Rep. James Comer and the rest of the idiots on the House Oversight Committee are continuing their jihad against Hunter Biden apace. I know that's not news. But today Politico reports this:
House GOP investigators said they were given no heads up that Hunter Biden would not attend their deposition — though his attorney, in statements and letters, had rebuffed a closed-door meeting and countered with a public hearing. Investigators also said at the time that they were not given a heads up that he intended to speak outside the Capitol.
Do they really believe they can just say anything they want? Do they think we don't remember that Hunter's attorney wrote them a legendarily nasty letter saying they wouldn't attend a closed hearing? And they wrote a letter back acknowledging it? This all happened only four weeks ago.
What's the deal with these lunatics? The scale of their continual lying is jaw dropping even in the Year of our Trump 2023. Their "investigation" is a disgusting attempt at personal destruction based on nothing except the hope that going after Hunter will cause Joe Biden some hurt and anguish. It's basically a terrorist attack made in the hope that eventually it will provoke Joe Biden into overreacting and doing something to help his son—but knowing that he can't, that he's completely helpless in the face of these baseless attacks. Loathsome doesn't even begin to describe it.
As always, cruelty is the point.
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Truly despicable fools and hopefully something will end this in 2024. Vote folks. We need to weed out these idiots.
I lived through the Claire McCaskill/Josh Hawley elections. McCaskill kept running ads that Hawley was trying to kill insurance support for preexisting conditions, which he was via him being AG and supporting the State lawsuit against Obamacare. His counter ads were that *she* was the liar for running those ads -- he had a child with a preexisting condition, and would never do such a thing!
The amazing thing was that polls consistently showed that his voters didn't believe he was gunning for preexisting conditions because, in the words of one voter I saw being interviewed, "that would be really stupid". When presented with evidence that he was in fact proposing exactly what McCaskill claimed, typical voter response was that he didn't "really" mean it, and was just using shorthand for "Obamacare is bad", and would undoubtedly come up with a much better plan.
It's been the Republican strategy for years now -- accuse your opponents of that which you are guilty. Best case scenario, voters believe you. Worst case scenario, you've so muddied the waters that no one believes in objective truth anymore.
To add to the disgust, remember when the Cardinal Rule of politics in Congress was to always assume your opponent had good intentions even if you disagree? But now, at least on the GOP side, that's actually been flipped on its head: they always have BAD intentions, especially when the obvious outcome of their actions is to torment their opponents. Of all the things to throw at Joe Biden, who has been through SO much disaster and grief in his life (and they, of course, all know this), to torture him over the one son who has gone down a dark road and seems to be trying to atone for his sins and get his life together, this is rock bottom. ESPECIALLY when they know it is all lies.
Prodigal son comes home? Dump him in a pool of shit and then laugh at his father's grief. After all, he's just a marxist fascist.
This is what trump has wrought -- unleashing the worst of the worst and paying no price for it.
Since Gingrich politics as practiced by the GOP is total war.
But the Republicans can afford it since the Democratic Party views politics as a nonpartisan affair. The Democrats never hit back or do anything that would really damage the Republicans (either collectively or individually) and so the GOP can afford to lose the occasional election because the party of good government isn’t going to engage in any kind of “tit-for-tat” reprisals or impose their will on anyone or anything. This leave the Republicans free to do whatever they want.
In this vein, the real beauty part of this particular stunt is that they're demanding to see communications between the White House and Hunter about his deposition-day plans because, quoting their letter as quoted in the story, they have to know "whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress."
Could they possibly get any closer to the wording of the statute that so many J-6 rioters have been charged under, and that in fact trump himself is charged under, and that SCOTUS has heard arguments on and has a ruling pending on?
If these guys had the wits of a box of rocks they'd be higher on the evolutionary scale.
Yes, they really believe that they can say whatever they want.
Because the audience to which they are playing will never fact-check them, and it doesn't really care about facts. Their audience only cares about revenge and inflicting pain on their imagined enemies.
