Bill Straub: Today’s Joe McCarthy is Rep. Jamie Comer — but just call him ‘Tail-Gunner Jamie’

Comer’s latest gambit centers on the claim that he and his crackerjack crew of right-wing hoopleheads, having nosed around into the international business ventures spearheaded by the president’s woebegone son Hunter, have uncovered six instances where Biden acted, not in the nation’s best interests but rather to the benefit of his family’s bottom line, a process he characterized as “organized crime,” thus comparing the Bidens to the Gambinos and the Genoveses of the world.

Appearing on a podcast hosted by John Catsimatidis and Rita Crosby, Comer said he “can’t come to any other conclusion as to why these decisions were made other than the fact this president is compromised.”

And what were these six decisions? We don’t know. Jamie ain’t talking. But trust him, he might tell us eventually.

What a maroon.

Now, let’s hop on the Wayback machine and return to Feb. 9, 1950, and attend a meeting of the Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, WV, featuring Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-WI, who took the opportunity to remove a slip of paper from his pocket and then proclaim it contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department under President Harry Truman.

“The State Department is infested with communists,” he’s reported to have said. “I have here in my hand a list of 57 (some reported he said 205) — a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

McCarthy’s claim sparked a firestorm, kicking off an era that became known as McCarthyism, with unverified claims sending shivers down the spine of innocent people and reputations destroyed as officials looked hither and yon for anyone associated with the Communist Party.

The funny thing is McCarthy never managed to identify the 57, or 205, names on his list. But the damage was done.

Like McCarthy, Comer is winging it, circulating wild accusations that don’t bear up under the slightest scrutiny. He’s been unable to identify any wrongdoings by the group he smugly refers to as the Biden Crime Family and levels so many absurd allegations it’s impossible to address them all.

Comer takes a scattershot approach to the situation but it can be boiled down to two claims that overlap – Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch for reasons that remain unclear, although it has something to do with Hunter having served on the board of Burisma, an energy company that has since gone under. That goes hand-in-hand with the idea that Biden addresses international issues based on Hunter’s foreign business deals involving Ukraine, China, Romania and others, which has enriched him and his associates by $17 million, possibly more, and that his old man has a direct interest in his son’s activities despite claims to the contrary. Hunter’s foreign ties are a result, Comer said, of influence peddling.

Here he is on a Fox News show hosted by Larry Kudlow:

“I think at the end of the day our investigation is going to prove Joe Biden was very involved in the whole influence peddling scheme which should be concerning to every American because this puts him in a very compromised situation, especially with China.”

Citing a text message Hunter sent to an official with a Chinese energy conglomerate demanding a payment during, which he invoked his father’s name, Comer told Kudlow, “That shows that this was a family enterprise and they had to use strongarm tactics and threats and I think that China could do that to Joe Biden any day in office. You know, they could say we can send documents to the House Oversite Committee that shows you were on the take for years. That would put Joe Biden in a compromising kind of situation. That would lead to strange decisions Joe Biden would make that would put America last and China first in the energy policy that would open doors for entry for China to invest in more industries in America. Just the exact things Joe Biden is doing as president.”

It’s all nonsense.

Of the alleged $5 million bribe, Comer lied by omission, a tactic perfected by McCarthy. As committee chair, Comer gained access to an FD-1023 form, filed by the FBI, regarding a source who alleged he was told about Biden receiving a $5 million bribe from a Burisma Holdings official. The FBI dropped the case for lack of evidence. Comer is keeping it alive.

“Joe Biden was alleged to have taken a $5 million bribe, so we’re continuing to dig into this, we’re following the money, and hopefully, we’ll have answers to those important questions very soon,” Comer told Fox News.

What Comer failed to relate was, in an admittedly round-about fashion, a transcript exists of an interview with Burisma President Mykola Zlochevsky, the official in question, who, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, ranking member on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, “explicitly and unequivocally denied those allegations.”

Raskin said Zlochevsky stated that no one at Burisma had “any contacts” with Biden or his representatives while Hunter Biden served on the Burisma board. He further said neither Biden nor his staff ‘in any way’ assisted him or Burisma.”

For some reason, Jamie forgot to mention all this.

It should also be noted that this allegedly occurred in 2017 – after Biden left his position as vice president and three years before he was elected president.

On the influence peddling accusation, Comer has had months to cite a law that would prohibit Hunter Biden from engaging in business with foreign governments or businesses with ties to foreign governments like Ukraine or China or Russia while his father serves as president.

That’s because, from all indications, such a law doesn’t exist. The ChiComs could hand Hunter the keys to the Forbidden City and there’s no way to stop them or prohibit the president’s son from accepting the honor. All Comer’s got is the fantasy, with zero proof, that Biden’s judgment is swayed by his son’s business ventures. Regardless, a lot of this mumbo jumbo occurred between 2017 and 2021 – a period when Biden was not a part of the federal government.

The whole mess can be reduced to Comer’s pitiful effort to make political differences into corruption. And there’s no one to stop his evil way and McCarthy tactics.

On June 1,1950, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R ME, took to the chamber floor to make what she characterized as a “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle,” obviously referring to McCarthy.

Without identifying her fellow Republican directly, Smith said the Senate had been “debased.”

“I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny — fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear,” she said.

Six other Senate Republicans embraced her declaration. But it would be four more years before the Senate condemned McCarthy and his tactics.

So, where is the honorable Margaret Chase Smith of today, that brave Republican who will take to the House floor and denounce the “fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear” perpetrated by Rep. Jamie Comer?

Times change, so does politics, and Comer’s continued maliciousness exposes a nation headed down the wrong path.