Live coverage: House GOP hearing on just how old Biden is

The House Judiciary Committee, led by Republican Jim Jordan, is holding its latest hearing Tuesday to investigate President Joe Biden for … something. Anything.

This hearing features former special counsel Robert Hurt, selected by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate classified documents found at Biden’s home. In his report, Hur concluded that Biden had cooperated with officials and wasn’t subject to changes.

However, Hur also infamously included lines such as one saying that Biden presents as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." Many of Hur’s statements fed into the Biden-so-old narrative that the Republican Party—and the national media—seem determined to make the “but her emails of 2024.”

Hur reportedly left the Department of Justice recently and will be testifying as a private citizen. How this will affect his testimony is unclear.

Join Daily Kos for live coverage.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 6:38:59 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Low-energy questioning from Rep. Ben Cline that, like a lot of the moments today, is little more than just reading parts of the public report. He runs out of steam somewhere along the line without even seeming to convince himself.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 6:35:00 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Ivey asks about Moran’s scummy use of “guardianship.” 

Funny moment as Jordan interjects then claims he can’t yield, because “it’s not my time.”

Ivey: You’re speaking, but it’s not your time?

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 6:32:53 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Rep. Glenn Ivey just walking Hur through the actions that Biden took in cooperation, and how this was the “opposite” of actions taken by Trump. 

This is the part of the story all the Republicans in the room will ignore. Again.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 6:23:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

The House is now debating a bill concerning how the federal government rents office space. It sounds innocuous, but it surely contains some black hole of unfettered evil. Because with this House, it wouldn’t be getting a vote without a big dollop of ick.

After this, the House will debate a bill that provides a meaningless finger-wag of disdain for Biden's immigration policies, without doing a thing to change any of those policies. Which, honestly, seems like the perfect way to take time out from an equally meaningless hearing.

Hang in there.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 6:13:41 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

The House is now voting on bringing a couple of bills to the floor, neither of which is earth-shaking. However, there’s a pretty hefty set of items on the list of items that could be considered under suspension. So … we wait.

Moran was genuinely slimy. I foresee a future in Republican leadership.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:52:05 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Now the hearing is in a recess while the House carries out some votes. The recess will last until ten minutes after the last vote, which will be … we don’t know. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:50:48 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Rep. Nathaniel Moran is showing why he is this far down the charts because he starts off by repeating things that a half dozen Republicans have already covered. However, he shows his desire to rise up the MAGA ranks with a ridiculous contention that  Biden is “incapacitated” and talking about “guardianships” as he suggests Biden can’t manage his personal finances.

In other words, he’s being a rat bastard.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:46:47 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:45:22 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Rep. Cori Bush doesn’t bother to question Hur. Instead, she spends her minutes pointing out that this “investigation,” like the mock impeachment investigation, is a waste of time that consumes Congress’ time and is being done for no reason other than to help Trump.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:43:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Rep. Kelly Amstrong follows in the same groove already worn down by previous Republican reps — trying to equate Biden’s accidental retention of documents and his open cooperation with the government, with Trump’s deliberate retention and open hostility to attempts to retrieve documents.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:39:12 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Jordan is trying to get Hur to say that DOJ should give Congress the tapes of all the interviews conducted in his investigation. Hur says he’s not with the DOJ anymore, so no, he can’t really say. He does say audio recordings were part of the information he used to make the report, which Jordan uses to say that means Congress should have everything. So get ready for more Jordan subpoenas and more pointless hearings about the DOJ’s weaponization of information.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:32:20 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Deborah Ross, North Carolina Democrat, quips that Hur has been testifying for nearly three and a half hours, almost as long as Biden spent talking to him.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:30:20 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Lee seems to be trying to find anything at all that Biden could be charged for. It ain’t there. Hur is engaging the hypotheticals, but not giving her much.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:28:38 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

We’re down to the “who?” Republican members. Now it’s Florida’s Laurel Lee asking a question designed to allow her to repeat “elderly, well-meaning man.” Now she’s going down a weird road, befuddling Hur, on obstruction of justice. Now sure what line she’s following here. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:23:09 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Veronica Escobar, Texas Democrat, is pointing out that Trump’s documents at Mar-a-Lago were “accessible by tens of thousands of people.” Asks if Joe Biden provided access to tens of thousands of people to the documents he had. Of course that’s a no. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:21:00 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Good lord. Hageman is doing “but her emails!” Why wasn’t Hillary prosecuted. These people.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:19:12 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

They just can’t let it go. Lots of questions from Wyoming GOP member Harriet Hageman on Trump’s “condition.” She’s going for the “evil mastermind” Biden who knew he was stealing documents—he “understood” he could not keep it—Hur isn’t giving Hageman (who replaced Liz Cheney, way to go Wyoming) much help.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:14:00 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Dean is putting Trump’s indictments into the record, as well as the transcript in which Biden did remember the day his son died. Remember, Hur did not take the opportunity to correct the record.

