House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on Wednesday that he will invite President Joe Biden to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry on alleged corruption.
The announcement came at the tail-end of a public hearing that featured the testimony of some former Biden family associates that the president’s son, Hunter Biden, declined to attend following a closed-door interview last month.
Comer noted a “material discrepancy” among witnesses about whether Joe Biden was participating in his family’s “influence peddling schemes” and reasoned the president is the only one who can address them.
“In the coming days, I will invite President Biden to the Oversight Committee to provide his testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies with his assistance,” Comer said.
“We need to hear it from the president himself and I assure the American people that they will be able to evaluate for themselves the president’s honesty and fitness for the office he now holds,” he added.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, responded by asking whether Comer would invite former President Donald Trump to talk about his alleged emoluments violations.
“You all have investigated Donald Trump for years and I’m pretty sure I’ve read in the paper that there [are] a lot of investigations of Donald Trump,” Comer said. “No one has investigated Joe Biden.”
When Comer asked Raskin if he would help Republicans convince Joe Biden to give testimony for the impeachment inquiry, the Democrat insisted there have been no discrepancies.
Raskin claimed there is “no evidence” of Joe Biden committing high crimes and misdemeanors and pressed the chairman to share what charges may be levied against the president.
Comer declined to provide an answer as he went on to thank the witnesses and end the hearing.
The White House offered a dismissive response to Comer’s invitation. Spokesman Ian Sams issued a post to X that started with “LOL” and an emoji of a man doing a facepalm.
“Comer knows 20+ witnesses have testified that POTUS did nothing wrong. He knows that the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he’s received have refuted his false allegations,” Sams said.
“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment,” he added. “Call it a day, pal.”
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