Over the course of the last year, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has earned an unfortunate reputation. The Kentucky Republican has launched a desperate crusade, searching for evidence he and his party could use to impeach President Joe Biden, though observers from both parties have noticed that the congressman has failed spectacularly.
But it would be overstating matters to say the GOP congressman hasn’t accomplished anything. It might not have been his intended goal, but Comer has actually excelled when it comes to calling witnesses who’ve discredited Republicans’ conspiracy theories. The New Republic took note of the Oversight Committee chair’s latest flop.
A man House Republicans had previously claimed was a whistleblower on Joe Biden’s corruption categorically debunked all of the GOP’s accusations in a closed-door hearing on Tuesday. Eric Schwerin, a longtime business partner of Hunter Biden, testified in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees in a closed-door interview. Schwerin also worked as a financial adviser for Joe Biden from 2009 until 2017, during which time he was able to see transactions in and out of the then vice president’s bank accounts.
I spoke to a source with direct knowledge of Schwerin’s transcribed interview who confirmed that the witness said President Biden was not involved in, did not profit from, and took no official actions in relation to his family’s business dealings.
The same source confirmed that Schwerin specifically told the committee, “I am not aware of any financial transactions or compensation that Vice President Biden received related to business conducted by any of his family members or their associates nor any involvement by him in their businesses. None.”
Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner went on to say, “In my discussions with [Joe Biden] concerning his personal finances, he was always crystal clear that he wanted to take the most transparent and ethical approach consistent with both the spirit and the letter of the law. Given my awareness of his finances and the explicit directions he gave to his financial advisers, the allegation that he would engage in any improper conduct to benefit himself or his family is preposterous to me.”
The source with direct knowledge of Schwerin’s transcribed interview added that the witness, as part of his testimony, also told the committee and its investigators that he never received any political favors for assisting Joe Biden with his household finances; he never witnessed Joe Biden take any official action to advance Hunter Biden’s business ventures; and he never witnessed Hunter Biden ask Joe Biden to advance his private business ventures through official actions.
For good measure, Schwerin testified that GOP conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Burisma are also untrue.
After the hearing, Comer sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity and complained that his panel keeps hearing from witnesses who have “had a hard time remembering the bad things.”
It seemed like a curious way for the Republican congressman to effectively concede, “We haven’t found anything.” Indeed, just days before Schwerin failed to tell Comer what he hoped to hear, Rob Walker sat down for a deposition and also made clear that GOP conspiracy theories are wrong. Before that, it was Mervyn Yan who disappointed Republican investigators with answers that undercut their partisan goals. And that’s just from the last week. Before Schwerin, Walker, and Yan, the list of witnesses includes Georges Berges, Carol Cox, Kevin Morris, and of course, Devon Archer. What do they all have in common? They were brought in to answer Republicans’ questions about the Bidens, and they provided testimony — under oath — that left little doubt that the GOP’s crusade is without a factual foundation. The result is an investigation that even other Republicans have described as “clueless,” a “disaster,” and a “parade of embarrassments.” This week, that parade grew a little longer.
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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