If my above assertion weren't true, there would be consequences for their lying, but there aren't.
Any attempt by the media to fact-check any Republican is just evidence of "media bias".
This is why voter turn out is going to be key, even more so than it usually is.
Do you really want these people running your life?
See the previous substantive post on this blog, Donald Trump, the revenge president
At the risk of giving these asshats too much credit, I think the play here is pretty straightforward. They know that Trump is dogged by genuine legal/corruption problems that turn off a lot of voters. Thus, they need to try and tar Biden with the same brush, such that lower information voters (i.e., the type that tend to swing) will draw the (false) equivalence that both candidates are equally dirty, throw up their hands, and either stay home or cast a protest vote. It really does make political sense; since their core voters mostly live in a conspiratorial fantasy land, they won't pay much of a political price for making g s*** up.
Yes, I clearly believe that the GOP is playing extreme politics with this whole situation. However, I believe I read, its not Hunter Biden's legal right/option to demand to appear in public.
Perhaps, not appearing plays into the GOP hands and could lead to a contempt of Congress charge and keeps this situation in the press. Then again, the GOP has other ways to keep this item topical.
The last sentence is the correct view. They are not interested in finding the truth of the matter. They want to find ways to throw dirt at Joe Biden.
If he agreed to close hearing, they would tell lies about what happened in the hearing, like they have done before about other hearings. It is more difficult to tell lies about open hearing, which is why they don't want it.
The committee's chair did invite people to testify in public. Hunter took him up on the offer.
Hunter Biden didn’t ‘demand’ to appear for a public hearing; he expressed his willingness to do so, along with his unwillingness to appear in a closed hearing. A contempt of Congress resolution is as valid as a federal court is willing to enforce it. No doubt Biden’s lawyers will have a long record of Republican bad-faith misrepresentation of (i.e. bald-faced lying about) closed-session testimony to bring before the court. Bad press for Republicans.
"... Loathsome doesn't even begin to describe it."
Doesn't seem much different to me than the Democratic attacks on Trump's family.
On the other hand, the "attacks" on the Trump Crime Family are all true. They've even got the indictments and convictions to prove it!
While the extreme magas have got ... bupkis.
"While the extreme magas have got ... bupkis."
So it isn't true that Hunter Biden used illegal drugs, didn't pay his taxes and attempted to profit from his family name?
That is exactly what happened. And it has nothing to do with his father, then or now. And the purpose of all this? Tar President Biden, and if not that cause him emotional pain. Again, cruelty is the point.
Oh, and now I'll stop feeding the troll.
Yes, and President and lifelong politician Hunter Biden has to answer for these sins!!
Get back to me when Biden overrules DHS to give Hunter security clearance to become a top WH adviser.
What percentage of Americans do you suppose know about that?
"attempted to profit from his family name"
Oh, the horror. The DOJ should launch investigations into everyone who has committed this heinous crime!
I love these type of responses where someone tries to pull a clever gotcha and instead ends up tanking his entire argument.
Its just like the investigations of Trumps activity except for the fact that I admit its nothing like that!
lol, wonderful faceplant.
1. Yes, when Hunter Biden's brother died he got caught up in illegal drugs and spiraled out of control. He seems to be clean and doing much better now.
2. Yes, there appears to be a few years where he didn't pay his taxes. His taxe returns have been corrected and all taxes have been made now.
3. Yes, he most certainly made money or more money because his last name was Biden. That's not a crime. Burisma had just gone through a scandal and wanted to show that they were on the up and up, so they put Hunter Biden on the Board. The thinking being the Biden name would add gravitas to their Board.
Admittedly, that's somewhat unseemly, but very, very common and not illegal. There's absolutely zero evidence that Hunter tried to influence his father to change policy for Burisma.
Hunter Biden is Joe Biden's son. He's not president. He's not a politician. This has nothing to do with Joe.
