This morning, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer’s long-promised impeachment inquiry report was released. The report of his year-and-a-half-long investigation into President Biden details how he failed to uncover a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing by the President whatsoever, and is only filled with the same debunked conspiracy theories, factual inaccuracies, and downright misinformation repeated by MAGA Republicans about the President for years. James Comer and his MAGA House Republican cronies wasted their whole time as the majority investigating President Biden while ignoring the important priorities of hardworking Americans across the country, like the cost of living, access to health care, and more, all to do convicted felon Donald Trump’s bidding and attempt to harm their political rivals.
The investigation into President Biden has officially ended with an embarrassing whimper, but Comer and his fellow MAGA House Republicans aren’t done yet – they have shifted their baseless political stunts to Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, continuing to use Congress as an arm of the Trump campaign and continuing to ignore the important priorities of Americans across the country.
Articles
Punchbowl News: House Republicans’ Impeachment Report Is Out. It Means Very Little.
- “House Republicans have been sitting on this final report for weeks, as we scooped last month, while they debated the timing and content of the document. It’s even less relevant now that Biden is no longer the Democratic presidential nominee.”
- “Again, to be clear, this is not going to lead to a Biden impeachment in the House, as many Republicans remain unconvinced that Biden committed high crimes or misdemeanors. While GOP investigators were sometimes able to put Biden closer to his family’s overseas business deals than was previously known, they struggled to prove that the president personally profited off those deals or made policy decisions because of them.”
- “Now, top Republicans have claimed from the outset that their goal wasn’t to impeach Biden, arguing it was purely a fact-finding mission. But by many accounts, the investigation failed to deliver on some of the GOP’s biggest claims. Even Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who was largely the face of the probe, was eager to move on from it. And it looks like he already has. In the last few weeks, Comer has launched investigations into Vice President Kamala Harris’ role overseeing the administration’s border policy and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s potential connections to China.”
The Independent: Republicans Accuse Biden Of ‘Impeachable Conduct’ In Report — But Don’t Offer Any Proof.
- “Three Republican-controlled House committees accused President Joe Biden of engaging in ‘impeachable conduct,’ stating there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ to support it, but admitted they have no evidence to prove that the president committed a crime.“
- “However, in each of these circumstances, the House committees said they did not need to have direct proof that he committed these alleged impeachable acts.
- “The report also offered detailed descriptions of Hunter and James Biden’s ‘shady’ business practices overseas, implying that he made millions in exchange for access to his father and influence in the US. However, House Republicans fell short of substantiating those claims.”
- “The Bidens have never been formally charged with any wrongdoing connected to their business ventures.”
- “[T]he inquiry into President Biden has been met with heavy scrutiny. Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian businessman who traveled around the world with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani ‘tasked’ to find ‘dirt’ on the Biden family, testified in March that he had seen ‘precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality.’ Additionally, in February special counsel Robert Hur, who was tasked with investigating the classified documents found at the president’s homes, recommended no criminal charges against Biden. The GOP-led inquiry into Biden has not received total support from all members of their party while Democrats have repeatedly accused them of pursuing the impeachment inquiry as political retribution. Likely not by coincidence, the report was released on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, where later this week, Kamala Harris is expected to accept the Democratic nomination for president.”
Salon: “Wild Goose Chase”: White House Says GOP Report Exposes Impeachment Push As “Failed Stunt.”
- “But the nearly 300-page document does not include any evidence that Biden engaged in corrupt or criminal activity that would warrant impeachment. Both Biden and his son Hunter have denied that the president was involved in any of his son’s business deals and the White House has been critical of Republicans’ investigation since the beginning.”
- “In the report, which is the result of over 30 interviews, Republicans maintain that they do not need to provide evidence that Biden personally profited from his son’s business, adding that grounds for impeachment ‘need not rise to the level of criminal conduct.’”
The New Civil Rights Movement: GOP Kicks Off DNC With ‘Recycled Talking Points’ Report Alleging Biden Impeachable Acts.
- “Top House Republicans kicked off the week of the Democratic National Convention by releasing a 291-page report that includes disputed claims alleging President Joe Biden committed impeachable offenses. President Biden will deliver a speech at the DNC in Chicago Monday evening. Republicans, who have spent well over a year and a half on their investigations have never been able to garner enough votes to impeach the President despite holding the majority. The report does not specifically recommend the House hold a vote on impeaching President Biden.”
