House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) pushed back on reporting characterizing one of his business ventures as a shell company, defending the legitimacy of a business structure he said was designed to insulate his farm from lawsuits.
Reporting from The Associated Press dives deep into Comer’s stake in Farm Team Properties, a company he co-owns with his wife after purchasing land from a campaign contributor.
In an interview with The Hill, Comer criticized the piece for calling the business a shell company, saying the LLC primarily rents out the five properties it owns to hunters — assets and a business purpose he said undercut any claim it’s a shell corporation.
“I have all this farmland that’s in a sole proprietorship. And then a few years ago, my accountant and a lawyer said you need to form an LLC because I started leasing my farmland for hunting,” Comer said.
“Three weeks ago during deer season in Kentucky, I probably had 75 men that climbed up in a tree at 4:30 in the morning in the pitch dark to sit in the tree stand to try to kill a deer,” Comer said, noting the risk of lawsuits if any hunters got injured on the property.
“I have five properties in there, and it brings in lots of revenue from hunting leases. And it was set up because that’s what any accountant or any lawyer would advise if you have a bunch of people from out of town that you don’t know on your property. So it’s 100 percent legitimate,” Comer said.
The Associated Press detailed in a story last week that Comer bought a 50 percent stake in the six-acre plot of land for $128,000 in 2015 from Darren Cleary, a friend and longtime campaign donor. The partnership sold off one of the acres for $150,000 last year.
“The fact that I sold a parcel off shows it’s a legitimate business. It has assets,” Comer said.
Farm Team Properties is listed in Comer’s financial disclosures as a “land management and real estate speculation company.”
While he does not disclose the 5 acres owned by the LLC, it is not clear that he is required to do so.
House Ethics Committee instructions offer conflicting guidance on whether LLCs must disclose real estate holdings.
Comer’s office said they do not have to provide a more detailed breakdown because ethics guidelines only require doing so for LLCs designed to hold investments. The listing of assets is not required when a business is “actively engaged in a trade,” and his team pointed to the hunting business as an activity that distinguishes it from being merely an investment.
“Farm Team Properties LLC is a privately held company actively engaged in the business of land management, including hunting leasing, and real estate speculation, primarily in farmland. Years ago, Congressman Comer consulted with the Ethics Committee with respect to this asset to ensure it was properly reported on financial disclosure forms,” a spokesman for Comer said in a statement.
Delaney Marsco, an ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, said the rules are “not particularly clear,” noting while there are exceptions for LLCs that operate a business, guidelines on real estate require such companies to document their holdings.
“You do have to report owning that property, even if you own it through an LLC,” she said.
“When they talk in the rules about not having to disclose an itemized list of the assets of your business, they’re talking about office furniture, like if you have a restaurant, you don’t have to disclose your stove and the tables and chairs – those kinds of things. I don’t know that the exception would necessarily apply here,” she said.
Comer’s disclosures are facing increased scrutiny given his role in investigating the Biden family, including criticizing Hunter Biden’s business dealings and casting many of his companies as shell companies.
But a Washington Post fact-check review of Biden’s numerous companies found that while three companies’ “business purpose remains vague,” most had “legitimate business transactions or investments.”
Still, Comer’s business dealings have become a target for some on the left, with the Congressional Integrity Project launching a mobile billboard Monday criticizing him for “hiding assets” in an ad displayed on a truck in Tompkinsville, Ky.