James Comer Says He Will Ask Joe Biden To Testify In Impeachment Probe

WASHINGTON In a Hail Mary bid to keep his impeachment inquiry going, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday he would ask the president to testify. 

Comer made the announcement after wrapping up a hearing in which Democrats mocked him for having failed so far to produce evidence that could warrant removing Joe Biden from office.

In the coming days, I will invite President Joe Biden to the House Oversight Committee to provide his own testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies with his assistance, Comer said . 

The presidents brother, James, and his son, Hunter, spoke to Republicans in closed-door interviews earlier this year, but Hunter Biden declined to appear at Wednesdays hearing. 

Its hard to imagine the sitting president showing up on Capitol Hill to entertain queries about his family members. White House spokesman Ian Sams mocked the idea, saying the committees witnesses had already refuted Comers corruption claims. 

This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment, Sams said on social media . Call it a day, pal.

The impeachment inquiry so far has pursued a mix of unsubstantiated accusations against the president, including that he did his son an official favor pushing for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor when he was vice president and that he participated in his sons foreign business deals after his vice presidency. 

A slew of Hunter Bidens former business partners have told Republicans they never saw the president participate in his sons work, but Tony Bobulinski who testified at Wednesdays hearing insisted the elder Biden was involved. 

Bobulinski based his accusation on the fact that he met Biden twice in 2017, when he and Hunter Biden were part of a group trying to wrangle investments from a Chinese company. Bobulinski said he and Joe Biden spoke about their respective family backgrounds in a hotel bar, and that the next day they chatted after Biden made a speech at the hotel. 

He thanked me for helping his son and brother, and asked me to keep an eye on them as I walked him out to his car, Bobulinski said Wednesday. 

For Republicans, the fact that the presidents conversations with Bobulisnki apparently contained no business content doesnt matter. No lawmaker pressed Bobulinski for more details about the particulars of his conversations with Joe Biden during the eight-hour hearing. 

Theres no evidence, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said at the end of the hearing. Hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, dozens of hours of testimony, but not a shred of evidence of presidential wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense by President Biden.