Floating yet another conspiracy theory on Wednesday morning, MAGA-boosting Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo claimed the Justice Department has “stonewalled” Republicans in their investigation of corruption allegations against President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings.
According to Bartiromo, the recently unsealed indictment of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s star “informant” Gal Luft proved that the GOP’s so-called “whistleblowers” were being “intimidated” by the feds in order to protect the Bidens.
There was only one problem with Bartiromo’s narrative: Luft was actually indicted last fall, when Democrats were still in charge of the House of Representatives and before Republicans launched their probes.
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Bartiromo, who has enthusiastically promoted Republican accusations about the “Biden crime family” for months, spent much of Wednesday morning hosting GOP lawmakers and suggesting Luft’s indictment was retaliatory.
“Yeah, I mean I don’t know what other levers you all have to pull,” Bartiromo told Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) during an interview on Mornings with Maria.
“You’re getting stonewalled left and right.” She added: “Somebody’s lying in terms of the Hunter Biden investigation and you’re not getting the witnesses you need because many of them are getting intimidated. Gal Luft was just indicted!”
In a separate conversation with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Bartiromo went even further, noting that not only had Luft recently been hit with charges, but he was forced to go “on the run” because of the indictment.
“Gal Luft was just indicted! This was one of your key whistleblowers,” Bartiromo exclaimed. “I want to get your take on what you're going to do about it, because how many more whistleblowers are going to come forward after this guy, who tried telling the FBI and DOJ what he knew the transactions and business deals of the Biden family, now he had to go on the run and now he's getting indicted!”
As the Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump noted on Wednesday morning, Luft was running from authorities because he skipped bail this past spring after his arrest in Cyprus earlier this year on the laundry list of charges, which were handed down in November 2022. “Bartiromo has been completely unmoored for some time, but this is dumb even by that standard,” Bump tweeted.
In the indictment that was unsealed this week, Luft has been charged with being an unregistered foreign agent of the Chinese government, illegally trafficking arms to Iran, and lying to investigators.
Comer, meanwhile, has suggested for months that Luft was a “very credible witness” who would shed further light on the Biden family’s work with Chinese energy companies and how that would show corruption on the president’s part. Luft claims he spoke with the FBI in 2019 about bribery allegations against the Bidens but that the feds covered up the secret meeting.
At the same time, Comer lamented to Bartiromo in May that his prized “informant” had gone missing, failing to point out that Luft was a fugitive and had been accused of essentially spying for the Chinese government. After Luft resurfaced in a video from an undisclosed location provided to the New York Post last week, Comer doubled down on his claims that Luft was “very credible.”
Bartiromo, however, isn’t the only prominent conservative suggesting that Luft’s months-old indictment was an effort to intimidate the GOP’s “whistleblowers” in their probe of the Biden family. “I don’t trust the DOJ or the FBI. They are trying to silence our witnesses,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told the Fox host on Tuesday.
“The timing is always coincidental, according to the Democrats and the Department of Justice,” Comer fumed to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday night.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, in the meantime, have called on Comer to open an investigation into whether the committee’s Republicans may have been manipulated by Luft “in furtherance of the CCP’s efforts to undermine U.S. security interests and the President of the United States.”
Additionally, they said in a letter on Wednesday that it “appears as if Mr. Luft sought ‘whistleblower’ status to shield himself from prosecution,” adding that his criminal indictment was handed down last fall and he skipped bail in April.
Republicans, on the other hand, said they’d still like to call Luft as a witness in their investigation of the president and his son Hunter. While dismissing the charges against Luft, Comer accused the FBI and DOJ of engaging in a conspiracy to protect the Biden family. As has been his pattern of late, he offered no evidence to support his accusation.
“The Justice Department has had information on the Bidens’ corrupt schemes for years and has done nothing but cover up for the Bidens,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “We need to root out the politicization and misconduct at the Justice Department and hold bad actors accountable.”