CNN: GOP-Led Committees Release Biden Impeachment Report Without Formally Recommending The House Move Forward With Impeachment.
- “This was not how Republicans wanted their prized investigation into Biden to end after pouring over subpoenaed bank records and conducting key interviews with the president’s son, Hunter, and brother, James, as well as a slew of family business associates.”
NBC News: GOP-Led House Committees Release Lengthy Report Alleging President Biden Committed Impeachable Offenses.
- “The investigators put the total at $27 million, according to the bank records they received. But the investigators failed to turn up evidence that Biden himself received money from those companies or participated in the foreign business deals beyond the occasions when Hunter Biden called him on speakerphone to exchange pleasantries while in the company of foreign business associates or when he saw them at his son’s birthday dinner.”
- “In other parts of the report, the committees provide numerous examples of financial deals between Hunter Biden and Chinese corporations but does not provide direct links to Joe Biden while he was vice president or evidence of specific policies he changed or encouraged during that time.”
- “The report makes no mention of the role of Alexander Smirnov, the possible Russian spy who fed false information about Hunter and Joe Biden to the FBI. Smirnov, who has also been charged with making false reports about the president’s son by Weiss, is scheduled to go on trial in December.”
Politico: House GOP Investigators Accuse Biden Of ‘Impeachable Conduct’ In Long-Awaited Report.
- “Not holding an impeachment vote on the House floor would constitute a historical anomaly: Every formal presidential impeachment inquiry in modern times has led to an impeachment vote — except in the case of Richard Nixon, who resigned from office before a vote could happen.”
- “But while they poked holes in previous statements by Joe Biden and the White House, Republicans have struggled to find the proverbial smoking gun that would garner the near-unanimous GOP support needed to impeach the president. Investigators, in Monday’s report, argue that they don’t need to show evidence that Joe Biden committed a crime — but some of their skeptical colleagues have said that is the bar leaders need to clear to earn their impeachment vote.”
The Hill: Republicans Accuse Biden Of Impeachable Conduct In Long-Awaited Report.
- “The allegations rely heavily on bits of testimony that are disputed or undercut elsewhere.
- “The report does not show President Biden directly received money from his family’s business deals or prove he changed any U.S. policies to aid his family. And despite the report’s fiery language, it also stops short of recommending impeachment articles or calling for a vote on impeachment — a nod to diminishing GOP support for the probe. The White House has long maintained the president did not engage in any improper activity, and committee Democrats have argued that Republicans failed to directly connect him to any business activity by his family members. Both see the impeachment inquiry as a partisan attack on a political opponent.”
Commentary
Philip Bump, The Washington Post: The Republican ‘Impeachment Probe’ Ends The Way It Began: With Nothing.
- “There is almost nothing in the final report that wasn’t known or understood before the formal investigation began. If anything, the point of the probe seems to have been to generate enough transcribed quotes from people adjacent to people adjacent to the president to give the appearance of investigatory rigor, like a middle-school student plucking sentences from random points in the middle of a book to give the impression of having read the whole thing.
- “What the GOP probe was never able to do was tie any of that money back to Biden.”
- “The Republican chairs tasked with the impeachment probe produced nothing more than a basket of cherries they’d picked, one that back in September seemed like an essential tool in the effort to block Joe Biden’s reelection and to return a Republican — specifically Trump — to the White House. The insincerity of the effort is epitomized by the complete and overt disinterest Comer and his allies had in similarly investigating Trump and his family, recipients of far more money far more directly tied to foreign governments. In fact, when Comer took over Oversight, he shut down an existing probe into Trump.?
- “[H]aving failed to convince even other Republicans of Biden’s culpability — and, critically, with Biden set to retire — they’ve just released their overheated report on the first day of the Democratic convention in a last-ditch effort to wring some political utility out of it. History will not record that Comer and Jordan helped protect the American public from nefarious activity. It will, instead, remember this effort as a failed, ultimately useless attempt to protect the Republican Party and the electoral prospects of Donald Trump.”
Steve Benin, MSNBC: Republicans’ Anti-Biden Impeachment Report Lands With A Thud.
- “American history is filled with examples of ridiculous congressional investigations, but the House GOP’s crusade against President Joe Biden is certainly among the most cringeworthy. Even plenty of Republicans have admitted as much.”
