House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) indicated on Tuesday that the impeachment inquiry he’s spearheading against President Joe Biden is in the “downhill phase” as he looks to “wrap it up as soon as possible.”
The announcement that Comer wants to quickly finish up his probe into the “Biden crime family” comes a week after he admitted he didn’t want to hold any more public hearings, claiming he “can do more with” depositions. In the inquiry’s only hearing last month, Comer was roundly mocked after his own witnesses said there wasn’t enough evidence to support an impeachment.
Appearing on serial plagiarist Benny Johnson’s YouTube show on Tuesday, Comer repeated his familiar mantra that the House GOP’s investigation had found evidence to support their allegations of bribery and the president criminally profiting from his family’s foreign business dealings.
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“We know not only there were crimes, we know there are cover-ups,” the Kentucky congressman told Johnson. “We have mountains of evidence and now we’re ready to bring ‘em in. We’re in the downhill phase of this investigation now because we have so many documents and we can bring these people in for depositions or committee hearings, whichever they choose, and we can ask these questions with evidence.”
Despite Comer’s contentions, the evidence presented by his investigation thus far has been misleading, incomplete, or utterly lacking in context. For example, Comer boasted to Johnson about the $200,000 that the president’s brother James gave him in 2018, suggesting this was a “smoking gun.” Bank records, as well as the check itself, indicate this was actually a loan repayment and not proof that the president—who was a private citizen at the time—profited from a foreign influence peddling scheme.
Continuing to brag about his probe’s findings, Comer then claimed that the inquiry had largely succeeded in its mission to find criminal wrongdoing by Joe Biden during his years as both vice president and the commander-in-chief. Therefore, according to Comer, it was now time to wind down the probe.
“So what we’ve found through this investigation, not only were there crimes committed, but there’s a coverup at the highest levels of the government,” he declared. “So I think people are going to see a pretty impressive work product at the end of this and we’re trying to wrap it up as soon as possible.”
Adding that the GOP’s recent self-created chaos around picking a new Speaker of the House “set us back three weeks,” Comer claimed that his committee has now been able to obtain “all” the bank records from the Biden family, including the president’s son Hunter.
Following Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker and the weekslong fiasco to pick his replacement, House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Jeff Van Drew admitted to CNN that momentum behind the impeachment inquiry had “fizzled”—especially since the House has far more pressing issues on its plate. Even under McCarthy, the push to impeach Biden hadn’t resonated outside of the far-right wing of the party, largely due to the lack of hard evidence presented by the GOP to back its case.
Even though new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has raised the MAGA base’s hopes that impeachment will still be a top priority, moderates continue to warn their GOP colleagues against moving forward without foolproof evidence.
