More and more it seems our boy, Tail-Gunner Jamie Comer, is morphing from the congressman most likely to be mistaken for a member of the cast of Hee-Haw into Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife, a stumbling, bumbling misfit with no discernable job talents whatsoever.
Like poor Barney, Comer, R-Whereverhehangshishatishishome, should be limited to carrying a single bullet in his breast pocket for fear he might otherwise harm himself. Jamie should be deprived of all ammunition whatsoever, having shot himself in the foot so often it’s a wonder he can still walk.
Despite his obvious limitations, Jamie continues to torment President Biden from his perch as both the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and head honcho of a chuckleheaded probe hunting for reasons, however phony-baloney, to impeach him from the nation’s highest office. Comer appears on Fox News so regularly – 200 times this year as of Oct. 20 – that he is much more likely to take up residence in its studio than his native Tompkinsville, or Frankfort, or, well, whatever.
What we know from all these TV appearances is Tail-gunner Jamie is determined to nail said president as the capo of the massive Biden Crime Family ™, conspiring with his woebegone son, Hunter, to fleece an unsuspecting public and, presumably, take over the world.
What a schmuck.
But there’s a bit of a sticky wicket here as a result of Jamie’s inability to uncover any evidence establishing Biden as the second coming of Vito Corleone. Hunter, it can be argued, has engaged in some questionable business activity with outfits closely tied to the governments of nations like Russia and China that the U.S. has not pulled to its bosom. He has earned a nice bit of change in doing so, utilizing the family name to get in the front door of these outfits. But the only potential law-breaking activity appears to deal with taxes he perhaps didn’t pay. And there remains no proof that Old Man Biden has benefitted from his offspring’s financial dealings in any way.
That’s not stopping Jamie, who has, quite ineptly, sought to show that Joe Biden is intimately involved in his son’s businesses transactions, that he is enriching himself as a result and is making public policy decisions based on enhancing his family’s fortunes.
Thus far Comer is being no-hit. He hasn’t developed a scintilla of evidence, making promises of unseemly revelations that constantly and embarrassingly fall flat, rendering him a bigger fool than when he first came in through the bathroom window.
And now there’s the incident of the $200,000 check.
Last week, Jamie endeavored to convince everybody that he had uncovered the Rosetta Stone. As part of the ongoing probe, Comer subpoenaed and had his staff pour through more than 1,400 pages of bank records from members of the Biden family who are, it should be noted, private citizens.
Within this multitude was a check written from the account of Sara and James Biden Sr. – James being the president’s brother who was involved in some of Hunter’s business activities – on March 1, 2018, to Joe Biden for $200,000. At the bottom of the check was written, “Loan repayment.”
BINGO!
Comer immediately declared the check “raises new questions about how President Biden personally benefited from his family’s shady influence peddling of his name and their access to him.” He was even more direct appearing on Fox Business News this week, declaring that, “So what we proved…is that Joe Biden benefitted financially from his family’s influence peddling schemes.”
Oooh. That sounds really bad.
Too bad it’s all – yet again – so much horse manure.
First note that the $200,000 check was tendered in 2018 – while Biden was a private citizen, between the time he was vice president and a presidential candidate. It was also a period when he was pulling in a lot of dough, primarily from the lecture circuit and book deals, with tax records showing his income jumping from $396,456 in 2016 – his last year as vice president — to $16,596,979 from 2017 through 2019.
Obviously, Biden had the financial wherewithal to loan his brother $200 large. And Biden proved generous with family members with his increased income, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.
Raskin said “not a single transaction” recorded in the financial records “shows any wrongdoing by the president.” The documents do, however, “reveal personal transactions with the president’s family members that have no relevance to any legitimate congressional inquiry, including payments for things like groceries, vet visits, and plumbing repairs, and include multiple college savings accounts and one youth bank account for grandchildren of the president.”
And loans, including financial assistance for his brother James. Raskin said the bank records cited by Comer establish that, rather than accepting some sort of payoff, “the president was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures. These records actually show that President Biden was the one who stepped in to help family members when they needed support, including by providing short term loans to his brother.”
Yet Comer asserts, without any substantiation, that he doesn’t believe the $200,000 represented a re-payment of a loan. He maintains the bank records, the same as those perused by Raskin and his staff, don’t support the claim.
“No and they are lying,” Comer said on Fox Business News. “The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee led by Jamie Raskin have lied so many times…everything they have told the press has been a lie. Jamie Raskin’s the biggest liar in this building.”
Now, we can discuss the Tail-gunner’s own unfamiliarity with the Eighth Commandment but let’s instead turn to HuffPost, a news website, which acquired documents supporting Raskin’s claims.
“HuffPost obtained check images and a spreadsheet reflecting wire transfer records that mostly corroborate Raskin’s claim about the $200,000 transaction from March 2018,” the site reported. “The documents suggest an account connected to Joe Biden sent James Biden $40,000 in July 2017 and $200,000 in January 2018, and that James Biden paid the money back without interest. The wire transfer records do not say, however, that the payments to James Biden were loans.”
Perhaps not. But the fact that the records showed President Biden transferred $200,000 to brother James in January 2018 and that James wrote a check to the president for $200,000 on March 1, 2018 speaks for itself.
Paul Fishman, an attorney representing James Biden, told HuffPost, “The Committee has the bank documents that show both the loan Jim received from his brother in January 2018 and the repayment by check six weeks later. At no time did Jim involve his brother in any of his business relationships.”
But our boy Jamie remains unconvinced. Even if the $200,000 represents a loan repayment, Comer notes that James Biden obtained the funds as a result of a different loan, this one from Americore, described as a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator that apparently hired James Biden, according to bankruptcy records, “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
Could be. Too bad there’s no law against obtaining work based on one’s family name.
Regardless, Comer insists, “Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still troubling that Joe Biden’s ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his family’s shady financial dealings.”
Nice try, Jamie. But it presumes Biden either knew the source of his brother’s pay-back money or cared, given that the outfit, legally from all indications, agreed to loan James the money in the first place.
And there’s absolutely no basis to his claim that he somehow proved “Joe Biden benefitted financially from his family’s influence peddling schemes.” If his brother hadn’t repaid the loan, the president would be out $200 Gs. The repayment simply made him whole with no profit realized.
Tail-gunner Jamie is playing a foul game here. There’s an old saying, attributed to Mark Twain, who apparently didn’t create it although he should have: “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”
Comer is betting the public will hear and embrace his original claim of wrongdoing while ignoring the follow-up explanation, thus placing the Biden administration at a political disadvantage.
It’s a cynical ploy, typical for a weasel.
