The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: house oversight committee
James Comer

Comer Seeking Book Deal On Failed Biden Impeachment

The GOP-led House Oversight Committee's effort to impeach President Joe Biden is effectively over after its chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), failed to find any smoking gun evidence directly tying Biden to any crime. Now, a Washington-based ethics watchdog group is accusing Comer of capitalizing on his unsuccessful impeachment saga.

In an official letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonprofit anti-corruption group is now requesting an update on whether the Kentucky Republican followed the law and requested prior approval for a book deal currently being negotiated with publishers.

"Throughout his entire investigation, Representative Comer has used his role as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee for personal and political gain. He has been a frequent guest on conservative news channels pushing conspiracy theories and lies about his investigation and has used this impeachment inquiry to fundraise for his campaign," read the letter from Congressional Integrity Project executive director Kyle Herrig. "The new reporting about a potential book deal is troubling as it appears Representative Comer is planning on using his unique position as Oversight Chair to turn a profit."

Herrig noted in his letter that under House Rule 25, members of Congress have to first have any members receive authorization from the Ethics Committee before they can reap financial rewards from copyright royalties like those for a typical book publishing contract.

"As Representative Comer continues to hold hearings and attempts to build the case to impeach President Biden, the American people deserve to know the extent to which he is benefiting financially," the letter continued. "It is clear already that he has a political motive to impeach the President and it should be revealed if he has a financial motive as well."

The New Republic reported that Comer has admitted that actual articles of impeachment are not likely from his committee, and that the most Republicans could expect would be a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. And while DOJ special counsel David Weiss is already investigating Biden's son, Hunter, for alleged tax-related crimes, an additional indictment of Biden himself is unlikely to emerge from any referral by the Oversight Committee.

"Recent reporting revealed that Representative Comer has been in talks with at least one publisher regarding a book on his impeachment inquiry into President Biden," Herrig wrote in his letter, adding that "Representative Comer and his Republican colleagues have spent the past 15 months relentlessly investigating the president and his family and failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden let alone anything impeachable."

Comer's attempt to have Biden impeached was largely based on allegations within an FBI informant report in which Biden and his son were said to have solicited $10 million in bribes from the Ukrainian government. However, the author of that report, 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov, was later indicted for lying to the FBI about those allegations.

Smirnov was also subsequently indicted for attempting to flee prosecution. The disgraced former FBI informant was alleged to have had contact with "high-ranking" members of Russian intelligence agencies who sought to sow disinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who left Congress last month after a surprise early retirement announcement, admitted Smirnov's indictment essentially rendered the GOP's efforts to impeach Biden fruitless.

"We were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness' testimony — we were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known," Buck told CNN host Caitlan Collins. "And yet, people — my colleagues — went out and talked to the public about how this was credible, and how it was damning. And how it proved President Biden's — at the time, Vice President Biden's — complicity in receiving bribes. It appears to absolutely be false and to really undercut the nature of the charges."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

GOP Oversight Chair Refuses To Probe Kushner's Mideast 'Influence Peddling'

GOP Oversight Chair Refuses To Probe Kushner's Mideast 'Influence Peddling'

Last year House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.

Now, Rep. Comer (R-KY) says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, ranking member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”

“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”

The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address

those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”

The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”

Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”

Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”

“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”

“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.

They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner

also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”

Despite their extensive allegations, Comer is refusing to open an investigation.

“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'Less Than Credible' GOP Witness Hits Hutchinson With $10M Libel Lawsuit

'Less Than Credible' GOP Witness Hits Hutchinson With $10M Libel Lawsuit

Former President Donald Trump's ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on Monday was sued by House Republican "star witness" Tony Bobulinksi for defamation, according to The Daily Beast.

Bobulinski — who's an ex-business partner of Hunter Biden's turned GOP impeachment witness — sued Hutchinson over allegations she included in her September memoir, Enough, saying that Bobulinski was "involved with some sort of shady business dealing."

The GOP witness' filing, according to the report, "contends he is being treated unfairly '[b]ecause [he] did not pledge blind loyalty to the Democrat Party and to the Biden family."

The Beast notes during "a Feb. 28 deposition by the House Oversight Committee, Hunter Biden said, 'Tony is a bitter, bitter man that did not get in on a deal that he wanted to get in on, because I thought that he was both incompetent and an idiot."

Highlighted in Bobulinski’s defamation claim are details of "a 2020 Trump campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, in which former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows handed 'a folded sheet of paper or a small envelope' to Bobulinski while Bobulinksi was wearing what Hutchinson called a 'ski mask.'"

