You Will Not Believe—We Mean Not Believe—This James Comer Quote

House Oversight Chair James Comer is finally laying down his cards. Republicans’ Biden corruption impeachment crusade is over, at least for now.

“I am ready to try to begin to close this investigation,” Comer told reporters in the Capitol Wednesday. “This has been a very difficult investigation. This administration has been very obstructive. They haven’t been cooperative, [feels] like we are having to battle the Department of Justice and the FBI on a daily basis to get basic information.”

“Many of our witnesses that we brought in would be what I consider hostile witnesses, but at the end of the day I think with every interview we’ve learned new information and the basis of what we’ve learned is that the Bidens didn’t have a legitimate business,” he said.

It’s an amazing and last-minute reversal by one of the main House Republicans spearheading the entire Biden impeachment quest. In fact, embattled first son Hunter Biden testified in a closed-door hearing on Wednesday as part of the GOP’s investigation. But what should have been a major win for Republicans instead was accompanied by Comer’s admission of loss.

The sign of defeat comes as two major developments have essentially doomed Republicans’ impeachment efforts.

First, earlier this month, Republicans lost their key witness, Alexander Smirnov, who made up the very foundation of the GOP’s corruption claims about the president. Republicans had for months pointed to an FBI informant who in 2020 reported that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden received $5 million each in bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch, thanks to Hunter Biden’s businesses. That claim, while unverified by the FBI, was the main piece of evidence Republicans pointed to in their impeachment quest. Republicans last year went so far as to publicly release the FBI’s report, over the agency’s objections.

But two weeks ago, Smirnov was indicted for lying to the FBI and essentially making up the whole thing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, upon arrest, the Justice Department reported that Smirnov confessed to law enforcement that the story actually came from Russian intelligence officers.

Republicans have been desperate to pretend that losing Smirnov wasn’t a big issue, but Comer’s admission on Wednesday seals the deal.

The other big problem, which Comer surely realizes, is that Republicans now have an even narrower majority in the House. Representative-elect Tom Suozzi will be sworn in on Wednesday, taking over George Santos’s House seat. House Republicans will soon hold a majority of just 219–213, with three vacancies in the chamber. As a reminder, they rushed through the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with just one vote, hours before Suozzi was elected.

The numbers are no longer in Republicans’ favor, and the evidence definitely isn’t, either. Finally, Comer is waking up to that reality.

Republican Representative Lauren Boebert accused President Joe Biden of running a “crime family”—while just a couple hours before, her 18-year-old son was arrested in connection with a crime wave in Colorado.

Tyler Jay Boebert is facing 22 charges over “a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts” in Rifle, a town in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district, which his mom currently represents, said police.

The teen faces “four felony counts of Criminal Possession ID Documents—Multiple Victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, and over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses,” according to the Rifle Police Department.

On the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office website Wednesday morning, Tyler Boebert was listed as a current inmate at Garfield County Jail.

To be clear, the criminal justice system in this country is not a joke—and neither is dragging politicians’ family members (let alone teenage kids) into the news cycle. But the irony is a bit startling given Representative Boebert’s own post on crime families Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Rifle Police Department, Tyler Boebert was arrested at around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. At 4:35 p.m., his mom took to social media to warn about the “Biden crime family.”

House Republicans including Lauren Boebert have been leading a fruitless crusade to impeach President Joe Biden while exposing his family’s corruption. But so far, their efforts have revealed no real evidence.

Just this month, their star witness, Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying to the FBI about claims that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden both received bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. According to the Justice Department, upon arrest, Smironv admitted to law enforcement that the story came from Russian intelligence offices.

You know Republicans are in troubled waters when even Fox News has abandoned ship.

On Tuesday, a Fox host highlighted that Hunter Biden’s closed-door deposition would prove a critical juncture for a monthslong probe that has amounted to, basically, nothing.

“So this is coming at a critical moment for the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry,” said Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends. “And on Capitol Hill, a lot of Republican lawmakers say they have seen zero evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. And right now, the Republicans do not have enough votes to impeach. And after dozens of interviews and over 100,000 documents released to the committees, the Republicans have yet to produce any direct evidence of misconduct by Joe Biden.”

But the other anchors behind the desk couldn’t quite leave it at that. Instead, they offered their own spin on a probe that recently crumbled after its key witness, FBI informant Alexander Smirnov—whose self-admitted lies served as the primary foundation for claims that Biden pocketed millions in bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch—was indicted by the Department of Justice for making it all up with the help of top Russian intelligence officials.

“But man, this looks absolutely terrible, 150 suspicious activity reports around them,” Brian Kilmeade objected. “Joe Biden was in on meetings with every major deal regarding Hunter Biden. He said my dad is sitting next to me while talking to a Chinese CFC official.”

That led to a bit of sparring between the two, with Doocy doubling down that Republicans had come up with nothing—and yet again on the eve of a looming government shutdown.

“I think there are many lawmakers who say they’ve seen zero evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Doocy repeated.

“But we just said that they have,” Kilmeade replied.

“But they’ve … to impeach somebody you need direct evidence of misconduct by Joe Biden,” Doocy said, flustered. “Look, Hunter Biden, it sure looks like he traded on his name and he’s going to have plenty of time today—”

Kilmeade then interjected, adding that “the role his dad played is key.”

