Indictment inflames DOJ politicization debate

The indictment of a think tank leader charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China has inflamed an already heated debate over the Department of Justice (DOJ), with Republicans rallying around Gal Luft and arguing the charges against him are further evidence of politicization. 

Luft, co-director of the Maryland-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, is accused of recruiting and paying an unnamed former high-ranking U.S. government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016 without registering as a foreign agent, as is required by U.S. law. He also faces arms trafficking and sanctions violations for trying to broker illicit arms deals.

But just a week prior, Luft claimed in a video first published by the New York Post that he was arrested to prevent him from testifying before the House Oversight Committee on shady Biden family business dealings.  

He also claims he shared allegations against the Biden family with FBI and DOJ officials during a March 2019 meeting, which he said they covered up. That made him “patient zero of the Biden family investigation,” he said in the video.  

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, called Luft a “very credible witness on Biden family corruption” in a tweet last week. Comer and other Republicans have heralded Luft as a whistleblower in the Hunter Biden laptop probe. 

On Wednesday, Comer requested that FBI Director Christopher Wray provide the Oversight Committee with an unredacted copy of the FBI’s report after allegedly meeting with Luft in March 2019, when Luft supposedly shared his allegations. The ask followed a House Judiciary Committee hearing where Wray was grilled on the agency’s purported politicization. 

“To be clear, the Committee takes no position regarding the federal charges against Luft,” Comer wrote in a letter to Wray. “Instead, the Committee requests narrowly tailored information he allegedly provided the DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March 2019 regarding his interactions with the Chinese company, CEFC.”

For some Republicans, the indictment has lent new credence to claims from within the party that the Biden administration has turned the DOJ into a weapon and pointed it at the political right — especially surrounding a purported double standard between conservatives and the Bidens. 

The president’s son is at the heart of GOP complaints.  

Last month, Hunter Biden took a plea deal with DOJ prosecutors, agreeing to plead guilty to misdemeanors for failing to pay income taxes in 2017 and 2018. He also said he would enter a pretrial diversion program for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user or addicted to a controlled substance.  

In response to the deal, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters it perpetuates the perception of a “two-tier system” of justice in America. Other top Republicans, including Comer and Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) made similar remarks. 

“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. But if you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal,” McCarthy said, referring to former President Trump, who faces a slew of legal woes. 

Trump called the younger Biden’s plea deal a “mere traffic ticket.” The former president faces New York charges alleging he falsified business records and federal charges alleging he violated the Espionage Act and obstructed justice in taking classified records from his presidency and not returning them. 

When FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last year in relation to the classified documents probe, Republicans threatened to “defund” the agency, accusing it of unfairly targeting the former president for political reasons.  

Those threats reemerged Wednesday at a GOP-led House Judiciary hearing, during which Wray faced relentless questioning from Republican members over his leadership of the investigative agency.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) accused the FBI of acting as a “political tool of the Biden administration,” pointing to the Mar-a-Lago search as proof of “the homes of conservative political opponents being raided.” 

Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees have opened a joint investigation into the federal Hunter Biden case.

The Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), released a transcript from an IRS whistleblower alleging the DOJ slow-walked its investigation into the younger Biden days after his DOJ deal was made public.  

Biden attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in a 10-page letter to Smith that ever since the GOP assumed a majority in the House in 2023, its leaders and committees ignored protocol to feed their “obsession with attacking the Biden family.” 

Jordan’s domain included Wray’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee. The Ohio Republican has also asked the Justice Department to turn over information about special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump. 

And Comer’s probe is tied to Luft, the indicted think tank leader. A dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel, Luft was arrested Feb. 17 in Cyprus but fled after being released on bail and remains a fugitive, the Justice Department said in a press release. His indictment was unsealed Monday.  

“The timing is always coincidental, according to the Democrats at the Department of Justice,” Comer told Fox News host Laura Ingraham Monday night.  

In light of the charges against Luft, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked the GOP to turn over information detailing its interactions with him. Luft has played a key role in Comer’s probe of Biden family business dealings and whether Biden and his son, Hunter, accepted a bribe.  

“We are concerned that an official committee of the House of Representatives has been manipulated by an apparent con man who, while a fugitive from justice, attempted to fortify his defense by laundering unfounded and potentially false allegations through Congress,” ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote in a letter alongside Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) 

Those allegations — and Luft’s indictment — were notably not mentioned during the House Judiciary Committee hearing, where lawmakers asked questions of the FBI director for nearly six hours.  

House Republicans have given no indication they’re weakening their focus on the Justice Department’s operations, calling on Democrats Wednesday to join in the fight. 

“I hope (Democrats) will work with us in the appropriations process to stop the weaponization of the government against the American people and in this double standard that exists now in our justice system,” Jordan said.