Thank Crom for stupid enemies! Just look at this goddamn idiot Speaker Kevin McCarthy put in charge of the House Oversight Committee.
To review! The theory of the GOP’s case here is that President Joe Biden was engaged in illegal influence peddling to benefit his son’s businesses in China. The conspiracy involved documents which Biden’s own lawyers voluntarily handed over to the FBI. After which, they invited the FBI to search his house, where agents found a couple more documents, evidence of the dastardly plot which Biden just left lying around and invited the FBI in to discover.
Well, that just makes perfect sense! Or … not. Unless you’re Maria Bartiromo, in which case you wonder aloud if this insane cow fart has uncovered evidence of treason. (Seriously, what the hell happened to her? And what’s with the GOP and all these cow dudes?)
This bumpkin Comer is going to spew the most insane, defamatory allegations under cover of legislative immunity. He’s already accusing Biden and his family of criminal conduct, five seconds after getting control of the gavel, and with exactly zero evidence. The next two years are going to be so, so stupid.
This week Comer’s howling because the National Archives didn’t immediately turn over everything related to the ongoing Special Counsel investigation of the classified documents found in President Biden’s home and office. See, on January 10, he sent a letter to acting Archivist Debora Steidel Wall announcing an investigation of supposed political bias at the National Archives (NARA). Comer accused NARA of hiding the investigation into Biden’s documents, while “instigat[ing] a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago” to retrieve the stuff Trump refused to give back. He demanded all internal communications at NARA regarding both sets of documents, as well as communications with the White House and the Justice Department, setting a deadline of January 24 to comply. He also demanded to interview NARA’s General Counsel Gary Stern, as well as Josh Hamilton, its director of Congressional Affairs.
On January 17, NARA responded that the agency “treats all of its communications with the White House, DOJ, and the representatives of the former Presidents (and Vice Presidents) as presumptively confidential,” pointing out that it spent nine months keeping quiet about the Trump investigation and only issued public comment after the issue was widely reported in the press and publicly confirmed by Trump himself. And furthermore, “NARA had no knowledge of and played absolutely no role in the FBI’s August 2022 search of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, nor of the prior subpoena that DOJ had issued.” In fact, the agency treated both cases identically — except that Trump refused to give the documents back and consistently lied about them.
When Democrats took back the House in 2019, the Trump administration asserted a blanket privilege covering the entire executive branch, and basically refused to comply with oversight. And when the House initiated impeachment proceedings against him, he vowed to stonewall all congressional oversight. In contrast, Seidel Wall promises to cooperate to the extent that it does not interfere with the ongoing special counsel investigation.
“DOJ has advised it will need to consult with the newly appointed Office of Special Counsel (SCO) in DOJ, to assess whether information can be released without interfering with the SCO’s investigation,” she writes. “NARA expects to get those records to DOJ within the next few days, and we have asked that they expedite their review so that we can respond to you as close to your January 24 due date as possible.”
White House Counsel Stuart Delery was similarly solicitous, responding to a nastygram from Comer with a promise to “accommodate legitimate oversight interests within the Committee’s jurisdiction while also respecting the separation of powers and the constitutional and statutory obligations of the Executive Branch generally and the White House in particular.”
Which is a pretty stark contrast with the giant middle finger White House Counsel Pat Cipollone gave to then-Chair Elijah Cummings when he tried to investigate the White House grant of security clearances to Jared and Ivanka despite the fact that career officials had said no fucking way. You know, since we’re talking about presidential family members jeopardizing national security and monetizing their proximity to power.
Naturally Comer has ignored the efforts at comity by the Archives and the White House, both of which have negotiated with him in good faith. Nor does he have any interest in investigating Trump’s deliberate theft of government property, or the documents former Vice President Mike Pence discovered in his own home. Instead Comer rushed before the cameras to pronounce himself “very disappointed” at the lack of cooperation. Why won’t the Biden administration simply bone the ongoing investigation by a Republican special counsel? It’s a cover up! And if you know James Comer, you know he’s going to bring it all back to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
That train dick pic is never late.
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