PRESS RELEASE Contact: press@congressionalintegrity.org
For Immediate Release
Date: February 2, 2024
Day after day, James Comer is reminded that his investigation is an embarrassment and a failure
While the rest of the country is enjoying seeing Punxsutawney Phil predicting an early spring, James Comer’s winter of discontent continues, stuck in a nightmare version of the movie Groundhog Day. It doesn’t matter what he does because it always ends up with the same result, what one GOP lawmaker dubbed a “parade of embarrassments.” This week was just the latest, with two of Comer’s long-touted “bombshell” witnesses interviewed by his committee this week, Eric Schwerin and Joseph Langston. Just like the many others before them, they completely refuted MAGA House Republicans’ baseless allegations about President Biden and his son under oath. If we were James Comer, we’d be scared of our own shadow.
In response, Congressional Integrity Project executive director, Kyle Herrig, issued the following statement:
“Week after week, James Comer wakes up to reporting about the fact that he can’t stop embarrassing himself as part of his failed, political stunt-filled investigation into President Biden. No matter how many hearings he holds, witnesses he interviews, documents he reviews, or right-wing TV stations he speaks on, it all ends the same with Comer and his fellow MAGA Republicans failing to find a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. It is not just James Comer that suffers from this never-ending failure of an investigation. Every day wasted on this political stunt is another day that the GOP-led House is failing to solve the real issues the American people care about like the economy and access to health care. It is time for Comer and his fellow House Republicans to snap out of it.”
The New Republic: Republicans’ Own “Whistleblower” Trashes Their Entire Biden Corruption Claim. “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 said Biden had not been involved, either as a public official or a private citizen, in Hunter’s business dealings, nor had he ever been asked to take action on Hunter’s behalf. Schwerin said that in his role as Hunter’s business partner, he never asked Biden to get involved with their work. He and Hunter never suggested to or promised their clients or associates that Biden would get involved, either.” [The New Republic, 1/30/24]
MSNBC: James Comer’s latest anti-Biden flop adds to Republican’s troubles. “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.” [MSNBC, 1/31/24]
Newsweek: James Comer Mocked After Begging for Cash. “James Comer has been mocked by Democrats on social media after sending a fundraising email to supporters asking for donations. Comer, a Kentucky Republican, is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee involved in an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden […] Amid this, in an email sent to supporters, which Newsweek has not seen in full, Comer said his fundraising efforts had ‘hit a brick wall.’ The email said: ‘We’ve hit a major problem. Our January fundraising has hit a brick wall.’” [Newsweek, 2/2/24]
The Washington Post: Another impeachment witness tells the GOP what it doesn’t want to hear. “Eric Schwerin, a former business associate of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill for sworn closed-door testimony before congressional investigators. The appearance triggered the usual response from right-wing media — new evidence emerges of Biden’s culpability!! — but the more important story is a quieter one. Once again, an associate of Hunter Biden’s asserted explicitly and under penalty of perjury that the president was not involved in his son’s business.” [The Washington Post, 1/31/24]
Raw Story: ‘His Biden investigation has collapsed’: James Comer ridiculed after begging for cash. “Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) trolled the House Oversight and Reform Committee chair on Thursday by posting a screen capture of the email and pointing out Comer’s continued failure to find information so he can impeach President Joe Biden. ‘No sh_t,’ Swalwell said on social media. ‘How pathetic is this guy? His Biden investigation has collapsed and now he’s coming to me for money! Sorry, Comer Pyle!’… The elder Biden’s bookkeeper, Eric Schwerin, testified that he saw every dollar that came and went out of President Biden’s accounts, and not once did he see anything unusual. ‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘I am not aware of any role that Vice President Biden, as a public official or as a private citizen, had in any of Hunter’s business activities. None.’” [Raw Story, 2/1/24]
McClatchy DC: As he targeted Joe Biden, Comer raised $1.5 million from contributors, new data shows. “Rep. James Comer had the best fundraising quarter of his congressional career during the final months of 2023, at the same time he was ramping up his case to impeach President Joe Biden… The GOP-led House voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry of Biden in mid-December, though Comer has yet to produce any concrete evidence the president did anything wrong. Nonetheless, during this period, Comer has been a ubiquitous presence on such prominent conservative television networks as Fox News and Newsmax… But just this week, a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden testified to Comer’s committee that he was unaware of any financial transactions or compensation that then-Vice President Biden received related to members of his family.” [McClatchy DC, 2/1/24]