Comer impeachment hearing comes as government shutdown prospects near
The first congressional hearing to formally consider the impeachment of President Biden begins Thursday as House Republicans struggle to fulfill their own obligation to fund the government by Saturday’s deadline.
Rep. James Comer – tapped to lead the inquiry as chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee – has invited three witnesses to establish the basis for his claim that the president leveraged his public office for his son’s financial gain.
Democrats note two of the witnesses are frequent Fox News guests and the third served as a member of former President Trump’s transition team, raising doubts about their independence to credibly demonstrate a case for high crimes and misdemeanors.
The hearing is a high-profile and formative moment for Comer, the Kentucky Republican who has dedicated most of his nine months as chairman attempting to tie Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas business dealings to his father.
While Comer has failed to produce any direct evidence showing the president promised anything to a foreign entity in exchange for a financial reward for a family member, he is now seizing on a pair of wire transfers for $260,000 from China to Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.
“The Bidens never have said what they did to receive the money. What did Hunter Biden do to receive a quarter of a million dollars from a Chinese national affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?,” Comer asked on Fox News.
Rep. Dan Goldman, an Democratic Oversight Committee member from New York, said it was preposterous to conflate an address used by Hunter Biden with his father’s involvement.
“It does not show that Joe Biden knew anything about this account, knew anything about this money. It is specious,” Goldman said during a Wednesday news conference.
Comer is bringing forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, former assistant attorney general Eileen O’Connor and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley before the committee to bolster his case. But none were directly involved with the dealings under scrutiny.
Dubinsky, who declined an interview to preview his testimony before the hearing “to remain as objective as possible,” has weighed in on a number of high-profile financial cases, including that of Sam Bankman-Fried and Bernie Madoff.
O’Connor, a member of the conservative Federalist Society who worked as a treasury adviser for Trump’s presidential transition, has been publicly critical of the Biden administration. Just last week, O’Conner posted on her LinkedIn page, “The Biden administration is permitting and enabling the invasion” of the southern border.
Turley, a regular Fox News contributor, has argued that while he does not know if any connections exist between Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes and the president, “if they do, they would clearly constitute impeachable offenses.”
“It is unlikely that we will get those answers without an impeachment inquiry,” Turley argued in a column. “An impeachment inquiry does not inevitably lead to impeachment, but it does tend to lead to answers on whether impeachable conduct has occurred.”
If Thursday’s hearing doesn’t begin to answer more questions than it asks, support for Comer’s impeachment charge could suffer, especially if the government is shut down and Congress is locked in a battle over spending levels for a considerable period.
A handful of Republicans have already expressed little appetite for the inquiry.
“There is very little evidence to no evidence that suggests that Hunter Biden actually shared the money he got with Joe Biden so that Joe Biden would do something or that Joe Biden knew that Hunter Biden was getting money,” GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado recently told Fox News’ Trey Gowdy.
Democrats suspect the hearings are being staged to brand Biden with a scar of corruption, much like the Benghazi hearings were used to damage then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepared for a presidential run.
“They have no witnesses to say there was any connection. Are there aliens on earth? ... You can have all kinds of speculation that has no basis in fact,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat. “They try and trash somebody through innuendo, through a lot of dust. It goes on and on and on and has a political impact …That’s all this is... It’s our job to make sure it doesn’t.”
Rep. Mike Levin, another California Democrat, warned that rolling impeachment inquiries erode trust in true oversight of public officials.
“Impeachment cannot become the new normal for every administration, regardless of party, regardless of conduct. That’s where things are headed if the bar is going to be this low.”
If Congress fails to come to an agreement on spending levels by midnight Sunday, 46,000 military service members and 22,000 civilian workers in Kentucky could miss their next paycheck.
But Comer has said the shutdown would not impact impeachment, suggesting hearings could continue even as the government remains unfunded.
“We’re going to keep going,” he told CNN.
This story was originally published September 27, 2023 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Comer impeachment hearing comes as government shutdown prospects near."