And now Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, is once again hitting Trump’s mishandling of documents. Goes on to get Hur to answer yes or no to exculpatory conclusions for Biden.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:06:39 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley, Calif., not really scoring any points here from Hur. He won’t deviate from what’s in the report. And Kiley is doing his best to put words in Hur’s mouth. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:03:48 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Dean—she has the transcript and asks Hur to correct the record on Biden forgetting the date of his son Beau’s death. Hur won’t.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 5:01:28 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Another Democrat, Madelaine Dean, Penn., once again getting Hur to reiterate that his decision to not prosecute was based on the lack of evidence. And again  makes the contrast to Trump, asking Hur to read the words from his report about Trump’s obstruction. Hur tries to get Dean to read all of it instead, she tells him “it’s your report,” you can read it. That was helpful--straight from the horse’s mouth.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:58:18 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Jordan forgot to turn his mic on for his latest question. The single best thing Jordan has ever done, yelling into a dead mic. He’s trying to draw Hur out on impressions of Biden. Here Hur is being a little more forthcoming on the memory lapses.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:55:37 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Alabama Republican Rep. Barry Moore is going through presidential history of classified document handling. He’s going to use his time to attack special counsel Jack Smith who’s investigating Trump. Hur won’t, of course, comment. But Moore is going to use his time to smear Smith anyway.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:52:41 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

We’re back to procedure with Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colo. He’s getting Hur to reiterate that there was no interference, resistance from AG Garland and that Garland did not modify his report. Hur agrees—none of that happened.

Neguse contrasts with how AG Bil Barr handled the Mueller report against Trump. Hur agrees, the AGs did not conducted that report the same way. “I was able to conduct a fair, thorough investigation,” Hur says, not influenced by Garland.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:44:27 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

How bad is Biden’s memory? asks GOP Rep. Cliff Bentz from Oregon. At least he’s not a yeller.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:41:32 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Mary Scanlon, Democrat from Pennsylvania, again walking Hur through his conclusions and his focus in the report about Biden’s cooperation vs. Trump’s alleged obstruction.

Scanlon pointing out that plenty of witnesses don’t remember exactly details from years ago, and showing another video of Trump saying in depositions that he didn’t remember when he married Marla Maples, when he owned certain properties, etc. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:38:25 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:37:12 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Meanwhile:

“What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,” he said, naming the correct day, according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed by The Washington Post. Not a good look for Hur… https://t.co/MOR1uAAOmU

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 12, 2024

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:34:24 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

No subtlety from GOP Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, Wisc.: Is Biden senile? Hur is not going to go there. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:31:49 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Lou Correa, Calif., now up for Democrats, and again draws out Hur on the Trump/Biden contrasts in handling of classified documents. Hammering this again and again, which Jordan had to know was going to happen. He apparently thought he would have a sympathetic witness in Hur. If so, he thought wrong.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:25:28 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisc. going back to Jordan’s questions about how the White House tried to get the parts about Biden being old edited out of the document (which didn’t happen) as another opportunity to talk about how old Biden is.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:23:02 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Democrat Ted Lieu, Calif., is now up and focusing again on the contrast with Trump’s behavior---lying to investigators, trying to hide documents, etc. 

Really, what did Republicans think in calling this hearing? Did they really think no one would notice that part of the report, the part that damns Trump?

