James Comer, chair of the powerful Republican-led House Oversight Committee who has attacked President Joe Biden for using email pseudonyms, did not use email for his four years as Kentucky agriculture commissioner, a spokesperson claimed.
“The Congressman does not recall logging on or using email accounts while at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture [KDA],” the spokesperson told The Daily Beast this week.
That claim appears false, according to emails obtained by The Daily Beast.
ADVERTISEMENT
The statement came in response to questions about Comer’s use of two pseudonyms on Kentucky government accounts.
Comer has for months trafficked in innuendo that Biden’s use of email pseudonyms indicates an attempt to evade public records disclosure and hide wrongdoing—particularly regarding a failed business deal his son, Hunter Biden, negotiated with a Chinese company after his father left the vice presidency in 2017 and before his White House run in 2020.
But emails show that when Comer was a senior Kentucky state official, he used pseudonyms for government business—including an industrial hemp pilot program involving Chinese seeds which later tested as illegal marijuana, The Daily Beast revealed this week.
For instance, in a January 2014 message sent from one of two accounts named for Comer’s son, Harlan Comer, Comer told a KDA aide, “I’ll touch base with you today about Hemp. Some things have happened over night [sic] with respect to hemp so we may be growing it this year.”
That email came in response to an inquiry about Kentucky hemp regulations, including Chinese imports. Harlan Comer was then around seven years old. His father signed the email, “James Comer.”
The next month, Comer used an alias to revise a presentation with a hemp program partner.
“Ok. I’ll fix it to just study production aspects and then resend to you to approve,” Comer wrote. Signed “Jamie,” the email was “Sent from my iPhone.”
That program partner—a Comer campaign donor who considered the commissioner a “good friend”—sent numerous emails to Comer pseudonyms, some addressing “Jamie.”
The Daily Beast uncovered the pseudonyms—harlan2@ky.gov and harlan.comer@ky.gov—while reviewing documents the Kentucky government produced in response to an open records request from a third party. The request only targeted material connected to the hemp initiative. The full scope of Comer’s use of alternate emails remains unclear.
But the pseudonyms appeared on dozens of emails, many discussing Chinese imports, sometimes alongside Comer’s official “james.comer” address. KDA officials were aware of the aliases, records show, as was the hemp program’s outside counsel—a Comer associate who addressed “Jamie” at one of the Harlan accounts.
Comer’s spokesperson did not answer why alias emails bore Comer’s signature.
“As the Commissioner of Agriculture, Congressman Comer’s email accounts were solely monitored and maintained 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 emails, claiming it lacked “the requisite knowledge of what, if any, private email addresses may have been used by Mr. Comer.”)
The spokesperson did not answer when asked who managed Comer’s emails; how communications were relayed; or if emails were forwarded to a nongovernmental account. The KDA did not reply to a comment request.
While the claim that Comer did not use email seems implausible—and contradicted by the signatures—it may contain a grain of truth. Of hundreds of emails involving the official “james.comer” account, only one was sent from that address: a forwarded email with no additional content.
Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general with the state of Kentucky and an open records specialist, told The Daily Beast it is “inconceivable” to her that Comer did not use email. While alias accounts are consistent with state law, she said, that analysis depends on intent.
“It’s fairly common practice to have an account to ensure vital official records are saved separately,” Bensenhaver said. “But if the purpose is concealing it, it is wrong, it is illegal.”
Bensenhaver called Comer’s denial a “stupid thing to say, especially with proof that he did use the email,” adding that it gives the impression of “subterfuge to avoid accountability.”
That is how Comer has criticized Biden in numerous media appearances.
In a Newsmax interview last August, Comer claimed “Joe Biden was using pseudonyms to hide the fact that he was working with his son to peddle access to our enemies around the world.”
On a podcast that month, he said Biden “was using a fake name on a government email, because he knew that emails are subject as you know to FOIA, to [the] Freedom of Information Act, and he wanted to disguise his communication.”
Also last August, Comer got multiple hits on a FOIA request about Biden’s pseudonyms. When they were released, The New York Times reported the alias emails had been known for two years and undercut Comer’s insinuations, yielding only “banal content and personal information.”
Months later, Comer was still attacking.
“Joe Biden told the American people he had a wall between the government and his family’s business schemes, and what we’re seeing with those emails is he did not have a wall,” he told Newsmax in December.
Comer’s pseudonyms fielded sensitive information—including from a campaign donor who scored a hemp partnership thanks to Comer’s personal intervention.
Weeks into Comer’s administration, an aide “flagged” a message to the harlan.comer account from this donor, Dan Caudill of Caudill Seed. The email thanked Comer for slashing 90 percent off of a fine for multiple fumigation violations.
“Regarding the fumigation violations that we were written up for, we had a mitigation meeting with Kentucky Department of Agriculture today and they amended the fine down to $250 from the $2,500 and also assigned my head fumigator to attend 2 future classes on fumigation,” Caudill’s email said.
“Of course that is better than paying the $2,500. So, here again it looks like the Kentucky Department of Agriculture is being much fairer than they were under the previous administration and I give you the credit for that.”
Months later, the same aide forwarded another Caudill email to the harlan.comer address, thanking Comer for a “Partner in Excellence Award.” Comer later made a personal call to get Caudill in on his hemp initiative, The Daily Beast reported. Caudill Seed then imported Chinese hemp seeds that tests revealed as marijuana.
Both “Harlan” accounts were shut down later in Comer’s term.
On May 27, 2015, the harlan.comer account received an invitation to celebrate “Hemp History Week” with “Kentucky Hempsters.” (“James, you’re invited!”) The next month, though, deputy agriculture commissioner Steve Kelly emailed a colleague, “the Harlan Comer account is not active—please send all emails to James Comer.”
Comer had just lost a bitter Republican gubernatorial primary, in which he reportedly helped orchestrate a counter-scandal including the leak of a journalist’s emails. The next year, Comer ran for Congress and won.
The Biden email crusade isn’t over. Comer’s spokesperson told The Daily Beast they await more records.
“The White House is still refusing to allow the National Archives to publicly release all emails associated with President Joe Biden’s pseudonym email accounts,” the spokesperson said.
