Raskin Shreds Biden Impeachment as “Foreign Disinformation” Campaign
Representative Jamie Raskin’s office slammed House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer on Friday, demanding that he explain why the leaders of the impeachment probe are failing to share evidence with other members of the committee.Two weeks ago, Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan accused the CIA of obstructing a criminal investigation by “intervening” in an interview with Hunter Biden’s attorney, Kevin Morris, conducted by the Department of Justice—but according to Raskin, the two lawmakers are refusing to share details.“Your March 21 letter looks like yet another episode in the Committee’s gullible campaign to amplify the vacuous claims of shadowy Trump World figures and foreign disinformation and propaganda operators,” Raskin wrote in a letter obtained by The New Republic.What’s more, “you have completely ignored my staff’s requests to be allowed to review the information that you say prompted your letter and upon which your letter is putatively and entirely based. This refusal to share Committee material with the Minority creates the unavoidable implication that this information—like so many self-collapsing precursor tips in this Sisyphean quest for a scandal—cannot withstand even the most cursory scrutiny by the Committee’s Democratic Members,” Raskin said, arguing that the claims “directly collide” with the testimony of an Internal Revenue Service special agent and Morris himself, both of whom said the attorney cooperated with authorities. But Comer’s troublingly opaque accusation earned more suspicion when Russian state media scooped up the claim—the second such instance of Russian intelligence involving itself with the GOP’s impeachment inquiry.Raskin noted that the “perfectly punctual and unquestioning” article published in Sputnik, a Russian-owned outlet, included statements supporting the dying impeachment inquiry from “two discredited Trump World figures”—Rudy Giuliani associate Bradley Birkenfeld and former psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow.“One can only regard with amazement how quickly Sputnik identified these Trump World commentators to support this new story!” Raskin said.Comer, meanwhile, has already admitted that the impeachment was a dud. Last week, the Oversight chair confessed that criminal referrals were the most accountability that the meritless, wayward probe was going to achieve. That is, of course, a far cry from its original goal, which was to remove Joe Biden from office.“It’s clear that Democrats will choose their party over their country and the truth at every turn. They should be ashamed of themselves,” Comer wrote in a fundraising email in March. “That’s why I am preparing criminal referrals as the culmination of my investigation.”So far, Republicans have failed to provide any witnesses or concrete evidence that prove criminal wrongdoing by the president. The committee’s former star witness, Alexander Smirnov, served as the singular source for claims that Biden had profited millions off of his son’s connection to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. But that angle, which House Republicans had believed was their best bet at nabbing Biden, completely blew up in their face in February when Smirnov was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI. Since then, Smirnov has reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president.Meanwhile, all of the other witnesses that Republicans have called, claiming that their testimony will blow the case wide open, have instead debunked every single accusation against the Biden family.
Representative Jamie Raskin’s office slammed House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer on Friday, demanding that he explain why the leaders of the impeachment probe are failing to share evidence with other members of the committee.
Two weeks ago, Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan accused the CIA of obstructing a criminal investigation by “intervening” in an interview with Hunter Biden’s attorney, Kevin Morris, conducted by the Department of Justice—but according to Raskin, the two lawmakers are refusing to share details.
“Your March 21 letter looks like yet another episode in the Committee’s gullible campaign to amplify the vacuous claims of shadowy Trump World figures and foreign disinformation and propaganda operators,” Raskin wrote in a letter obtained by The New Republic.
What’s more, “you have completely ignored my staff’s requests to be allowed to review the information that you say prompted your letter and upon which your letter is putatively and entirely based. This refusal to share Committee material with the Minority creates the unavoidable implication that this information—like so many self-collapsing precursor tips in this Sisyphean quest for a scandal—cannot withstand even the most cursory scrutiny by the Committee’s Democratic Members,” Raskin said, arguing that the claims “directly collide” with the testimony of an Internal Revenue Service special agent and Morris himself, both of whom said the attorney cooperated with authorities.
But Comer’s troublingly opaque accusation earned more suspicion when Russian state media scooped up the claim—the second such instance of Russian intelligence involving itself with the GOP’s impeachment inquiry.
Raskin noted that the “perfectly punctual and unquestioning” article published in Sputnik, a Russian-owned outlet, included statements supporting the dying impeachment inquiry from “two discredited Trump World figures”—Rudy Giuliani associate Bradley Birkenfeld and former psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow.
“One can only regard with amazement how quickly Sputnik identified these Trump World commentators to support this new story!” Raskin said.
Comer, meanwhile, has already admitted that the impeachment was a dud. Last week, the Oversight chair confessed that criminal referrals were the most accountability that the meritless, wayward probe was going to achieve. That is, of course, a far cry from its original goal, which was to remove Joe Biden from office.
“It’s clear that Democrats will choose their party over their country and the truth at every turn. They should be ashamed of themselves,” Comer wrote in a fundraising email in March. “That’s why I am preparing criminal referrals as the culmination of my investigation.”
So far, Republicans have failed to provide any witnesses or concrete evidence that prove criminal wrongdoing by the president. The committee’s former star witness, Alexander Smirnov, served as the singular source for claims that Biden had profited millions off of his son’s connection to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. But that angle, which House Republicans had believed was their best bet at nabbing Biden, completely blew up in their face in February when Smirnov was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI. Since then, Smirnov has reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president.
Meanwhile, all of the other witnesses that Republicans have called, claiming that their testimony will blow the case wide open, have instead debunked every single accusation against the Biden family.
