Kentucky’s Comer tapped to lead impeachment inquiry into President Biden
Rep. James Comer of Kentucky will lead the GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, a probe that even many Republicans are fretting will distract from their fall agenda and could ultimately harm them politically.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the appointment of Comer on Tuesday morning. Reps. Jason Smith of Missouri and Jim Jordan of Ohio will also helm the panel investigating Biden of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Comer cited an “overwhelming amount of evidence showing President Joe Biden lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s influence peddling schemes.”
“Bank records, suspicious activity reports, emails, texts, and witness testimony reveal Joe Biden allowed his family to sell him as the brand around the world to enrich the Bidens,” Comer charged in a statement following his appointment.
The GOP predicate for impeachment lies around tying the overseas business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, to his father.
“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct,” McCarthy said. “Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”
But a growing number Republicans are conveying weariness with such a proceeding, which will consume much of the political oxygen in Washington through the fall amid an escalating 2024 presidential campaign.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped short of endorsing the endeavor, citing a jam-packed Senate schedule.
“I don’t have any advice to give to the House,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill later Tuesday afternoon. “They’ve got a totally different set of challenges. So I think the best advice for the Senate is to do our job and we’ll see how this plays out.”
Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has previously claimed that there are enough votes within the House GOP caucus to launch an impeachment inquiry and said the proceedings could start as early as mid-September.
“I would predict that in the middle of September we have a vote. I would predict that it passes,” Comer told Newsmax last week.
But it is unclear if a full House will be held before the official inquiry launches.
Comer has devoted much of his time in Congress this year to getting to the bottom of whether Biden is compromised by foreign business dealings arranged by his son, Hunter and his brother, James, in hostile countries, referring to the president as “the big dog,” in his pursuit.
But critics believe that the Kentuckian has consistently overpromised and under-delivered in producing evidence that Biden assisted his son’s business dealings.
The Congressional Integrity Project, a left-of-center group, released a report Monday describing Comer’s “eight months of abject failure” to prove the president was guilty of a bribe.
Democrats have become more vocal in their personal critiques of Comer.
Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, told McClatchy he does not believe the Kentuckian is acting in good faith.
“I just think he’s trying to make a name for himself,” Moulton said.
Democrat Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin also disparaged Comer’s credibility, saying she avoids interacting with him in the halls of Congress.
“Don’t have any interest in knowing him,” Moore said when asked about Comer. “He’s a clown.”
Comer is scheduled to speak to Senate Republicans during their lunch on Wednesday about the strategy of the inquiry, as many in the upper chamber have publicly expressed doubts about the evidence to impeach Biden.
“I don’t know what the basis of this call for impeachment is. It just sounds like a lot of noise to me,” said West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. “It just seems like the day you get elected, you’re gonna get impeached. I mean, is that what we’re down to now? That’s how it sounds to me.”
But Comer has attracted support from closer to home.
Daniel Cameron, the commonwealth’s attorney general and Republican nominee for governor, expressed his full support for the impeachment inquiry and Comer.
“I have total confidence in my friend Congressman James Comer, who will be leading this effort,” Cameron said in a statement.
This story has been updated with additional information.
This story was originally published September 12, 2023 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Kentucky’s Comer tapped to lead impeachment inquiry into President Biden."