- “The more they tried to get their investigation back on track, the more embarrassing their investigation became.”
- “The full, 291-page document is available online, but by any fair measure, it lands with a thud: The House Republicans’ report breaks no new ground and presented no credible evidence of wrongdoing.”
- “Of course, in order to actually embarrass Biden, the report would have to include damaging information. This one does not.”
- “…GOP leaders know they don’t have the votes to impeach the president without credible evidence of wrongdoing, so this entire misguided ordeal will likely fade into oblivion. As for Comer’s reputation, it appears unlikely to recover. The Kentuckian’s fellow Republicans have used words like ‘clueless’ and ‘embarrassing’ to describe his anti-Biden investigation, and the scope and scale of his fiasco won’t soon be forgotten.”
Marshall Cohen, CNN: “After a year of digging Republicans really didn’t move the ball forward all that much. […] So what’s actually in this report? It reads like a ‘greatest hits’ of recycled talking points. It’s heavy on innuendo and circumstantial evidence, but it’s light on proof.” [Marshall Cohen, X, 8/19/24, VIDEO]
Kate Bolduan, CNN: “It stops short of alleging any criminal wrongdoing. It also covers familiar ground that has been tread before. […] More noise and more talk about this conveniently, and no question not coincidentally, on the first day of the Democratic National Convention as they kick off.” [Marshall Cohen, X, 8/19/24, VIDEO]
Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe: “This was a clown show from the start; the leading clowns have now tacitly acknowledged as much by not recommending an impeachment vote.” [Scot Lehigh, X, 8/19/24]
Philip Bump, The Washington Post: “[A] compilation of failures and exaggerations that was sweeping in both its scale and its brazenness.” [Philip Bump, X, 8/19/24]
John P. Flannery, Former U.S. Senate Special Counsel in the U.S. Senate: “Trump lap dog, No Jacket Jordan, and his bite the lip Hill flame throwers release an impeachment report today – full of sound and fury signifying nothing – coincidently on the 1st day of the Democratic Convention.” [John P. Flannery, X, 8/19/24]
Matthew Gertz, Media Matters for America: “Top story on America’s Newsroom is…not the impeachment report. Fox is throwing it in the trash. […] http://FoxNews.com, story on the GOP impeachment report in red.”
[Matthew Gertz, X, 8/19/24, 8/19/24]
Statements
Sharon Yang, White House Spokesperson: “After wasting nearly two years and millions of taxpayer dollars, House Republicans have finally given up on their wild goose chase. This failed stunt will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories.” [Politico, 8/19/24]
House Oversight Committee Democrats: “At the conclusion of this exhaustive 20-month investigation, involving 3.8 million pages of documents, 80 hours of testimony from 19 witnesses, and untold taxpayer dollars, congressional Republicans cannot identify any wrongdoing let alone a high crime or misdemeanor committed by President Biden. In attempting to smear President Biden, at the behest and exhortation of Donald Trump, they have cherry-picked and distorted facts, even going so far as to echo and amplify Russian disinformation. However, the mountain of evidence amassed through this investigation has served only to exonerate President Biden.” [House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democrats, Memo, ‘Re: President Biden Exonerated by Impeachment Inquiry’, 8/19/24]
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8): “House Democrats will continue to put people over politics. Extreme MAGA Republicans are baselessly threatening to impeach President Biden and shut down the government in September. These extremists are unfit to govern.” [Hakeem Jeffries, X, 8/19/24]
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (MD-8): “[The impeachment report continues] debunking and refuting the same old lies and propaganda that have defined the Oversight Republicans’ embarrassing work in the wasted 118th Congress…I would call it a complete exoneration of the target of their pathetic attacks—President Joe Biden.” [CNN, 8/19/24]
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-1): “This report from @Oversightdems shows just how far GOP leadership is willing to sink to prop up Donald Trump – using lies and propaganda. They found nothing. Time to move on and get back to work for the American people!” [Rep. Melanie Stansbury, X, 8/19/24]
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (FL-23): “I’m glad you finally finished your book report. If the “evidence” is the “strongest” ever. Sooo, when is the impeachment vote? I asked you to second my motion and you refused. Tick Tock croc” [Jared Moskowitz, X, 8/19/24]