House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has reason to feel discouraged. The Kentucky Republican has spent nearly the entire year trying to uncover evidence to support his investigation into President Joe Biden, and to date, the GOP congressman has come up empty. Many in his own party have made clear, publicly and privately, that they are “not happy“ with Comer’s failures.
Making matters worse, the Oversight Committee chairman has been caught trying to justify his flailing efforts with claims that are clearly false. Axios reported in September, for example, that Comer “has repeatedly exaggerated and distorted the findings of his investigation into the Biden family.” The report added that the Republican has “at times undermined his credibility” by “overstating his committee’s findings.”
The same week, a Washington Post analysis took a closer look at comments Comer made during a conservative media interview, concluding that he made “a number of claims that were unsupported by publicly available evidence, contradicted by other parties or obviously false.”
By any fair measure, findings like these are disastrous for the powerful committee chairman. Comer doesn’t just want to advance his partisan crusade, he also wants to be perceived as an honest broker so that he’ll be taken seriously in the event that he uncovers genuinely controversial details. Instead, the Kentuckian has spent months lighting his credibility on fire, pushing claims that crumble under scrutiny.
Common sense suggests Comer would start taking steps to get his act together. He’s instead making matters worse.
This week, the GOP lawmaker appeared on Newsmax and declared, “We’re finally now able to put all the pieces together for their money laundering scheme. And I can say, Joe Biden, not only was he front and center, not only did Joe Biden know what his family was doing, but he benefited financially as well.”
As Comer knows, he’s tried and failed to find evidence to support such assertions.
The on-air comments coincided with the congressman’s latest fundraising pitch, which the Washington Post examined in detail.
“For 15 years, Credible Informants have been providing criminal information against the Biden’s to FBI Field Offices across the country,” [the fundraising appeal] stated, typos included, “and for 15 years, everytime the information has been brought to FBI HQ, the leadership of the FBI shuts it down.” And so on — Comer presents himself as a warrior for the truth, standing up to the media and the left-wing hordes, etc. Then the money ask appears.
In keeping with the larger trend, the pitch is built entirely on baseless claims.
Revisiting our earlier coverage, the broader pattern is brutal. Comer has been caught telling tall tales about everything from banking records to the National Archives, Burisma to imagined code words, Devon Archer’s testimony to the circumstances surrounding Comer’s participation in the Archer interview. The chairman’s detractors were recently able to discredit one of his claims by pointing to his own earlier rhetoric. Comer started overhyping his findings a while ago, and his willingness to play fast and loose with the facts seems to be getting worse. But nearly as important as the Republican’s dishonesty is his motivation. Comer still seems painfully aware of the fact that he hasn’t been able to deliver a coherent case against the president, not because of a lack of effort, but because the evidence simply doesn’t support his partisan crusade. And so, it appears the Oversight Committee chairman has embraced easily discredited claims — in part to justify his work, in part to smear a Democrat who doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong, and in part to satisfy his party’s unrealistic demands. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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