Home Republicans are ramping up their investigation into President Joe Biden’s well being, concentrating on a brand new spherical of former aides with interview requests.
GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the Home Oversight Committee, introduced on Wednesday that he’s now searching for testimony from extra high Biden officers, together with former chief of workers Ron Klain and senior adviser Anita Dunn. Additionally on Comer’s listing are longtime adviser Mike Donilon, former deputy chief of workers Bruce Reed, and counselor Steve Ricchetti.
“The Committee requests your testimony to evaluate your eye-witness account of former President Biden’s decline,” Comer wrote in practically an identical letters, including that the aides should agree to look by June 11 or face a subpoena.
This newest batch of targets follows Comer’s spherical of calls for final month, when he requested to query Biden’s private doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and White Home staffers Anthony Bernal, Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams.
“These five former senior advisors were eyewitnesses to President Biden’s condition and operations within the Biden White House,” Comer stated, claiming that they may make clear who was actually “calling the shots.”
It’s not clear what Comer expects to get out of this, however we gained’t have to attend lengthy to search out out.
On Tuesday, he advised Fox Information’ Sean Hannity that workers attorneys have already been in contact with the assorted aides’ authorized groups and that he expects every official to testify voluntarily. The place that really occurs, and what the GOP even considers a “win” right here, stays to be seen.
However even when this entire factor turns up nothing, Republicans will nonetheless have completed what they got down to do: maintain the assaults on Biden coming. It’s all half of a bigger GOP effort to undermine Biden’s legacy by portray him as unfit for workplace, even after leaving it.
Equally, President Donald Trump’s pardon legal professional for the Division of Justice, Ed Martin, is now digging into Biden’s end-of-term clemency selections, together with the mechanics of how they have been permitted.
Comer, who simply wrapped up a failed 15-month impeachment probe, even floated the concept of getting Biden testify earlier than Congress over using an autopen. Regardless of MAGA’s breathless obsession, autopens are authorized, and presidents have used them for years.
The GOP has seized on a string of tales to gasoline its narrative: first, gossip that Biden’s group downplayed well being considerations throughout his reelection bid, then the announcement of his metastatic prostate most cancers prognosis. Republicans instantly—and with out proof—accused his workers of orchestrating a cover-up.
Whereas Biden’s well being decline was evident throughout his chaotic remaining debate in opposition to Trump, there’s no public proof that others have been working the present for him or that he couldn’t carry out the core duties of the presidency. His allies have rejected that framing outright.
However these information haven’t slowed the GOP down. Based on CNN, the Home Judiciary Committee can be getting ready to interview David Weiss, the previous Hunter Biden particular counsel, behind closed doorways this week. And Republicans have additionally been chasing two DOJ tax prosecutors concerned within the Hunter Biden probe.
These strikes are simpler with a compliant Home and White Home, and the political advantages are apparent. The investigations feed their narrative, maintain Biden within the headlines, and pull focus from GOP turmoil. Even Comer admits as a lot.
“It is a whole different environment,” he advised CNN.
In different phrases, the hunt continues.
