James Comer Finally Admits Defeat in His Biden Impeachment Crusade
Representative James Comer has finally given up on trying to impeach Joe Biden—but he’s trying to make it seem like that was his plan all along.
After more than a year of insisting that the president and his family are guilty of corruption, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence of Biden’s wrongdoing. Many GOP lawmakers are starting to back away from the impeachment effort, admitting that they likely don’t have the votes to pass articles of impeachment.
Comer, who spearheaded the probe, had held fast to the goal of impeaching Biden, even as he lost key witnesses along the way. But on Monday night, he finally changed his tune.
“It’s clear that Democrats will choose their party over their country and the truth at every turn. They should be ashamed of themselves,” the Kentucky Republican wrote in a fundraising email. “That’s why I am preparing criminal referrals as the culmination of my investigation.”
Comer first raised the possibility of making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice two weeks ago. He told Fox News that “accountability … looks like criminal referrals.”
This is a far cry from his originally stated goal, which was to impeach and ultimately remove Biden from office. But with his probe going up in flames around him, Comer is getting desperate for an “exit strategy,” a congressional Republican anonymously told ABC earlier this month.
But Comer stated in his fundraising email that he is playing a longer game. “When President Trump returns to the White House, it’s critical the new leadership at the DOJ have everything they need to prosecute the Biden Crime Family and deliver swift justice,” he wrote.
Comer is banking on Donald Trump getting reelected in November. Trump, who backs the impeachment effort, could then instruct the Justice Department to take up the charges.
The shift in Comer’s tune comes a week after a disastrous House Oversight Committee hearing, where lawmakers heard testimony from Tony Bobulinski, Jason Galanis, and Lev Parnas. Bobulinski is a former work partner of Hunter Biden with a history of shady business dealings, and Galanis called in from federal prison, where he is serving a 14-year sentence for financial fraud. Hunter says he and Galanis only met once.
Parnas, meanwhile, is a former associate of Rudy Giuliani. He has been adamant that the claims of the Biden family’s corruption are just Russian disinformation.
Things quickly devolved when Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Bobulinski if he had ever actually seen the president commit a crime. When Bobulinski could not name a specific instance, Ocasio-Cortez tore into Republicans for their entire impeachment push.
“At this point, the story is not the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is why it’s proceeding anyway. Why is this committee proceeding based on false charges?” she demanded.