According to her book, the report notes, "Hutchinson observed the two men huddling, with Bobulinski covering his face with a ski mask, 'through a gap in the vehicles,' she wrote. Meadows had asked Hutchinson to locate Bobulinski, then 'work with [the] Secret Service to find a hidden spot.'"

The Beastreports:

According to Bobulinski’s lawsuit, nothing 'nefarious' was going on, and the face-to-face was simply 'an exchange of pleasantries.' It says Bobulinski had become the target of death threats, and that Meadows 'asked to meet with him for the sole purpose of checking on his and his family’s health and safety due to the ongoing threats against them.'

Bobulinski insists in the suit that, under oath last month before the Jan. 6 Committee, he 'unequivocally rejected' the notion he was wearing a ski mask during the meeting with Meadows. He further complains about being mocked on social media about the mask, embedding a photo of himself in his dress whites, 'an actual photo of Plaintiff, a decorated Navy veteran,” to distinguish himself from a meme-ified cartoon showing a masked man smoking a cigarette.

The news outlet also notes, "in describing Hutchinson as a liar, Bobulinski cites a trio of far-right conspiracy theorists, one of whom was banned from Twitterand Facebook for spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election, as 'proof' of his assertions."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sent a February 12 letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY), saying Bobulinski "is a less-than-credible witness whose 'mysterious ties to the Trump campaign, his refusal to engage with the Committee’s Democratic staff, and his problematic personal finances, raise significant concerns about his truthfulness, credibility, and motivations.'

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


Former National Guard Chief Accuses General Flynn Of 'Outright Perjury' Over Capitol Riot

Former National Guard Chief Accuses General Flynn Of 'Outright Perjury' Over Capitol Riot

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

A former D.C. National Guard official blasted the Pentagon inspector general’s report on the military’s response to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and directly accused two top generals of lying about their role in the delays deploying the National Guard that day. Previously, the former commander of the D.C. National Guard—who now serves as the House sergeant-at-arms—had called for the retraction of the same inspector general’s report.

William Walker, who was the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard on January 6, and Col. Earl Matthews, who was then Walker’s top attorney, both say that the Pentagon’s claims about when Walker was cleared to deploy troops to the Capitol are flatly false. Matthews laid out his rebuttal of the inspector general’s report in a 36-page memo to the January 6 House select committee, again saying, as has been widely reported since January, that Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, both senior Army officials, opposed a National Guard deployment in a 2:30 p.m. phone call, and calling both men “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their denials that they did so.

National Guard officials say the Defense Department’s story about that 2:30 p.m. phone call has changed repeatedly, and at one point Piatt admitted that yes, he “may have expressed concern” about a National Guard deployment to the Capitol—something that Piatt then denied in a written response to the House Oversight Committee in June. Matthews described that denial as “false and misleading,” but used stronger words for Flynn’s claim that he “never expressed a concern about the visuals, image, or public perception of” such a deployment. That, Matthews wrote, was “outright perjury.”

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and Washington, D.C., officials have also said that Piatt opposed a National Guard presence at the Capitol.

The 2:30 p.m. call is a key step in the hours-long delay in responding to the bloody attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump. It is incontrovertibly true that Walker did not at that point get permission to deploy the D.C. National Guard, but when he did get that permission is in dispute. According to the inspector general’s report, Walker was given permission in a 4:35 p.m. call with Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. Walker says that call did not happen, and that he did not get permission until 5:08 p.m. You would think that if there was a phone call, the Defense Department would have records of it, but, according to The Washington Post, the inspector general’s report cites “an anonymous Army official” in its conclusion that McCarthy gave Walker the go-ahead at 4:35 p.m.

In Senate testimony earlier this year, Robert Salesses, a top Pentagon official, initially said Walker got permission at 4:32 p.m. only to walk it back: “In fairness to General Walker, too, that’s when the [acting] secretary of defense made the decision—at 4:32,” Salesses said. “As General Walker has pointed out, because I’ve seen all the timelines, he was not told that until 5:08.”

Like Walker, Matthews fiercely disputes the 4:35 p.m. claim, calling it “an outrageous assertion … as insulting as it is false,” and saying that McCarthy himself had been “incommunicado or unreachable for most of the afternoon.”

Walker and Matthews both obviously have huge incentives to point the finger outside the D.C. National Guard, just as the Defense Department has huge incentives to point the finger away from itself. But we do know that multiple people have said Flynn and Piatt had the role in the 2:30 p.m. phone call that Matthews describes, and that the Army’s accounts of that call changed in the weeks following January 6. This is definitely an issue that requires further investigation, and the select committee had better be on it.