Rep. James Comer boasts of being one of the largest landowners near his rural Kentucky hometown and has meticulously documented nearly all of his properties in congressional financial disclosure documents, about 1,600 acres in total.
But there are six acres he purchased in 2015 that he co-owns with a longtime campaign contributor and has treated differently, transferring his ownership to Farm Team Properties, a shell company he is co-owner with his wife.
Interviews and records reviewed by The Associated Press provide new insights into the financial deal, which risks undermining the strength of some of Comer’s central arguments in his impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Comer notably attacked some members of the Biden family, including the Democratic president’s son Hunter, for their use of shell companies that appear designed to hide millions of dollars in income from shadowy middlemen and foreign interests.
These companies generally only exist on paper and are created to hold an asset, such as real estate. Their opaque structures are often designed to help hide ownership of property and assets.
The companies used by the Bidens already play a central role in the impeachment inquiry, which is expected to accelerate after House Republicans voted Wednesday to formally authorize the investigation.
The vote follows the federal indictment last week against Hunter Biden, accused of participating in a scheme to avoid paying taxes on his income through the businesses.
But Comer’s high-profile role has also drawn attention to his own finances and relationships, including his ties to prominent figures in his hometown who have complicated pasts not unlike those of some of those caught up in his investigation Biden.
Comer declined to comment through a spokesperson, but aggressively denied any wrongdoing related to the creation of a shell company, calling criticism “only stupid, financially illiterate people can to understand “.
The AP found that Farm Team Properties operates in a manner just as opaque as the companies used by the Bidens, hiding Comer’s stake in the land he owns with the donor and preventing its disclosure on his financial disclosure forms , which indicate the company is worth up to $1 million.
It is unclear why Comer placed the six acres in a shell company, or what other assets Farm Team Properties may own.
Ethics experts say House rules require members of Congress to disclose all assets worth more than $1,000 held by these companies.
“It seems pretty clear to me that he should disclose the individual land assets held by” the shell company, said Delaney Marsco, a senior attorney specializing in congressional ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington.
Comer established the company in 2017 to hold his interest in the six acres he purchased two years earlier in a joint venture with construction contractor Darren Cleary, a major contributor to the county’s campaign Monroe, Kentucky, where the congressman was born and raised. .
Cleary did not respond to an interview request. But the two men have complimented each other over the years. Comer even declared from the House floor that Cleary was his friend and “the epitome of a successful businessman.”
Cleary, his businesses and his family have donated about $70,000 to Comer’s various campaigns, records show.
When he and Comer launched their joint venture, Cleary sold an acre of family land near Tompkinsville, Ky., to the state so it could build a highway bypass — a project that was completed in 2020. Comer paid Cleary $128,000 for a 50% stake on six acres that would eventually be adjacent to the highway.
Comer, a powerful political figure in this part of Kentucky, announced his candidacy for Congress days after purchasing the land.
Since then, Farm Team Properties has increased in value. Comer’s financial disclosure forms indicate his worth increased from $50,000 to $100,000 in 2016 to between $500,001 and $1 million in 2022, records show.
As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Comer presented himself as a bipartisan ethics advocate only interested in discovering the truth. As proof, he pointed to a long career as a legislator and state official who sought to build bridges with Democrats.
Interviews with allies, critics and voters, however, indicate that he is a fierce partisan who ignored the wrongdoing of his friends and supporters if they could help him advance in business and politics.
“The Jamie Comer I knew was light and sunny and looking for common ground. Now he’s a Nixonian,” said Adam Edelen, a former Democratic auditor and friend, comparing the lawmaker to the disgraced former president who resigned from office amid the Watergate scandal.
According to Comer, he was a wealthy, self-made man who founded his first farm while still enrolled at Western Kentucky University and invested wisely in the land. He also cut his teeth in the machine politics of Monroe County, Ky., and knew how to win allies, according to those who knew him.
While barely out of high school, Comer was sending campaign checks to state politicians, including a $4,000 contribution to a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 1990, according to local news reports about his revelations about financing his campaign.
Comer followed in the footsteps of his paternal grandfather, Harlin Comer, who was a leading figure in local Republican politics.
When Harlin Comer died in 1993, the younger Comer, 21, took over as chairman of the Monroe County GOP.
A wave of indictments against local Republican officials, some of whom helped launch Comer’s political career and became close friends, quickly followed.
Mitchell Page and Larry Pitcock were among those charged in the sweep. Page, then the county’s chief executive officer, and Pitcock, the former county clerk, were sentenced in 1996 to 18 months in prison for tampering with a state computer database so they and their families could avoid pay vehicle taxes.
Comer remained close with the two men, who did not respond to requests for comment. He praised Page in the House in 2020 for his “principled leadership.”
Pitcock and his family members, meanwhile, donated about $9,000 to Comer’s political campaigns and hosted one of his first fundraisers when he ran for commissioner to state agriculture, records show.
Comer dismissed questions about whether he should ask Pitcock to sponsor a fundraiser for him, pointing out to CN2 News that it helped him raise nearly $60,000.
In 2011, a voter fraud case shook up local politics and took away Billy Proffitt, Comer’s longtime friend and former college roommate. Proffitt pleaded guilty in December 2011 and was sentenced to probation.
A few years later, Proffitt came to Comer’s defense against allegations that nearly derailed the future congressman’s political career.
During the 2015 Republican primary for governor, the Louisville Courier-Journal received a letter from a former college girlfriend, in which she claimed that Comer had hit her and that their relationship had been “toxic “.
Proffitt told the newspaper that he had never seen Comer be violent toward her.
“That doesn’t sound like Jamie at all,” Proffitt said, using Comer’s nickname.
Comer ended up losing the race by 83 votes. But the two remain close friends and associates.
The Profitt family’s real estate company is now leading the effort to sell land owned by Farm Team Properties.