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When Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., first took over as chair of the Home Oversight Committee in January, he promised to “root out waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement within the federal authorities and maintain President [Joe] Biden accountable.” Since then, he has principally targeted on the final of these factors, promising repeatedly to be this shut to proving that Biden and his household have secretly enriched themselves throughout his time in authorities.
Comer and his fellow Republicans held a press convention on Wednesday to launch the outcomes of their first 4 months of labor. They threw round loads of insinuations and accusations, however supplied little in the way in which of proof to again up their claims. Whereas the briefing aimed to lend a patina of seriousness to the probes, it as an alternative shone a highlight on the farce the Oversight Committee is staging.
Whereas the briefing aimed to lend a patina of seriousness to the probes, it as an alternative shone a highlight on the farce the Oversight Committee is staging.
A lot of the occasion adopted the contours of a memo that Comer launched on Wednesday morning. The authors — the committee’s Republican employees — portrayed the memo as an replace for Republican committee members on the “investigation of the President’s function in his members of the family’ and enterprise associates’ overseas and home enterprise apply.” However partway by studying it, I noticed that the meant viewers wasn’t essentially Comer’s fellow members of Congress. As an alternative, it makes rather more sense to learn it as cowl in opposition to any potential authorized challenges to subpoenas the Oversight Committee might difficulty down the road.
Final month, Comer was one in every of a number of Home committee chairs, together with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, that sought testimony about Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Donald Trump. It wasn’t exhausting to find out that Comer’s motives have been at greatest merely political. At worst, it was an try to intrude with the prosecution of the present front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. In rebutting the lawsuit that Bragg filed in opposition to Jordan and the Judiciary Committee, Republicans insisted that there was a authentic legislative function to their questioning.
It was sufficient to get a federal district choose to agree with them, permitting the subpoena in opposition to a former prosecutor working the Trump case beneath Bragg to be carried out. That ruling was prominently featured within the memo Comer despatched on Wednesday to justify the continuing probe. As NBC Information reported, Comer additionally made positive to doc the potential congressional motion that could possibly be on the desk as soon as the investigations are full:
Comer additionally stated the committee is contemplating laws “geared toward deficiencies it has recognized in ethics legal guidelines and disclosure legal guidelines for fast members of the family, a vice chairman and the president.” Additionally it is contemplating laws that will “strengthen reporting necessities associated to sure overseas transactions involving senior elected officers’ members of the family, he stated.
As well as, Comer stated the committee is evaluating the Financial institution Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering legal guidelines to “decide whether or not monetary establishments had the out there instruments and assist from federal companies to thwart unlawful cash laundering and overseas corruption exercise.”
Allow us to take Comer at face worth for only a second. On this hypothetical world, perhaps he actually is anxious about “the nationwide safety implications of a Vice President’s or President’s (and candidates for such workplaces) fast members of the family receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from overseas nationals, overseas corporations, or overseas governments with none oversight,” as his memo on Wednesday indicated. Tightening ethics legal guidelines surrounding the presidential household could be a internet good and effectively throughout the scope of the Oversight Committee.
However when you consider it for greater than two seconds you may see why there will probably be little urge for food among the many GOP to really make these legislative adjustments. Even when they may make any new tweaks to the legislation retroactive to any cut-off date when Biden was in workplace and Hunter was working his companies which are beneath scrutiny, these adjustments would then additionally cowl the Trump administration. That will be too embarrassing given how the Trump Group operated as a funnel for overseas cash to pour into the household’s financial institution accounts throughout these years.
Additional, think about that they have been to move stated adjustments to the legislation, and Trump have been to win in 2024. The very last thing that Republicans would need is for extra ammunition for ethics watchdogs to show the ways in which the Trump household has enriched itself off his presidency. Comer has already been clear that he has little interest in, for instance, probing how Jared Kushner has raised billions from the Saudis for his enterprise capital undertaking.
With out a likelihood to nail the Bidens and paint them as criminals, there’s no political upside to promote to a GOP base that’s already howling in regards to the lack of arrests. However to maintain the investigations going, Comer has to fake that they've a function past political point-scoring. Dropping that pretense would depart the entire affair susceptible to a courtroom slapping down future committee subpoenas of Biden administration officers or Hunter himself.
That results in the present scenario the place the political nature of their probes runs counter to their acknowledged legislative objectives. Fairly than cobbling collectively a bipartisan invoice that strengthens ethics legal guidelines and safeguards the presidency in opposition to affect peddling, Republicans simply should carry on appearing like they’re on the precipice of exposing Biden as a criminal. It’s embarrassing for them and a wasted alternative to really get one thing good completed with their majority.