On Friday, in a desperate bid to distract from the trash fire that is the current chaos of the MAGA House Republican majority, James Comer released bank records that once again show not a single shred of wrongdoing by President Biden. In fact, Comer himself admitted in his own presentation that the check from James Biden to Joe Biden – when he was out of office in 2018 – was a loan repayment. With a potential government shutdown looming next month, the Republican-led House has been without a Speaker for over two weeks but all Comer is focused on are baseless political stunts.
Newsweek: GOP Raising Alarm Over Joe Biden Getting $200K Loan Repayment Spurs Mockery
By Natalie Venegas // October 21, 2023
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Since Comer’s remarks, many have taken to X to mock the congressman’s claim, citing that the discovery of the check made out to Joe Biden was clearly indicated that the money was sent as a “loan repayment” and before he was president.
Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, in a post to X, wrote that Comer was “desperate” to distract from the ongoing inability of Republicans to select a House speaker, seemingly referring to GOP Representative Jim Jordan’s failed attempts to obtain the 217 votes needed for the speakership.
“Jamie Comer is pretty desperate to try to distract from Republicans‘ speaker mess. It’s a loan repayment from when President Biden loaned his brother money. When he was out of office in 2018, no less. It’s right there on the check! Matt Gaetz was right: More “Failure Theater!” Sams wrote.
In addition, according to CBS News, James Biden’s attorney, Paul Fishman, also took issue with the claim.
“The Oversight Committee’s description of the $200,000 check is highly selective and misleading,” Fishman said. “The Committee has the bank documents that show both the loan Jim received from his brother in January 2018 and the repayment by check six weeks later. At no time did Jim involve his brother in any of his business relationships.”
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Salon: Trump keeps stepping on the GOP’s so-called bombshells
By Heather Digby Parton // October 23, 2023
The media has been so overwhelmed with news of the war in Israel and the trainwreck happening in slow motion in the House of Representatives that a lot of stories that would have normally received front-page treatment have been relegated to the back burner. When the news is emanating from the right-wing media, that’s actually a good thing since it’s almost never truly newsworthy and almost always a form of MAGA propaganda. A case in point is a breathless report released last Friday by the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Kentucky Rep. James Comer, announcing that Republicans have found evidence that President Joe Biden’s brother paid him $200,000 in 2017, which is supposed to prove that the Bidens were part of some kind of criminal scheme.
Upon examination, however, one can see that the check was marked as a repayment of a loan Joe Biden made to his brother a couple of months before, not a payoff of some sort. And furthermore, it was during the time that Joe Biden was completely out of office and hadn’t even decided if he was going to run — three years later. Yet Republicans found this check and immediately started running around in circles shrieking “smoking gun! smoking gun!”
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