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:20:03 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Back to Jordan. “Did the White House get the report before the report went public? … Did the White House try to get the report changed?” Did the White House go over his head to AG Garland to get changes made in the report? Hur simply says they can write to whoever they want. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:16:47 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

GOP Rep. Victorial Spartz of Indiana just using her time to focus on the “sympathetic old man” language. Of course.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:14:50 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Jayapal making him repeat the words from his report that there was not sufficient evidence to convict. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:12:31 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Democrat Pramila Jayapal of Washington now up. Hur fighting with Jayapal about the use of the word “exoneration,” which she used. Notably, Jayapal is the first woman to question him, and is the only lawmaker he has talked over, interrupted, and man-splained to.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:09:48 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Bishop is being cranky that the DOJ released the transcripts. They did it too late, he says.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:07:56 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Next up, GOP Rep. Dan Bishop, NC. He seems to be trying that Biden doesn’t understand the differences between “confidential,” “secret,” “top secret” in classified information. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:05:38 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Swalwell pulls out a bit from the transcript, where Hur tells Biden he seems to have a “photographic” recall of the house—not sure of the context—and points out that was not included in the report, then includes another video compilation of Trump mangling the English language.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 4:01:34 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now up, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California. Swalwell first commends him for his immigrant story, with a dig at Republicans on immigration. Then he details the criminal indictments and allegations against Trump. Asks Hur if he would pledge to not accept another appointment from Trump if he wins again. Hur won’t.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:59:26 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Okay, Biggs is going with the “evil mastermind” narrative for Biden. They really are not on the same page here.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:56:41 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now we’ve got Freedom Caucus maniac Andy Biggs of Arizona. He’s trying to get Hur to say that while there wasn’t “willful” conduct by Biden, but sloppiness. Not sure what Biggs is trying to draw out with this. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:53:37 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Hur insists that in order to provide a complete report he had to include the partisan hit job material. Schiff is not letting it go. Schiff: “you made a choice, a political choice.”

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:52:13 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now we’ve got Rep. Adam Schiff of California, blasting Hur for including the bits about Biden’s memory. “You could have written the report just focusing on the documents, but you included the words about Biden’s memory … creating a political firestorm.” Schiff has a big poster of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago bathroom full of boxes behind him.

He’s hitting Hur hard on the gratuitous inclusion of the memory stuff, which Schiff says is “prejudicial and subjective,” and deliberately included in the report for Republicans to use.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:48:47 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Van Drew is calling Biden “cognitively impaired” but crafty in establishing his legacy. They’re not doing a very good job making their case.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:47:05 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Another Republican, Jeff Van Drew from NJ, is cherry-picking from the report to damn Biden and say his a criminal, and hitting the “well-meaning, forgetful old man,” repeatedly. Again with the double standards of justice. Hur won’t play along.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:43:49 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson, Georgia, laying out Hur’s conservative, Federalist Society credibility, as a Trump US Attorney. Pointing out that Garland appointed him as special counsel on this matter, and that Garland did not direct him in his investigation. He’s doing a good job of establishing the credibility of Garland and of Hur, establishing again---with Hur---there is no “two tiers of justice” as Republicans insist.

Now Johnson hitting Hur for including the gratuitous bits about Biden’s senility for partisanship. Hur angrily rejects that, the first response beyond the “it’s in the report” answers.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:38:23 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Here’s Raskin, the highlight of this charade so far:

Raskin: This is a memory test. It's not a memory test for President Biden. It's a memory test for all of America. Do we remember fascism? Do we remember naziism? Communism and totalitarianism? Have we forgotten sacrifices of our parents and grandparents pic.twitter.com/qVKQaKWR1F

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 12, 2024

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:36:39 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of Calif. now up. He says he’s not going to play prosecutor or make stuff up, pretending to be reasonable but also slipping in that “Biden is old” narrative. Issa trying to get Hur to say whether he thinks Biden has a history back to the Senate of mishandling info. Hur won’t. 

“In this case, did you conclude that Biden was ‘outright innocent.’” Hur again points Issa to the report.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:32:52 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Cohen chastises Gaetz for his “senile” slurs.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:32:09 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Democrat Steve Cohen, Tennessee, now up, commending Hur and the DOJ for doing its job. He’s getting Hur on the record to say that Attorney General Merrick Garland was fair and impartial in allowing Hur to conduct the investigation. Hur agrees. 

Cohen tries to get Hur to say that he didn’t decide not charge Biden because of his memory but because the evidence wasn’t there. Hur won’t go beyond what’s in the report.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:27:15 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Hur so far isn’t giving the GOP much. He’s not going beyond the report.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:25:56 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Oh joy, now it’s Rep. Matt Gaetz, competing with Jordan in the yelling. He’s trying to get Hur to say Biden lied to him. Gaetz keeps repeating the phrase “senile cooperator theory,” and “the elevators not going to the top floor” and whether Biden is being “crafty.”

