As part of the House Republicans’ crusade against President Joe Biden, the House Oversight Committee last week sat down with Kevin Morris, a friend and lawyer to Hunter Biden, who loaned him money to help pay his tax bills. It wasn’t altogether clear why the GOP-led panel sought Morris’ testimony, but let’s put that aside for now.
Instead, let’s consider what happened after the behind-closed-doors Q&A.
According to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s version of events, Morris provided investigators with answers that helped advance the Republicans’ efforts. According to Morris’ attorney, Bryan Sullivan, Comer’s assessment was based on “cherry‐picked, out of context, and totally misleading descriptions of what Mr. Morris said.”
White House spokesperson Ian Sams responded soon after that Comer appeared to have been caught “blatantly lying,” while the committee chairman’s office told reporters that Comer’s claims would eventually be corroborated.
So, which is it? Did the Kentucky Republican get caught trying to mislead the public again, or did Comer finally tell the truth?
When we talked about this a couple of days ago, I left open the possibility of the latter. It seemed unlikely, of course, given Comer’s track record, but the transcript remained under wraps, and I was reluctant to reflexively assume that the GOP congressman was again playing a deceptive game. Maybe the committee was right, and the evidence would substantiate the chairman’s claims.
Or maybe not. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump read the transcript and arrived at the predictable conclusion.
On Tuesday, the transcript was made public. And Sullivan’s criticism of Comer was very much proved to be warranted. … [Morris] was deposed and his testimony was reshaped and molded by Comer to seem damaging because Comer and House Republicans are in the habit of doing that with everyone to whom they speak.
On social media, the Post’s Bump added that Comer “just makes things up, demonstrably.”
If this were an isolated incident, and the Oversight Committee chair was usually a paragon of accuracy, it might be easier to overlook such a misstep, and perhaps chalk it up to sloppy staff work.
But therein lies the point: Comer is not usually a paragon of accuracy. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s been caught mischaracterizing closed-door testimony, only to get caught soon after, though the Devon Archer example is arguably the most dramatic.
What often goes overlooked is the unintended effect of this: If Comer had a compelling case to make against the president, he wouldn’t have to rely on deceptions, because the truth would be sufficient. The fact, however, that he and his party can’t rely on the truth ends up making Biden look better, not worse — because if there were compelling evidence of the Democrat engaging in wrongdoing, (a) Comer would’ve found it; and (b) Republicans wouldn’t have to make stuff up. The result is an investigation that even other Republicans describe as “clueless,” a “disaster,” and a “parade of embarrassments.” To be sure, I’m mindful of the broader dynamic. GOP officials are displeased with Comer, not because he’s failed to act with integrity, but because he was assigned the task of taking down the president, and he’s proven himself inept. But whatever the motivations, the Oversight Committee’s anti-Biden crusade is facing critics from the left, right, and center, and by any fair measure, they’re right and Comer isn’t. 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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