PRESS RELEASE Contact: press@congressionalintegrity.org
For Immediate Release
Date: December 4, 2023
Washington, D.C. – House Republicans are pushing ahead with their evidence-free impeachment stunt and are planning on voting to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry. After almost a year of investigations into President Biden, they have failed to produce a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing, let alone one that rises to the level of impeachment. Now Republicans must go on record and tell their constituents where they stand. Congressional Integrity Project calls on Mike Lawler to reject these bogus impeachment stunts and stand with the American people. In August, Lawler said that the investigations had not produced enough facts and evidence to warrant taking impeachment to the next step. Republicans have still not produced any evidence so what has changed?
Congressional Integrity Project executive director, Kyle Herrig, issued the following statement:
“Soon Mike Lawler and the rest of the House will take their most consequential vote as members. They will have to go on record to either authorize the most bogus and politically brazen impeachment effort ever – siding with election deniers, insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, and the arsonist of democracy, Donald Trump – or do the right thing and put an end to this farce which is preventing Congress from focusing on critical priorities like health care and the cost of living. The choice is clear, Congressman.”
Background
House Republicans’ Own Witnesses Have Admitted There Is No Evidence Of Wrongdoing:
- House Republicans Falsely Claimed That IRS Whistleblowers Provided Bombshell Evidence of Tampering with the Hunter Biden Investigation, But Their Own Informants Have Debunked Their False Claims and Ended Up Exonerating the President. Republicans spent months hyping up IRS whistleblowers that they claimed had damning evidence about the IRS’s investigation into Hunter Biden. In July, House Republicans held a hearing during which their own witnesses testified, under oath, that neither President Biden nor Attorney General Garland interfered in the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice’s investigation into Hunter Biden. The IRS whistleblower allegations have since been further debunked by at least six other witnesses brought in for questioning by Oversight Republicans – including whistleblower Gary Shapley’s supervisor at the IRS’ Criminal Investigation division and the division’s director of field operations, three current and former FBI officials, and a longtime bookkeeper for the Biden family. These officials have testified that Shapley’s claims are “false and misleading” and that they “don’t remember” hearing US Attorney David Weiss ever say that he lacked the authority to decide whether to bring charges against the president’s son, or that Weiss said he had been denied a request for special counsel status. Shapley’s supervisor also testified he recommended removing him from the Hunter Biden probe “to protect the integrity of the investigation” because he made “unsubstantiated allegations.”
- The Independent: GOP Witness Admits No Evidence To Impeach Biden At First Impeachment Hearing. “Not even a trio of friendly witnesses — all prominent right-wing commentators — could offer any new evidence or arguments in favour of impeaching Mr Biden, with the panel’s lead witness, a paid Fox News contributor and law professor called Jonathan Turley, even going so far as to echo Mr Raskin’s allegation that the GOP lacked ‘a shred’ of derogatory evidence against the president.” [The Independent, 9/28/23]
- The New Republic: GOP Impeachment Fiasco Continues: They Turn Against Their Own Witness. “Archer said he was ‘not aware of any’ wrongdoing by the president, and said he disagreed with the allegation that Biden accepted a bribe.” [The New Republic, 9/28/23]
TIMELINE: Over The Past Year, House Republicans’ Hearings & Witnesses Have All Failed To Uncover Any Evidence of Wrongdoing:
- November 2023
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- After months of investigating President Biden and his family, Oversight Chair James Comer was exposed for his own shady business dealings and family influence peddling.
- Comer had a total meltdown over his shady business deals & family influence peddling getting called out during a hearing.
- Comer’s claims of finding evidence of bribery were quickly debunked after financial records of a clear loan repayment went public.
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- October 2023
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- Comer’s latest witness, Scott Brady, testified that he failed to assess the credibility of a key source of bribery allegations against President Biden.
- Despite receiving more than 14,000 pages of bank records as part of his Biden family probe, Comer failed to find a single transaction showing any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.
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- September 2023
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- Comer’s first impeachment inquiry hearing was an utter failure. Two of Republicans’ three witnesses, including Jonathan Turley, directly testified that there is no evidence to support impeachment: “If that’s what exists as a basis for this inquiry, it is not sufficient.”
- A former Ukrainian president refuted Comer’s outlandish claim that U.S. support for the war in Ukraine was rooted in a “conflict of interest” stemming from Hunter Biden’s business in the county.
- Comer found absolutely nothing from emails dating back to Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency.
- Comer’s claims that the Office of the Vice President supposedly colluded with Hunter Biden backfired when the actual evidence was revealed.
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- August 2023
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- Fact checkers debunked Comer’s false claims that President Biden’s use of an email pseudonym during the Obama administration was “code” for Hunter Biden.
- Comer’s much-hyped IRS whistleblowers’ claims about so-called interference with an investigation into hunter biden were debunked by at least six other witnesses brought in for questioning by Oversight Republicans.
- Comer’s third bank memo produced no evidence of a bribe.
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- July 2023
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- Comer’s supposed star witness, Devon Archer, failed to prove that President Biden did anything wrong.
- Comer’s top IRS whistleblowers testified that there’s no evidence President Biden interfered in IRS/DOJ investigations into Hunter Biden.
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- June 2023
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- Comer and Sen. Grassley failed to produce evidence of bribery after subpoenaing the FBI and risking the safety of confidential sources. He failed to mention that 40 FBI informants couldn’t substantiate a crime against President Biden. Worse still, the owner of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, had already rebutted the uncorroborated bribery allegations back in 2019.
- Comer hyped so-called bribery tapes, then later admitted… not knowing if they “really exist.”
- Comer falsely claimed that the Biden family took more than $20 million from foreign nations – even though only about $7 million could be directly attributed to Biden family members, mostly Hunter, while the rest went to associates.
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- May 2023
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- Comer’s second bank memo failed to produce evidence linking President Biden to any illegal activity.
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- April 2023
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- Comer blatantly misrepresented witnesses as “whistleblowers,” then refused to produce evidence substantiating his claims.
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- February 2023
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- In his first Oversight hearing, Comer pushed a “factually unsupported narrative” about the ‘Twitter Files’.
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- November 2022
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- During his first press conference, Comer said he had “evidence of federal crimes.” His report failed to name a single crime.
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