Hey, does anyone remember this?
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) indicated the IRS whistleblowers testifying in the investigation into Hunter Biden...are willing to hand over foreign transactions paperwork that could prove President Joe Biden was involved in a criminal bribery scheme.
...."We suspect that the Bidens had offshore bank accounts and that today was a huge development that will open up a new door for us to move forward in our investigation," the Kentucky Republican added, saying he believes there’s "easily" $25 million to $30 million or more tied to the Biden family in foreign business dealings.
This was on July 19th. A week later Jesse Watters excitedly announced on Fox News that he had "just discovered that the Biden family, possibly Joe Biden himself, has offshore bank accounts." Watters careened right past the fact that even Comer only said he "suspected" there were foreign bank accounts, and then plunged into a furious narrative about bribery and treason that became ever more divorced from reality with every minute it continued:
Once you start zeroing in on foreign, foreign bank accounts, foreign lobbying, foreign agents, foreign business partners, foreign policy, foreign deals...this looks more and more like a bribery ring, and remember, bribery is specifically named as an impeachable offense in the Constitution.
I hardly need to say that there was zero evidence for this, right? Even the IRS whistleblowers—whose credibility has taken a beating recently—said only that they had evidence related to "foreign transactions." The rest of the story is literally invented out of nothing.
Anyway, it's now been more than two months since these damning documents were supposedly going to be handed over. So far: nada. The documents were supposed to be given to the Ways and Means Committee, but last week its Republican chairman struggled to answer any questions about Joe Biden's alleged misdeeds, never mind a blockbuster revelation about foreign bank accounts.
As usual, there's nothing here. The whistleblowers have handed over nothing. Hunter Biden's collection of companies are all boringly legitimate. They are registered in Delaware. His money was mostly deposited in a Wells Fargo account. And queries to Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands, the most likely locations of foreign accounts, have turned up nothing.
There are no offshore shell companies. There are no foreign bank accounts. Joe Biden has not taken $30 million in bribes. But you knew that already, didn't you?
It’s just more proof that without bad faith, Republicans would have no arguments at all.
Of course what would be hilarious is to find out just how many offshore shell corporations and foreign accounts the Trumps control. I suspect it's not zero.
If US had serious news media, they would have counters counting the time from such allegations being made without anything actually coming out.
Start it, let's say, a month after an allegation was made without evidence by a member of congress or senior person in the administration.
Award a Pinocchio after some period.
Someone in the media should ask Dan Crenshaw how he feels about Trump knowing that Trump considers him a sucker and a loser. Actually all veterans and current military Trump supporters should be asked that question.
They don't care. They'll just say it's fake news and that you're just a hater and Kelly is obviously a traitor cuck who needs to be put up against a wall like Milley. Sad!
Should still ask anyway.
It's all squid ink to obscure that these are all things Donald Trump can be reasonably accused of.
But tv news won't report it like that.
When it involves Republicans, Every Accusation Is A Confession.
My larger impression of Comer and these other GOP reps trying to go after Hunter Biden and his father is that, as the old line goes, they're not very bright guys and things got out of hand. Now they're left holding a sack of, well, nothing, and have to figure out what to do with it. And they're very confused about how they got to this place.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that the reason that Democrats nailed Trump for abuse of office and impeached him is that he really did violate his oath of office first by trying to extort Ukraine into launching a phony investigation of Biden as a political stunt and second by fomenting an armed insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on 1/6. Those were real things. The stuff they think they have on Biden is not. When they'll finally get this, I don't know. Probably never. Again, they're pretty stupid people.
It is not plain stupidity. Trump and his supporters want it, so they deliver something, even if this something is not a real thing.
They get away with it because the media doesn't continuously hammer them on that like it should.
Yes. They are victims of short-term thinking, which is how we got Dobbs. They would have preferred to keep the anti-choice crowd whipped up much longer, but every time a SCOTUS vacancy came up, they had to take the Federalist Society’s litmus-tested selections. And here we are — it’s now the pro-choice majority that’s motivated to get to the polls. Who coulda known?
Why do social conservatives love sacrificing virgins to the volcano god?
It's not because they think it will do any good, it's just that the volcano is a great excuse to have a parade and kill someone.
It lets them organize anxiety as a popular motivation.
All of which ignores the fact that for bribery, you need a quid pro quo and at the time Biden was allegedly taking bribes, he was the Vice President with no power to do anything except break ties in the Senate which he did 0 times in 8 years.
if they did turn up foreign bank accounts for hunter, i still wouldn't give a shit unless they had any evidence it has anything to do with joe. who cares what legitimate or shady crap hunter's doing? if there is actually anything illegal, the IRS can deal with it like any other citizen.
I think it is time for the Bidens and whole lot of others to sue the pants off these fools, for everything they own, including their offshore accounts.
Hunter Biden has several suits going against Giuliani over the laptop hacking as well as the IRS "whistleblowers" who blabbed about his tax returns all over the place.
Keep in mind that the Speech and Debate Clause narrows the ability to sue a member of Congress for defamation.
This is why I'm amused when conservatives say they want to weaken protections against defamation suits. Conservative news folks engage in defamation with every breath - Hunter Biden could sue Waters for this stuff.
Comer: "We suspect that the Bidens had offshore bank accounts" and ... he believes there’s "easily" $25 million to $30 million or more tied to the Biden family in foreign business dealings.
Weak tea. Words like "suspect" immediately raise suspicions about who's suspicious. Act like you know what's going on. And "$25 million to $30 million or more" is no way to make accusation memorable. Be specific. This deserves a D- in Baseless Allegations 101.
Johnny Iselin knew how to do it.
Sen. John Iselin: "There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!"
You see. Even though he got the number from a Heinz ketchup bottle, it's a number that showed command and got attention.
How true. But for the last 50 odd (very odd) years, the Party of Lincoln has been scraping the bottom and skimming off the scum for its candidates. The decline in quality is becoming noticeable...
Also, my apologies to Abraham Lincoln.
Dregs, not scum. Scum floats to the top, the dregs sink to the bottom.
You skim the scum off the top. You can't skim dregs.
The way James Comer constantly speaks about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden is outright slander. Comer constantly states propaganda about how Joe Biden is a criminal as if his accusations are based on known facts.
Congress critters are protected from "slandering" anyone except each other. However, if they are "hurtful" each to the other they are viciously reprimanded. Unless of course, the hurter is a Republican and the hurtee a Democrat. IOKIYAR.
Maybe someone ought to publicize all of the offshore accounts the Trumps have.
"I hardly need to say that there was zero evidence for this, right?"
Folks in the media really need to find a better way to say this. It's an accurate statement but it implies that there _might_ be evidence if we just search hard enough.
I mean there's zero evidence that Donald Trump killed JonBenet Ramsey or that Eric Trump's real father is Galactic Overlord Zeno but for some reason no one ever feels the need to point either of these two facts out.
"Projection", thy name is "GOP"
"There are no offshore shell companies. There are no foreign bank accounts." WE know that's not true. Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump both have chinese bank accounts. And the Trumps certainly have offshore shell companies.