So Gaetz is now saying that “old Biden” is just an act to cover up his evil-doing. Now he’s trying to say that the Chinese own the Penn Biden Center?

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:20:24 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, reiterates that the interviews occurred in the hours after the crisis in Israel and Biden cooperated and gave hours to the interview. She’s detailing the process and procedure of the investigation, establishing the thoroughness of the investigation and Hur’s conclusions.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:17:07 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Comer is trying to make a case that Biden White House employees were visiting the Penn Biden Center before classified documents were held. Hur doesn’t really help here. Comer apparently tried to make the case that Biden directed some kind of cover-up or something. Hur wouldn’t go along with him.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:14:54 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:13:06 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Comer is going on about “Biden family activities.” He’s just not going to let it go. Hur won’t speak to anything beyond what is in his report.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:10:32 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Raskin’s statement is excellent and too fast to transcribe. 

"They were looking for high crimes and misdemeanors. Now they appoint themselves amateur memory specialists."
UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:09:28 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Raskin hitting again the contrast between Trump and Biden, and making Hur reiterate his findings distinguishing the two.

Raskin is hitting GOP hard for making this a “memory test” for Biden, while the GOP is forgetting the lessons of fascism, of the world’s experience with dictators. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:06:22 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

“Pride and money,” Jordan says. Yeah, about that $1 million in book proceeds that went to charity…. 

Now Jordan’s going after the ghost-writer who tried to destroy evidence by deleting interview recordings. And about Mr. Trump? Jordan isn’t going to go there.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:03:51 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Jordan is getting shouty. “Why did he do it?” Talks about Biden’s 50 years in public services (see, he’s old!). “Joe Biden knew the rules … why did he break them?” Of course Hur couldn’t answer that. 

But Jordan reads that Biden had “strong motivation” to hold onto the documents because he was writing a book. “How much did Biden earn for writing that book? …. $8 million.” So now Biden isn’t old, he’s greedy.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 3:00:14 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now up, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, California. She points out that even President Reagan kept his presidential diaries that could have had classified info. The “Reagan precedent” applies to the notebooks Biden kept. Did Biden assert any of his documents where “personal property”? Hur says basically no. Lofgren again compares Trump—he claimed the documents were his. Then Lofgren again reads from the report, the comparison between Trump and Biden and their levels of cooperation. Again, making the point that “these cases are not the same.” Which will probably be the only story out of this fiasco of a hearing, not that it will stop the GOP.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:55:46 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Republicans are going to have a hard time making the argument that the Trump prosecution is unfair and politically motivated by the Biden administration with the actual report. Which lays out all the stuff that Trump did.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:54:22 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Reporters are going through the transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur. Look at what a monster we have for a president:

President Biden testified to Hur that he doesn't even own individual stocks and gave $1 million in book proceeds to charity pic.twitter.com/xGOM9L47xB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2024

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:52:46 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now we’ve got Rep. Tom McClintock being outraged that Biden had classified documents in his garage. He’s equating Trump’s mishandling with Biden’s and saying that it’s a double standard. “The only person being prosecuted for this offense is a political rival of the president.”

Hur says he laid out the contrast in his report and he’s not going to go beyond what was included here.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:50:22 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Nadler continues with the Trump comparison. Did Biden lie or direct his staff to lie? No. Did he attempt to hide documents or get his staff to do it? No. 

“Donald Trump is charged” with his mishandling of documents, and “President Biden is not being charged” because Hur could not prove he committed a crime.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:48:05 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Nadler is up with his questions. Points out that Hur did not find evidence that rose to the level of prosecution. “You can’t be a ‘little bit’ charged for a crime. You’re charged or you’re not.” Hur admits that yes, there was not enough to charge him.

