One of House Republicans most prominent investigators promised he wouldnt spend his time wading into the conspiracy theory fever swamps unless we have proof.

But just a few days after taking a powerful new position and without any evidence to speak of, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is amplifying a wild conspiracy theory: that Joe Biden s former executive assistant, Kathy Chung, is actually a foreign agent working for the Chinese Communist Party.

The hand-in-glove effort from top House Republicans and right-wing media has steered a comparatively banal classified document scandal into baseless, xenophobic fantasies.

The allegations and innuendo stem from classified documents from Bidens vice presidency that the FBI and Biden lawyers recently recovered from his former D.C. office and his home in Delaware. Federal investigators are probing the situation now as they are classified documents recovered from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort. (In the latter case, Trump spent months resisting authorities efforts to recover the documents.)

NBC News reported earlier this month that federal investigators had interviewed Chung, who now works in the Pentagon as deputy director of protocol, as part of their review of the recovered classified documents. A few days later, The Washington Post reported that Chung had expressed concern that she may have unintentionally been involved with moving or storing classified documents, which were ultimately recovered from the University of Pennsylvanias Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. Both news organizations cited unnamed sources.

Chungs attorney, Bill Taylor, confirmed to HuffPost that she has spoken with federal investigators and that in January 2017, she was involved in packing up Bidens vice presidential office, boxes from which later arrived at the Biden Center. Chung didnt know there was any classified material in the boxes, Taylor said.

Theres no public evidence at all that Chung who was born in South Korea has any relationship to China or its government. But that hasnt stopped Comer from playing along with conspiracy theorizing from right-wing media hosts.

On Newsmax Tuesday , host Jenn Pellegrino asked Comer, Do you believe that Chungs connection to Hunter Biden, possibly the Chinese Communist Party, and her role in transferring these classified documents is something that the House Oversight Committee should investigate?

We are investigating that, Comer responded. Its very troubling and very disturbing to see the numerous ties the Biden family has to the CCP.

Although he didnt name Chung specifically, Comer later referred to the process of moving the classified documents: When you start tracing back, you see that there are people that had very suspicious ties to some of our adversaries that were involved in the moving process.

Comer didnt respond to HuffPosts questions about what evidence if any he has to support his cable news innuendo about Chung, nor did representatives of Fox News or Newsmax.

Chungs attorney blasted the line of attack. Its uninformed and absurd, Taylor said. Its particularly odious in a partisan atmosphere like this, where people feel no compunction about suggesting that someone is a traitor without any evidence, and frankly knowing that its not true.