All posts tagged: James Comer

White House declines Comer testimony invite, declaring impeachment investigation ‘over’

White House declines Comer testimony invite, declaring impeachment investigation ‘over’

President Biden declined to appear before House impeachment investigators, writing in a Monday letter through an attorney that the investigation “is over.” Though brief, the letter tears into the impeachment investigation being led in part by House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), which has yet to uncover any wrongdoing by President Biden. “Your Committee’s purported ‘impeachment inquiry’ has succeeded only in turning up abundant evidence that, in fact, the President has done nothing wrong. Yet rather than acknowledge this reality, your March 28, 2024, letter contains the same litany of false allegations that have been repeatedly debunked and refuted by the very witnesses you have called before your Committee and the many documents you have obtained,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, wrote in a letter to Comer obtained by The Hill “Your insistence on peddling these false and unsupported allegations despite ample evidence to the contrary makes one thing about your investigation abundantly clear: The facts do not matter to you.” CNN first reported Sauber’s response. Comer’s March letter to President Biden contained numerous …

House Republicans Invite Biden to Testify as Impeachment Inquiry Stalls 

House Republicans Invite Biden to Testify as Impeachment Inquiry Stalls 

washington —  House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family’s business affairs. Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses. “In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote. While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents’ testifying before Congress. “As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the subcommittee on criminal justice of the House Judiciary Committee …

FBI informant charged with lying about the Biden’s ties to Ukrainian business

FBI informant charged with lying about the Biden’s ties to Ukrainian business

WASHINGTON (AP) — An FBI informant has been charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company, a claim that is central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress. Alexander Smirnov falsely reported to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016, prosecutors said in an indictment. Smirnov told his handler that an executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” according to court documents. Prosecutors say Smirnov in fact had only routine business dealings with the company in 2017 and made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Joe Biden while he was a presidential candidate. Smirnov, 43, appeared in court in Las Vegas briefly Thursday after being charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. He did not enter a plea. The judge ordered the courtroom cleared after federal …

Hunter Biden agrees to private deposition with Republicans on Feb. 28

Hunter Biden agrees to private deposition with Republicans on Feb. 28

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly. The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have agreed for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on Feb. 28. “The president’s son is a key witness in this investigation and he’s gonna be able to come in now and sit down and answer questions in a substantive, orderly manner,” Rep. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, told reporters. He added that Hunter Biden will be able to testify publicly sometime after his deposition. News of the agreement was confirmed by Hunter Biden’s legal team Thursday night. Republicans had been set to advance a contempt resolution against him to the House floor this week but called it off Tuesday to give the attorneys additional time to negotiate. If they had voted on the contempt resolution, the referral would have been sent to the Justice Department where the U.S. attorney …

Hunter Biden defies House subpoena in visit to the Capitol, risking contempt of Congress charge

Hunter Biden defies House subpoena in visit to the Capitol, risking contempt of Congress charge

Hunter Biden defied a congressional subpoena to appear privately for a deposition before Republican investigators who have been digging into his business dealings, insisting outside the U.S. Capitol that he will only testify in public. (Dec. 13) Hunter Biden defied a congressional subpoena to appear privately for a deposition before Republican investigators who have been digging into his business dealings, insisting outside the U.S. Capitol that he will only testify in public. (Dec. 13) Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]   Share Source link

The Biden Impeachment Is Benghazi All Over Again

The Biden Impeachment Is Benghazi All Over Again

Once upon a time, presidential impeachment was a rare event. But with four of the five inquiries in U.S. history coming in the past 25 years, people seeking to understand and explain the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, launched Tuesday, have looked to the 2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump as an analogy. Both center on allegations of using elected office for personal gain, and both have been divided sharply along partisan lines. The comparison is understandable, especially because some Republicans have explicitly framed their inquiry as a response to Trump’s impeachment, as Jonathan Chait writes. But the more useful comparison is to the House investigation into Benghazi from 2014 to 2016. Both inquiries are based far more on vibes and political machinations than they are on hard evidence. Kevin McCarthy’s longstanding ambition to be speaker of the House sit at the center of both. And the fate of the Benghazi investigation offers some indications about how this one could turn out. Read: Kevin McCarthy is a hostage Like the current impeachment inquiry, the …