Now Nadler turns to the comparison with Trump---Biden “quickly and voluntarily” returned the documents when made aware of them, and the DOJ had to get a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:43:53 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Armstrong is pushing really hard to try to get Hur to say Biden is a criminal.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:42:56 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:41:44 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rep. Kelly Armstrong from North Dakota detailing all the places they found documents and calls Biden the “defendant” and also keeps talking about the “crime.” Biden is not a defendant, by the way. Because this guy that they’re interviewing, the DOJ special counsel, said "We did not, however, identify evidence that rose to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:38:15 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Hur is getting into the “old” bit, the president’s state of mind, memory, mental state, and how a jury would consider all that if he brought charges. Hur hitting Biden for saying “he didn’t remember” the discussion with his ghost-wirter, having the classifed documents. Said he had to put in those concerns about Biden’s mental acuity to explain why he was not bringing charges.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:35:58 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Explains the evidence that Biden willfully held classified documents, including tapes of discussions with his ghost-writer about how he discovered the documents in his home. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:33:42 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Robert Hur is up for his opening statement. Starts with his resume, speaking about how is family immigrated from Korea and his love for the country. Says he has done his job with complete impartiality.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:31:16 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

“Given that this report is so damning” against Trump, Raskin says, it’s hard to see what Jordan and team think they’ll get out of this to hurt Biden.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:30:02 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin is up. He’s making a good point that the five hour interview Biden gave Hur came the day after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, that he was multi-tasking. And again, reads directly from the Hur report contrasting Trump’s conduct with Biden’s.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:27:37 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The DOJ has released the transcript of the interview. That’s pretty much all from Comer that matters.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:25:46 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now up is Rep. James Comer, chair of the other impeaching committee—Oversight. Who knows what conspiracy theories he’s going to cook up with a microphone in front of him. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:23:17 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Ooooh, Nadler brings his own video. A montage of Trump saying he doesn’t remember people from his administration, how long he was married to Marla Maples, thinking he beat Obama and the total nonsense he spouts at his rallies.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:20:35 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Nadler continues: “Biden had the mental acuity to navigate this situation. Donald Trump did not.”

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:19:14 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Ranking member Rep. Jerry Nadler, New York, follows with his opening statement, pointing immediately to the part of the report that was particularly damning for Donald Trump--the comparison between how Biden and Trumped handled classified information. He’s reading the extensive section from the report talking about how Trump kept records in his bathroom. Expect Democrats to hammer on that. 

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:16:55 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

This is why Jordan is showing the clip—Biden saying “Mexico” when he meant “Egypt,” never mind that the rest of the statement was cogent substantive.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:14:09 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Not sure that showing this clip does Jordan a lot of good, since Biden answered questions pretty well there, was sharp. What it does show is the feeding frenzy of the press corps on that one sentence in Hur’s report, the “elderly man with a poor memory.”

UPDATE: Tuesday, Mar 12, 2024 · 2:11:21 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Chairman Jim Jordan jumps right in with the “old” bit from Robert Hur’s report. Is now showing a clip of President Biden’s press conference following the release of the report, handling questions from the press asking about his age and possible senility. 

House GOP prepares to embarrass itself with more Biden impeachment nonsense

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan has grasped at every straw in his quest to avenge Donald Trump and impeach President Joe Biden, including the one straw held out to him by an alleged Russian mole. That having blown up embarrassingly in his face, Jordan appears to be leading his committee into another fiasco.

Jordan’s latest effort is his investigation into just how old Biden is, with a hearing Tuesday. His star witness is special counsel Robert Hur, the Department of Justice official who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents and found that no criminal charges were warranted. Hur did, however, throw in some gratuitous hits on Biden’s age in his report, which legal experts have called “a partisan hit job.”

Hur probably won’t deliver what Jordant wants, according to sources involved with preparing Hur’s testimony who spoke with the Wall Street Journal. Hur is “intent on turning down the political temperature surrounding his report,” the Journal reports, and to try to explain why he included the extraneous bits about Biden’s memory. Those details, Hur is expected to say, “were necessary to explain his team’s decision that charges weren’t justified.”

That’s problem No. 1 for Jordan. Problem No. 2 is that Biden himself blew the “Biden is too old” narrative clear out of the water with last week’s State of the Union address. Biden adeptly scrapped with Republican hecklers, forcefully laid out his agenda and earned news reports declaring him aggressive, energetic, fiery, feisty, and forceful. Biden’s speech didn’t just wow the pundits—it seems to have impressed voters. Public opinion soared in quick polls conducted after the speech.

That’s going to make arguing that this man is too doddery and feeble to be trusted with the nation’s security a little tough for Jordan and team. It also gives Democrats on the committee a chance to swing for the fences on Donald Trump’s fitness to lead, particularly his alleged classified documents crimes. 

Because what Republicans tended to ignore in Hur’s report was the part where he compared Trump’s and Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur pointed out that “after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” and that Trump “not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.” 

