”
“It appears as if Mr. Luft sought ‘whistleblower’ status from you in an effort to defend himself from criminal prosecution while a fugitive from justice,” they wrote.
“Worse yet, this latest episode also raises concerns that Mr. Luft may be manipulating your investigation not only for his own self-interest but perhaps also in furtherance of the CCP’s efforts to undermine U.S. security interests and the President of the United States.”
They further wrote that Mr. Luft’s status discredited the rest of the investigation.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) questions witnesses during the first public hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 8, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“These recent revelations naturally raise broader concerns about the credibility and motivations of other purported whistleblowers that Congressional Republicans have relied on to support unfounded and baseless allegations. Sadly, the Luft episode severely undermines the credibility of the critical function of whistleblowers in this body,” wrote the members (pdf).
They demanded Mr. Comer provide Committee Democrats with everything Mr. Luft had supplied, noting that Mr. Comer had not yet shared any of these materials.
Mr. Comer, who is requesting the materials from the FBI’s 2019 Brussels interview with Mr. Luft, responded with a statement questioning their motives and urged Democrats to likewise look into what the FBI actually uncovered.
“It’s astonishing that Ranking Member Raskin and Rep. Dan Goldman didn’t mention that the Bidens received millions through their shell companies from the same CCP-linked company that paid Gal Luft. Hunter Biden and Joe Biden even planned to share an office with this CCP-linked company, CEFC. Gal Luft is a credible witness to the Bidens’ influence-peddling schemes because he, too, was getting paid by the same shady company. If Democrats deem Mr. Luft as untrustworthy because he was getting money from CEFC, then why should we trust the Bidens, who also received money from CEFC?” he asked.
“Democrats have either been duped by the Bidens, or they are intentionally misleading the American people. Democrats should join us in requesting the FBI’s record memorializing its interview with Gal Luft to get to the bottom of his claims about the Bidens,” he stated.
The Biden family’s financial dealings are also being investigated by the Ways and Means Committee, and Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) last month released 14 hours of interviews with two IRS whistleblowers, which revealed that Mr. Hunter Biden had an excess of $8 million unreported income that came from Ukraine, China, and Russia.
Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a member of the committee, told Fox today that sooner or later, everything would come into the open.
“It’s going to blow up,” he said. “It’s going to blow up at some point, sooner than later; they can only cover so much until somebody absolutely cracks.”
Catherine Yang
Author
Catherine Yang is a reporter for The Epoch Times based in New York.
