PRESS RELEASE Contact: press@congressionalintegrity.org
For Immediate Release
Date: May 16, 2024
Washington, D.C. – Republicans on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees continued their political stunts today – taking up baseless contempt charges for United States Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Biden administration has been exceedingly cooperative with Jim Jordan and James Comer’s requests for information but MAGA Republicans didn’t let it stop them from holding these markups to repeat debunked lies and attack President Biden.
In a perfect example of how unserious and politically motivated MAGA House Republicans are, James Comer pushed his committee’s markup to 8pm, all so Oversight Republicans could take a field trip to New York to attend Trump’s trial for business fraud associated with hiding sex with a porn star from voters.
In response, Congressional Integrity Project executive director, Kyle Herrig, issued the following statement:
“The entire MAGA House infrastructure continues to serve as an arm to the Trump campaign – look no further than James Comer pushing committee business to dusk so Oversight Republicans could kiss Trump’s ring at his criminal trial during the workday. They continually attack the rule of law and weaponize congressional oversight for partisan political attacks. House Republicans keep trying desperately to revive their baseless impeachment inquiry into President Biden rather than actually doing the work they were elected to do for the American people like addressing immigration and cost of living.”
The Facts: The Biden Administration Has Had Historic Cooperation with MAGA GOP Oversight
After over a year of investigations, Jim Jordan and James Comer have found no evidence of wrongdoing by the President or Biden administration. Yet, their fishing expedition continues. Thursday’s contempt markups are just the latest example of Comer and Jordan weaponizing their committees to smear the President and his administration and help Trump.
The Biden Administration has gone to great lengths to comply with Congressional requests for information and documents, including providing:
- Department of Justice: DOJ has provided over 150 hours of testimony, more than 92,000 pages of documents, and other information in response to Judiciary Committee requests including:
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- Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report and public testimony and transcripts of the Special Counsel Office interviews of President Biden and Mark Zwonitzer
- Appearances at 13 hearings before both Committees by senior DOJ officials, including the Attorney General, the FBI Director, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the heads of the Department’s Civil Rights and Antitrust Divisions, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
- 24 transcribed interviews by current DOJ officials before the Judiciary Committee, including making Special Counsel David Weiss available to address questions about ongoing investigations and prosecutions. Additional interviews with DOJ personnel have already been scheduled.
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- Federal Bureau of Investigation: The FBI provided the full House Oversight Committee with the FBI FD-1023 form, as well as multiple briefings to discuss it.
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- Nearly six hours of testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray on the 1023 form and other topics.
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- Department of Treasury: The Department of Treasury has provided more than 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports (SARs)
- National Archives: The Archives has publicly released over 20,000 pages of emails related to Hunter Biden and the Biden family and turned over 75,000 more pages of records to the House GOP in accordance with the law and standard practice.
- Dozens of hours of interviews with at least 25 witnesses – 12 witnesses in 2024 alone, including the President’s own brother and son.
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- 14 Biden family members, family contacts, and business connections
- 6 federal investigators
- 3 U.S. attorneys
- 2 IRS “whistleblowers”
- DOJ, FBI, IRS, and National Archives have made 9 witnesses available to discuss ongoing investigations.
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