On the other hand, Hur wrote, “Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.” You can be sure that the Democrats on the committee are going to be teasing out every detail of that comparison, putting Hur on the record against Trump. 

Thus Jordan’s star witness is shaping up to be a hostile one, the whole premise of the hearing has fallen apart, and he’s opening up the congressional record for more official testimony from a representative of the Department of Justice about Trump’s abuse of power. This might just be fun.

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Hunter Biden appears for deposition

Hunter Biden appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill for a closed-door deposition with lawmakers, a critical moment for Republicans as their impeachment inquiry into his father and the family's business affairs teeters on the brink of collapse.

“I am here today to provide the committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business,” Hunter Biden said in an opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

The deposition could mark a decisive point for the 14-month Republican investigation into the Biden family, which has centered on Hunter Biden and his overseas work for clients in Ukraine, China, Romania and other countries. Republicans have long questioned whether those business dealings involved corruption and influence peddling by President Joe Biden, particularly when he was vice president.

Yet after conducting dozens of interviews and obtaining more than 100,000 pages of documents, Republicans have yet to produce direct evidence of misconduct by the president. Meanwhile, an FBI informant who alleged a bribery scheme involving the Bidens — a claim Republicans had cited repeatedly to justify their probe — is facing charges from federal prosecutors who accuse him of fabricating the story.

Despite the stakes of their investigation, it remains unclear how much useful information Republicans will be able to extract from Hunter Biden during the deposition. He is under federal investigation and has been indicted on nine federal tax charges and a firearm charge in Delaware, which means he could refuse to answer some questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment rights.

The task of interviewing Hunter falls primarily to Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, the GOP chairmen leading the impeachment investigation. They first subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November, demanding that he appear before lawmakers in a private setting. Biden and his attorneys refused, warning that his testimony could be selectively leaked and manipulated. They insisted that Hunter Biden would only testify in public.

On the day of the subpoena, Hunter Biden not only snubbed lawmakers waiting for him in a hearing room — he did also while appearing right outside the Capitol, holding a press conference where he denounced the investigation into his family.

Both sides ultimately agreed in January to a private deposition with a set of conditions. The interview with Hunter Biden will not be filmed and Republicans have agreed to quickly release the transcript.

“Our committees have the opportunity to depose Hunter Biden, a key witness in our impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, about this record of evidence,” Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “This deposition is not the conclusion of the impeachment inquiry. There are more subpoenas and witness interviews to come.”

Hunter will be the second member of the Biden family questioned by Republicans in recent days. They conducted a more than eight-hour interview last week with James Biden, the president's brother. He insisted to lawmakers that Joe Biden has “never had any involvement," financially or otherwise, in his business ventures.

Looming large over the interview are developments on the other side of the country in Nevada, where federal prosecutors this month indicted an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who claimed there was a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the president, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company. Prosecutors in court documents assert that Smirnov has had “extensive and extremely recent" contact with people who are aligned with Russian intelligence.

Smirnov's attorneys have said he is presumed innocent.

Republicans pressed the FBI last summer over the informant's claims, demanding to see the underlying documents and ultimately releasing the unverified information to the public. The claim was cited repeatedly in letters that House Republicans sent to impeachment witnesses.

Many GOP lawmakers say they have yet to see evidence of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required for impeachment, despite alleged efforts by members of the Biden family to leverage the last name into corporate paydays domestically and abroad.

But the Republican chairmen leading the impeachment effort remain undeterred by the series of setbacks to their marquee investigation. Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said last week that the informant's indictment “does not change the fundamental facts” that the Biden family tried to benefit off the family name in several overseas businesses.

And Comer told Fox News on Tuesday that Smirnov was never “a key part of this investigation."

Both Comer and Jordan have insisted for the past year that their investigation and inquiry is focused solely on Joe Biden and what actions, if any, he took while as vice president or president to benefit his family. But at nearly every turn, their probe has had a consistent and heavy focus on Hunter Biden. Several lines of inquiry have been opened into Hunter's international business affairs, his artwork sales and even his personal life and on-and-off battle with addiction.

Meanwhile, Hunter Biden has no shortage of legal headaches off Capitol Hill as he faces criminal charges in two states from a special counsel investigation. He’s charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. Special counsel David Weiss filed additional charges late last year, alleging he failed to pay about $1.4 million in taxes over three years.

