Gal Luft is not somebody you want to be associated with under any circumstances. The Department of Justice just unveiled its case against him and it covers pretty much everything this side of child slavery. Luft is an unregistered agent of the Chinese government. He’s an illegal arms dealer. He’s guilty of violating the sanctions against Iran: (“he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil).” He repeatedly lied to federal agents.
In November, he was indicted. In April, he was tracked down and arrested on Cyprus. In May, he skipped out on his bail. Now he’s a fugitive from justice.
But you know who is associated with him?
When he skipped bail, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) lamented to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that he had gone “missing,” appearing to conflate Luft with an informant from whom Republicans had spun out a separate allegation against [President] Biden, implying that something nefarious had befallen him.
You see, after Luft was indicted, he decided to accuse Joe Biden, his brother and his son Hunter of corruption, and the House Republicans fell for it hook, line and sinker.They were excited that they had a star witness to parade before their Government Oversight committee. But then he disappeared, and that was suspicious.
Doubly so after he sent a video to the very credible Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post claiming that Biden was trying to silence him and he had no choice but to go on the run.
Luft claims he spoke with the FBI in 2019 about his interactions with the Bidens, specifically Joe Biden’s son Hunter and the president’s brother James. The discussion centered on the other Bidens’ work with CEFC China Energy, which The Washington Post detailed in March 2022. In the video obtained by the New York Post, he does not appear to make allegations about Joe Biden receiving any money from foreign interests, an unproven claim from Comer and other Republicans that remains unsubstantiated.
Last week, in response to the New York Post article, Comer appeared on Newsmax. Luft is “very credible,” he insisted at the time, “and the people on MSNBC who made fun of me when I said we had an informant that was missing, they should feel like fools right now. This is their worst nightmare, because, again, this is a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview and sent several agents to interview.”
The problem here is that Luft was indicted before he made any allegations against Biden or his family. Timelines are important, and it’s Chairmen Comer who should feel like a fool.
Let’s take a peek at the indictment. What do we have here?
First, LUFT conspired with others in an effort to act within the United States to advance the interests of the People’s Republic of China (“China”) as agents of China-based principals, without registering as foreign agents as required under U.S. law. As part of this scheme, while serving as the co-director of a Maryland-based non-profit think tank, LUFT agreed to covertly recruit and pay, on behalf of principals based in China, a former high-ranking U.S. Government official (“Individual-1”), including in 2016 while the former official was an adviser to the then-President-elect, to publicly support certain policies with respect to China without LUFT or Individual-1 filing a registration statement as an agent of a foreign principal with the Attorney General of the United States, in violation of FARA.
I don’t think this turning out the way Comer thought it would turn out.