House Oversight Committee Grows Increasingly Tense Amid GOP Impeachment Push

Members of the House Oversight Committee appear to be growing more sick of each other by the hour as Democrats go after the Republican chairman for what they say is a delusional impeachment inquiry and his own hypocrisy. It is not likely to get much better as the GOP attempts to revive its fledgling attempt to impeach President Biden. On Tuesday, the committee’s chairman, Congressman James Comer, said in an interview with Newsmax that Hunter Biden should be forced to sit for a closed-door deposition with committee lawyers rather than appear in public, where Democrats will have the chance to deride the impeachment effort. Mr. Comer also took a swipe at one of the president’s chief defenders, Congressman Jared Moskowitz. “As these hearings go, you’ve got 20 members on each side who get five minutes each,” Mr. Comer said of a possible public appearance by the first son. “We have tens of thousands of pages of documents where we need to sit down and ask specific, substantive questions without filibustering, without interruption, without going five minutes back and forth with Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman and Little Moskowitz jumping up and down, filing motions and trying to disrupt the committee hearings.”Mr. Moskowitz responded by saying that while Mr. Comer may be correct about his diminutive stature, he cannot hide from the fact that the impeachment inquiry has not turned up any evidence directly linking the president to foreign money.“Now the Chairman is calling me ‘Little Moskowitz,’” Mr. Moskowitz wrote on X. “This is the first true thing Comer has said all year, it’s been hard for me to grow. But why is the Chairman scared of tiny, mini, itsy-bitsy Moskowitz? And why is he scared of Hunter testifying, will Comer get caught lying?”Mr. Moskowitz mocked Mr. Comer again on Wednesday. “Have you been injured in Committee?” the congressman asked rhetorically. “Have you been caught lying and found it hard to function? Are you hearing voices in your head from the political trauma? Call the law firm of Raskin, Goldman, and Moskowitz, We deliver!”Mr. Comer previously exploded at Mr. Moskowitz and another Democratic committee member, Congressman Dan Goldman, after they accused him of having once loaned his brother $200,000 — the same kind of alleged crime of which Mr. Comer accuses the president.“Only dumb, financially illiterate people don’t pick up” on the differences between the loan he gave to his brother and the money the president received, Mr. Comer sternly told Mr. Moskowitz during a hearing before the Thanksgiving recess. “This company, which I financially disclosed, holds properties. It manages over a thousand acres of land for hunting purposes. … I didn’t get wires from Romania, China. My family doesn’t get wires.”Mr. Comer was directing his ire at Messrs. Moskowitz and Goldman, the latter being one of the wealthiest members of the House as an heir to the Levi Strauss blue jeans fortune. “You and Goldman — who is Mr. Trust Fund — continue to try to discredit me,” the chairman said. When Mr. Moskowitz tried to reclaim his microphone and continue his line of questioning, Mr. Comer yelled, “No, I’m not going to give you your time back! Stop the clock. … You look like a smurf here, just going around and all this stuff.”Mr. Comer’s frustrations with his Democratic colleagues are likely to grow even more intense in the coming weeks as he attempts to force Hunter Biden and his uncle James to sit in a private, sworn deposition so he can ask questions about their foreign business dealings. The younger Mr. Biden has offered to cooperate with the committee by appearing for public testimony — which would allow members like Messrs. Moskowitz and Goldman to offer a vigorous defense of the first family. The ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin, said that Mr. Comer should accept public testimony rather than hope for a deposition so he can set a narrative that paints the Bidens in a poor light. Mr. Biden’s desire to testify publicly and Mr. Comer’s refusal to entertain such a notion is “an epic humiliation” for Republicans and “a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own members to pursue it,” Mr. Raskin said. Even one of the Senate’s most conservative members, Senator Hawley, said Mr. Comer should accept the offer of public testimony. “My view is the American people have the right to see, and also … if you do this stuff in private, what happens is there is inevitably bunches of leaks and then it’s, ‘well, so-and-so said this and so-and-so says that,’” he said. “Just do it in public and let the public see and open the doors.”

House Oversight Committee Grows Increasingly Tense Amid GOP Impeachment Push

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