What attacks would those be? Specifically, both the attack and the person making it. Think you can manage that, Tuds?
As usual you are completely full of shit
As they say, a lie spreads across the world three times before the truth is done putting on its shoes. Sure, a reputable factchecker might come along in a couple of weeks and call bullshit on something Republicans say, but by that time, we're 5 news cycles downs the road, the lie had made its impact where intended (i.e. riling up the base, casting a "shadow" over the Bidens, or whatever), and no-one gives a shit any more.
Lying constantly has worked out very well for Republicans.
Complete control of the supreme court, for one.
The GOP saying preposterous things is a longstanding practice.
Not a politician, but one of the most insane was when Rush Limbaugh claimed Obama was anti-Christian because his administration was trying to help destroy the Lord's Resistance Army.
Mr Drum,
It seems there's been a bit of confusion about the letters you're discussing. First, the letter called the "legendarily nasty letter" doesn't actually say they refuse to go to a closed hearing. It proposes an alternative open hearing. Also, the House's letter doesn’t mention agreeing to them not coming to the closed door hearing. Their letter clearly states they wouldn't agree to any special requests like having a public hearing instead of a private one.
In the House's letter, it says: "Mr. Biden’s attempt to avoid a deposition by asking for a public hearing instead is like asking for special treatment. Mr. Biden can’t tell the Committees how to run their investigation."
So, it looks like there's been some mix-up in understanding what these letters are saying. I hope this explanation helps clear things up a bit.
KD didn’t say that the committee chairs agreed to a public hearing, just that the chairs’ reply acknowledged receiving lawyer Lowell’s letter. My reading of that letter is that Hunter Biden will not testify in a closed hearing; though it does not use the word ‘refuse’.
The point remains the same. The original letter from the lawyers was indeed a preference for an open hearing rather than a definitive statement of non-attendance at a closed hearing.
The committee's response to this letter was simply a rejection of the open hearing proposal, without any other implications.
It remains the responsibility of the lawyers to communicate their next steps clearly, especially in light of the committee's rejection of their offer.
It's really important to be accurate with these details because there's a lot of smoke to this story. Hunter and his team did earn $20 million while his father was Vice President. That's a big amount of money, even for Washington D.C.
"Hunter and his team did earn $20 million while his father was Vice President." And this "team" comprises who exactly?
The journalistic niceties of capturing what letter said what is irrelevant to the theme of this blog entry: the GOP committee leaders are beyond contemptable in their effort to smear Biden.
In the matter of the letters, it appears Mr. Drum misrepresented them. It's important that our assertions are grounded in undeniable facts if we want to make claims that these people are contemptible lunatics. When we don't, we threaten the credibility of the arguments.
The "team" is his business partners.
Yes. $20 million is a lot of money. And?
That much money is likely to attract attention from political enemies. It's often said that where there is smoke, there may be fire, and in this case, the sum of 20 million dollars certainly raises questions. Therefore, it's of utmost importance to provide a precise and clear-eyed account of the situation.
It may not have been illegal but it was probably very unethical and sleazy all those millions. We should be real about that.
Did you read the transcription of Hunter's phone call shaking down the Chinese businessman for $5 million dollars?
This is the kind of stuff the other side reads that we should be familiar with.
If we had one of the Trump boys doing the same thing our reaction would be extreme!
Main stream media lets Repubs lie without consequence, and since they are generally unconstrained by ethics or integrity, why not?
Well, the MSM definitely doesn't want to be labeled "librul"! Why, I have no idea. "Liberalism" seems to be the coming thing these days.
It's not the mainstream media. It's Republicans don't care. Fox News runs with outrageous news items over and over again that came from random bloggers, have no basis in fact and is later discredited.
Their viewers don't care. They want to be lied to. There's not much the MSM can do when conservative viewers believe bad things and want to hear bad things about Democrats whether they're true or not.