Home Republicans are ramping up their investigation into President Joe Biden’s well being, focusing on a brand new spherical of former aides with interview requests.
GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the Home Oversight Committee, introduced on Wednesday that he’s now in search of testimony from extra prime Biden officers, together with former chief of employees Ron Klain and senior adviser Anita Dunn. Additionally on Comer’s record are longtime adviser Mike Donilon, former deputy chief of employees Bruce Reed, and counselor Steve Ricchetti.
“The Committee requests your testimony to evaluate your eye-witness account of former President Biden’s decline,” Comer wrote in practically an identical letters, including that the aides should agree to look by June 11 or face a subpoena.
This newest batch of targets follows Comer’s spherical of calls for final month, when he requested to query Biden’s private doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and White Home staffers Anthony Bernal, Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams.
“These five former senior advisors were eyewitnesses to President Biden’s condition and operations within the Biden White House,” Comer mentioned, claiming that they may make clear who was actually “calling the shots.”
It’s not clear what Comer expects to get out of this, however we received’t have to attend lengthy to search out out.
However even when this entire factor turns up nothing, Republicans will nonetheless have completed what they got down to do: hold the assaults on Biden coming. It’s all half of a bigger GOP effort to undermine Biden’s legacy by portray him as unfit for workplace, even after leaving it.
Ed Martin, pardon lawyer for the Division of Justice
Equally, President Donald Trump’s pardon lawyer for the Division of Justice, Ed Martin, is now digging into Biden’s end-of-term clemency choices, together with the mechanics of how they have been accredited.
Comer, who simply wrapped up a failed 15-month impeachment probe, even floated the concept of getting Biden testify earlier than Congress over the usage of an autopen. Regardless of MAGA’s breathless obsession, autopens are authorized, and presidents have used them for years.
The GOP has seized on a string of tales to gasoline its narrative: first, gossip that Biden’s group downplayed well being considerations throughout his reelection bid, then the announcement of his metastatic prostate most cancers analysis. Republicans instantly—and with out proof—accused his employees of orchestrating a cover-up.
Whereas Biden’s well being decline was evident throughout his chaotic ultimate debate towards Trump, there’s no public proof that others have been operating the present for him or that he couldn’t carry out the core duties of the presidency. His allies have rejected that framing outright.
However these details haven’t slowed the GOP down. In accordance with CNN, the Home Judiciary Committee can be making ready to interview David Weiss, the previous Hunter Biden particular counsel, behind closed doorways this week. And Republicans have additionally been chasing two DOJ tax prosecutors concerned within the Hunter Biden probe.
These strikes are simpler with a compliant Home and White Home, and the political advantages are apparent. The investigations feed their narrative, hold Biden within the headlines, and pull focus from GOP turmoil. Even Comer admits as a lot.
“It is a whole different environment,” he informed CNN.
In different phrases, the hunt continues.
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