“Some Republicans say they’ve got the goods on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. But a number of Republicans who I’ve spoken to on Capitol Hill say there’s no direct evidence of misconduct by the current president,” Doocy continued.

Even before the president’s son, once the GOP’s most sought-after witness, took the stand on Wednesday morning, House Republicans were already hyping their next witness, special counsel Robert Hur. His invitation—just weeks after Hur issued a damning report on Biden’s health—could prove to add yet another dimension to the seemingly endless impeachment probe.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper tried to cut off a guest panelist speaking about Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, during a segment on the number of  “uncommitted” votes in Michigan’s presidential primary.

Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner was reacting to the early results Tuesday evening, which had already revealed a high number of votes for “uncommitted,” thanks to a protest campaign over President Biden’s horrific backing of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“I am young enough to remember, colleagues, when Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and also Congresswoman Cori Bush called for a cease-fire very early on, they were called abhorrent,” said Turner, who’s been a vocal supporter of the “uncommitted” vote protest campaign. “And now fast-forward to all of these bodies laying in the wake, and people are living through this every single day.”

“By the way, there’s also been slaughter in Israel,” Cooper interrupted, as other panelists also tried to jump in. 

“So there’s a lot of pain on both sides,” Cooper continued, questioning why Turner was giving a “lecture on the problem.”

“I’m talking about the politics of this tonight,” he stated. “What, to you, would be a victory, as someone who was calling for this ‘uncommitted’ vote?”

“I’m not denying that pain,” Turner responded. “All I’m saying is that at a certain point after October 7, it becomes clear. I mean, you have a right-wing prime minister.” 

“Right. We don’t need to debate the issue,” Cooper interrupted again.

The whole exchange is mind-boggling and worth watching in full to see just how much Cooper and other CNN panelists seem to be missing the point.

More than 100,000 Democratic voters in Michigan’s primary election Tuesday chose to show up to the polls and check the “uncommitted” box rather than vote for Biden. That’s about 13 percent of voters, or one in seven people.

The reason for that protest vote is clear: Organizers of the “Listen to Michigan” and “Abandon Biden” campaigns spent weeks reaching out to Democratic voters, urging them to make their voice known—and help send a wake-up call to Biden on his support for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

So despite what Cooper said Tuesday evening, it is actually critical to talk about Gaza in any analysis of Michigan’s results. Talking about Israel’s bombing of Gaza—and how Biden is backing that bombing—is the actual politics of the issue.

“I think sometimes as we’re talking about this issue, we are centering President Biden, we are centering former President Donald Trump, when the ‘uncommitted’ effort is the center, the people closest to the pain, and that is the Arab American community, that is the Palestinian community, that is communities that care about peace,” Turner said on CNN Tuesday evening.

“And so while this president was in the ice cream shop saying, ‘I think there’s going to be a ceasefire,’ 30,000 people have been slaughtered. People are living in famine. They can’t get medical care. So it can’t come soon enough for them, and that was really the weight that I picked up on when I was in Dearborn, [Michigan].”

Republican Representative Darryl Issa offered a strange prediction ahead of Hunter Biden’s testimony on Wednesday, leaving room for the possibility that a statement from the president’s son could basically crumble the investigation.

“Thanks for covering what might be a big nothing, or an incredible opportunity to get to the bottom of this very complex scheme that the Bidens worked out for a decade,” Issa said on Fox Business.

It’s a bout of unexpected waffling from the California Republican, who has been a vocal ally of former President Donald Trump since 2016. Issa has gone to bat on several conspiracies that were predicted to help Trump, including the 2020 election interference campaign.

The closed-door testimony will be the first time that the junior Biden yields to Republican insistence on a private meeting. In December, Hunter Biden made a splashy show by refusing to participate in a closed-door hearing, making a rare public statement just steps away from the U.S. Capitol and risking a contempt of Congress charge in the process.

Republicans are expected to press Biden on his father’s alleged involvement in his overseas business dealings and the contents of his infamous laptop—which, by the way, was never verified by the FBI.

Regardless of the apparently baseless allegations that President Joe Biden was tied to his son’s foreign business arrangements, appearing before the committee is a risky move for Hunter Biden, who is already under federal indictment for related tax crimes. Anything he says on the stand could potentially be used against him during his criminal trial.

Earlier this month, Republicans’ star witness Alexander Smirnov—an FBI informant who claimed Biden had pocketed millions of dollars from a Ukrainian oligarch—was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI. Since then, Smirnov has admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in cooking up the smear campaign against the sitting president and his son.

In a sane and rational world, you’d imagine that Hunter Biden’s appearance (which Republicans have purportedly been trying to secure for months) would be the pinnacle of their impeachment inquiry into his father. But instead, House Oversight Chair James Comer and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan have opted to hype another, forthcoming interview with special counsel Robert Hur. His invitation—just weeks after Hur issued a damning report on Biden’s health—could prove to add yet another dimension to the seemingly endless impeachment probe.

Meanwhile, Republicans are using the opportunity to stall yet again on a government funding package, this time with a pressing deadline set for Friday.