From the Giving the Devil His Due Department, Rep. Jamie Comer is miraculously achieving something that anyone with the least, little bit of grey matter would have recently considered impossible – he’s making Rep. Tommie Massie look like Abraham Lincoln.
Now, the jury is still out and Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, looks to be staging a comeback – he skipped the speech delivered on the House floor by Volodymyr Zelensky because the Ukraine president is seeking additional U.S. aid to fight a brutal war instigated without provocation by Russia. Said Massie, “The American taxpayers have been conscripted into making welfare payments to this foreign government.”
Whatever.
For what it’s worth, yet another prominent Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, R-TedYass, also raised a middle finger to Zelensky, or he would have had he attended the president’s presentation, citing, no doubt, the expense, paying little heed to the potential costs of permitting Russia to reassert itself in the region and regain its Cold War status.
So, obviously, Comer, R-Whereverhehangshishatthesedays, is facing real competition for the heavyweight crown, and he will continue to do so as long as the good voters of Kentucky persist in dispatching knuckleheads to DC. But Comer looks to leave the competition in his wake since he is in line to assume control of the House Oversight and Reform Committee when the 118th Congress convenes next month while no one in authority gives a tinker’s damn for the other two.
Comer has notoriously sought to make a name for himself over the past few months by persecuting President Biden’s troubled son, Hunter, for his business connections in less than enviable locales like China, making reference to the “Biden crime family” while acknowledging he’s not sure if Hunter or anyone else has broken any laws, which raises obvious questions about his pose as an honest broker.
On Russia, for instance, Comer argued that President Biden may be “compromised” because a business he claimed is associated with Hunter, Rosemont Seneca Thornton. received a $3.5 million payment from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia, for consulting services rendered.
As evidence that the president is taking a lenient view of Russia because of his son’s political connections, Comer cites the case of a basketball player, Brittany Griner, who was imprisoned in Russia on a drug charge but ultimately released in exchange for an arms dealer who was in U.S. custody.
Appearing on Fox News, Comer said Republicans fear the president is compromised because of the “millions of dollars” Hunter has received from Russian sources.
“You look at just what happened yesterday, this bizarre prisoner swap that clearly was in the benefit of Russia is another example of why we need to investigate to see if, in fact, this administration is compromised,” Comer said.
Hunter’s lawyers claim the scenario painted by Comer is fiction, that the president’s son is not connected to Rosemont Seneca Thornton and that Hunter didn’t receive any part of the $3.5 million payment.
Regardless, there was nothing particularly bizarre about the prisoner exchange. And it’s very hard to argue, despite Comer’s best efforts, to assert that President Biden is taking it easy on Russia when he has led the way toward sending Ukraine $48 billion as of Nov. 30 to fight the Russians. And there’s more in the pipeline.
Wow. Just think how hard Biden would be on Russia if it weren’t for his family’s non-existent financial connections. With all due respect, it sounds like a hard sell.
But Comer’s playing with toys doesn’t end there. His solid credentials as a toady for former President Donald J. Trump go back to the beginning of that administration. When Trump lost his bid for re-election, by 7 million votes it should be noted, Comer co-signed with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH, a letter to then-House Oversight and Reform Committee chair, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, requesting that the panel “immediately convene hearings to examine the integrity of the 2020 election amid troubling reports of irregularities and improprieties.”
Of course, there were no substantial irregularities, just butterflies floating in Trump’s addled mind. But the demand further solidified Comer’s standing with the MAGA crowd and contributed to his campaign for the Oversight Committee chair when Republicans gained control of the chamber in November.
In fact, given his cascading list of Trumpian bona fides, Comer is clamoring for a spot among the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, and others on the Mt. Rushmore of creepiness. Comer does have something of an advantage over the others because he performs with a smile and a Western Kentucky drawl that some might consider endearing. It’s only when you listen to what he’s saying that you get the willies.
Now that he has a little power, our boy Jamie wants to broaden his horizons. One thing he wants to do as the committee’s head cheese is defund the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Yes, you heard that right. That other sound you hear is J. Edgar hoover whirling in his grave.
Comer maintains that documents released by Twitter establishes that the FBI somehow pressured Twitter to stay away from stories about a laptop that apparently was owned at one time by Hunter Biden, containing, at least according to Jamie, delicious details about the aforementioned Biden crime family.
The Bureau maintains it was simply urging caution, fearing Russian intervention in the 2020 election.
“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” the FBI said in a statement. “As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public.
“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency,” the statement ended.
One of those theorists, Jamie Comer, wants to shut the joint down, which would unleash incredible damage on the nation’s justice system, insisting that the Agency is “out of control.”
“We need to halt everything with the FBI, all funding until they come forward and explain to Congress exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who gave them the authority to do it,” Comer said on Fox News.
So much for law and order.
Busy as a bee, Jamie also sought to put the brakes on the $1.85 trillion omnibus spending bill still in the works. Failure to pass it would lead to a governmental shutdown sometime next week. The measure carried the full support of, among others, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
There’s something to be said about the terrible way Congress goes about its business. The chambers haven’t passed all the appropriations measures before the start of the fiscal year since Democrat Bill Clinton was president in 1994. Lawmakers usually lean on continuing resolutions and omnibus bills, which is no way to run a railroad.
But the omnibus, which covers all appropriations in one package, is preferable to an extended governmental shutdown, which Comer prefers.
The list goes on, by the way. He promises to make life hell for Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the president, over issues related to the fight against COVID-19, which he led, presumably taking the place of their broken-hearted Rand Paul, who missed the opportunity when Republicans failed to take the Senate.
And it was once thought Comer was one of the sane ones.