He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

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GOP continues bogus ‘investigation’ after star witness turns out to be Russian mole

On Wednesday, the Republican-led House of Representatives impeachment inquiry will question James Biden behind closed doors on the very critical matter of how he repaid a loan to his brother. Banking records have already revealed that there is absolutely nothing to find in this investigation. Joe Biden loaned his brother James $200,000. Two months later, James paid him back. Neither did one thing wrong.

This hearing is a perfect example of why everyone called before this inquiry should demand to testify publicly. Not only has House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer accused both the president and Democrats in Congress of lying about the loan, even though Comer already had all the evidence in hand to show everything was accurate and above board, but Democrats are being denied their rightful opportunity to rub Republican noses in the ugly collapse of every piece of “evidence” behind this so-called investigation.

In the last few days, the FBI form that Republicans demanded to see, then released themselves after threatening to hold the FBI director in contempt, turns out to be the product of a Russian mole who was fed false information by Russian agents. Meanwhile, a picture of “cocaine” that was included in a court filing in charges against Hunter Biden turns out to be an image of sawdust. 

The only real questions that remain in this investigation are: How much did James Comer, Jim Jordan, and Chuck Grassley know, and when did they know it?

As Spiderman might say, let’s do this one last time

In 2019, Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine on orders from Donald Trump and came back with a story. That story was so ludicrous that everyone passed on it, including Fox News. But there was one place where Giuliani could still get this mess published: The New York Times

According to that story, Joe Biden went to Ukraine and demanded the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin because Shokin was investigating Burisma, the energy company where Hunter Biden served on the board. Biden allegedly threatened to withhold U.S. aid from Ukraine until Shokin was canned so Hunter could continue to collect his paycheck, and this oh-so-good prosecutor was unjustly fired.

The Times ran the story verbatim, without seeming to do anything like check Giuliani’s sources or look at public records. However, within a few days, Bloomberg dispatched a reporter to Ukraine to check on what Giuliani was selling, and sure enough, it was all bullshit.

Not only had Shokin not been investigating Burisma, he was so notoriously corrupt that officials in both the U.S. and the U.K. called for his removal for years. Biden didn’t start the push to remove Shokin, and he didn’t act alone. Everything that happened in Ukraine was very public, and European officials celebrated when Shokin was finally sacked. 

There was no story. There never had been a story. But that didn’t stop Republicans from continuing to repeat Giuliani’s fairytale.

Then a miracle happened. Republicans learned that the FBI had been given a tip about this subject, one that resulted in an FD-1023 form that seemed to back up everything Giuliani had said in 2019. Over objections from the FBI, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Jim Jordan demanded the form. Then Grassley and Comer released the form to the public, and it became the beating heart of the Republican “impeachment investigation.”

And the form was perfect. Referring to Joe Biden as the “big guy” was in there. A claim that Hunter Biden was hired to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems” was right on the front page. The “17 recordings” of phone calls that supposedly included Joe Biden getting directly involved with his son’s business came from this form. Best of all, it included the claim that a Burisma executive complained about how "it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.” 

The form was everything. The absolute proof that Republicans wanted.

Except, of course, everything in it completely contradicted years of public records and statements from those involved. Republicans didn’t let that bother them. Comer defended this form repeatedly, calling Democrats who challenged its contents liars. Grassley declared the importance of those recordings mentioned in the form, even while admitting they might not exist. Jim Jordan practically quoted the form in his questioning of Devon Archer, and then lied about Archer’s testimony when it failed to match up.

Then last Thursday, Alexander Smirnov, the man behind that FD-1023, was charged with lying to the FBI and creating false records. According to CNN, Smirnov has informed investigators that he has “‘extensive and extremely recent’ contacts” with Russian spies. And in an interview after his arrest, Smirnov admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1.”

“Businessperson 1” is Hunter Biden.

So, Republicans have not only spent the last year pressing an investigation of the president’s son largely instigated by a document that turns out to have been tailor-made for them by Russian intelligence, they opened an impeachment inquiry with a Russian agent as the “heart” of their investigation

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) on the indictment of ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov for lying about the Biden family: “It doesn’t change the fundamental facts.” Reporter: “Doesn’t change the facts? It does change the facts, because they’re no longer facts.” pic.twitter.com/M8Y2GtSci9

— The Recount (@therecount) February 21, 2024

The answer to why the FBI was so reluctant to release the document is simple: They don’t release unfounded accusations (unless they come from James Comey or Robert Hur, of course). And that ongoing investigation that had Republicans so excited was the investigation of Smirnov, not Hunter Biden. 

