WASHINGTON (CN) — House Oversight Committee chair Jim Comer took some direct flak from the White House on Friday, via a scathing memo accusing the lawmaker of stretching his credibility as he leads a congressional investigation into President Joe Biden and his family.
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, has vowed in recent months to uncover alleged wrongdoing in the White House, accusing President Biden of “influence peddling” during his time as vice president, throwing his weight around to score his son Hunter a seat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma — among other things. Leveraging the GOP’s slim majority in the House, Comer has used his seat at the head of the lower chamber’s government oversight panel to hold hearings and gather documents he and other Republicans claim tie President Biden to his son’s business dealings.
So far, Comer and House Republicans have yet to unearth any evidence that directly proves the president’s involvement — but that hasn’t stopped them from making the connection themselves.
“I don’t think the average American who keeps up with this believes for a second that Joe Biden didn’t have a greater amount of knowledge of what his family was doing,” Comer said on Fox News Friday morning. The lawmaker pointed to bank records and the testimony of a former associate of Hunter Biden as evidence.
The White House, however, has been dismissive of Republicans’ claims. “Their own witnesses testified POTUS wasn’t involved,” wrote White House oversight spokesperson Ian Sams in a post Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. “Subpoenaed records they obtained show no link to him. Yet [House Republicans] won’t let facts stand in the way of abusing their power to smear him.”
While the White House has largely focused on the content of Republicans’ probe, Sams on Friday put Comer directly in the crosshairs.
Contrasting statements the lawmaker made to Politico in August 2022, the White House spokesperson sought to ding Comer’s credibility in a memo sent to members of the media, accusing him of propagating conspiracy theories and clamoring for airtime on right-wing media.
Although the Kentucky Republican made vows to be measured in his leadership of the oversight panel and only pursue an investigation with evidence, “Comer has unquestionably broken them” in the proceeding year, Sams wrote. “He has completely undermined his own credibility and the credibility of his committee … all while wasting time and millions of taxpayer dollars on a wild goose chase that has turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.”
The White House sought to paint Comer as an unreliable narrator for allegations against the president, echoing arguments from congressional Democrats that he has withheld evidence that would exonerate Biden and again pointing to what they say is a lack of substantial proof of wrongdoing.
Comer has also “stooped to new lows” in leading the GOP investigation, Sams said, citing a July 19 hearing in the oversight panel during which Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene displayed explicit images of Hunter Biden, supposedly retrieved from a laptop hard drive belonging to the president’s son. Lawyers for the younger Biden later demanded that the Office of Congressional Ethics investigate Greene’s conduct.
Sams also took a shot at Comer for comments the lawmaker made during a February appearance on Fox host Lou Dobbs’s podcast, where he invoked President Biden’s late son Beau, who he said should have been investigated in connection to campaign donations. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.
“In the year since his vow to be ‘credible’ and avoid the conspiracy theories pervasive on ‘right-wing blogs,’ all Comer has done is feed that very right-wing echo chamber with lies, distortions, and misinformation,” the White House memo read. “He has failed to even come close to meeting the standards he set for himself and the House Oversight Committee and has trafficked in the same ugly attacks he once claimed were counter to a credible investigation.”
Sams called on congressional Republicans to abandon their probe into President Biden and focus on bipartisan policymaking rather than “these credibility-free efforts intended only to damage the President.”
“The James Comer of August 2023 wouldn’t recognize the James Comer of August 2022,” Sams wrote, “so perhaps he should consider his own actions and reconsider these baseless partisan stunts.”
A spokesperson for the House oversight committee blasted Sams's memo, saying in a statement that the White House official "continues to blindly run cover for the Biden family without answering the many questions Americans have about this President's lies and corruption."
Comer "will not be deterred" in his investigation despite the administration's demands, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced Friday that it has appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss as special counsel in a federal investigation into Hunter Biden. The news comes as the president’s son likely faces a trial over a pair of tax evasion charges and a federal gun charge after a plea deal with prosecutors disintegrated.
Although some House Republicans, such as judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, have said that appointing a special counsel would be the right move, lawmakers were unhappy with the administration’s decision — the GOP for months has put Weiss at the center of what they call the government’s “sweetheart” plea deal with Hunter Biden.
“Let’s be clear what today’s move is really about,” said Comer in a statement. “The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’ corruption.” Comer said his oversight panel would continue its investigation alongside any special counsel inquiry.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy concurred with Comer’s interpretation of events. “This action by Biden’s DOJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption,” McCarthy said in a post on X. “If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a Special Counsel?”
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