All of this was a lie, and Republicans knew it. Just ask one of the men who toured Giuliani around Ukraine in the first place. 

The FBI had my communications with the CEO of Burisma since my arrest in 2019. The GOP received my communications with the CEO of Burisma during the first Trump impeachment in 2020. They all knew that the 1023 from Alexander Smirnov was a lie. Why did they continue this farce…

— Lev Parnas (@levparnas) February 21, 2024

Republicans are plowing on, keeping up the pretense that this source they made such a big deal about for so long was just “ancillary” to their investigation into what they love to call “the Biden crime family.” They have other evidence, dammit. Like how Joe Biden once loaned his son some money for a truck

But in the last day, another part of the investigation into Hunter Biden has crumbled into dust. As in sawdust. 

Federal prosecutors mistakenly claimed in a court filing that a photo of sawdust they found while searching Hunter Biden's electronics was cocaine, attorneys for the president's son said Tuesday.

How anyone could have ever thought that this material, which was tan in color and sitting on a table saw, was anything other than sawdust is astounding. But a picture of any kind of dust seemed to be convincing to Sean Hannity, so Fox News audiences aren’t likely to be threatened by the truth. (This also raises questions about just what Hannity has been putting up his nose.)

A Russian agent. A fake document. A pile of sawdust. That’s what Republicans have to show for their big investigation.

It would be really great to hear what’s happening behind those closed doors today. Democrats should be having fun.

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House GOP to launch critical investigation into just how old Biden is

Who could have predicted that House Republicans would use special counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s document handling for their political purposes? Hur found that while Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” there was not enough evidence to “establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

In the absence of actionable malfeasance on the document handling, Hur—a former United States attorney in Maryland, appointed by Donald Trump—did the next best thing he could for his Republican pals: the gratuitous hits on Biden’s age.

Enter three House committee chairs and a new avenue of investigation: Biden’s fitness as president. Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland Monday evening demanding both a transcript and any video recordings of Biden’s interview, with a Feb. 19 deadline for a response.

Axios reports that the Republicans are planning hearings starring Hur in which they will focus on Biden’s mental acuity, the national security implications of his document handling (to give “investigations” the gloss of legitimacy), and his fitness to lead. “Someone might ask him if Biden is unfit to lead,” a leadership source told Axios. “Give him a chance to frame it.”

Might? They “might” ask Hur about Biden’s fitness? They “might” take this chance to exploit Biden’s age, his biggest political liability with voters, and run with it? They absolutely will give Hur a microphone and put him in front of cameras and the traditional media will absolutely eat it up.

While Republicans are at it, Axios reports, they plan to go after Garland and how the Justice Department conducted the investigation. Call it Comer and Jordan’s revenge for the fact that they haven’t been able to get anything implicating Biden and his son Hunter from the Department of Justice for their sham impeachment.

Jordan and Comer have the blessing of their leadership to do this. Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, GOP Whip Tom Emmer, and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik released a statement last week calling Hur’s remarks on Biden’s age some of the “most disturbing parts” of the report. “A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” they said. 

You might think that those four would have more pressing stuff to deal with, like the fact that there’s another government shutdown looming in a few weeks. Or maybe figuring out how to clean up the horrible messes Johnson has created with his inept leadership. Or just doing anything that would benefit the American people. 

Actually, you probably wouldn’t think that. Why would they change course now?

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Democrats are blowing up House GOP efforts to take down Biden

By now, anyone tuning into a House Oversight Committee or House Judiciary Committee hearing knows what to expect. With frequent slams of the gavel by their respective chairs, Republicans plod through repetitive attacks on President Joe Biden or waggle their fingers about some salacious claim including the phrase “Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Democrats try to object and occasionally insert a fact. But the next Republican is at the mic five minutes later, once again hammering the same lies.

At least that’s how it used to be. But anyone who has tuned in recently may have noticed a big change.

Democrats aren’t just tearing Republican arguments apart: They’re derailing hearings and getting their opponents genuinely flustered. The recent hearing in which Republicans intended to charge Hunter Biden with contempt for declining to testify behind closed doors is a good example. Not only did Hunter make a brief personal appearance and offer to testify right then and there in public, but Democrats were able to consistently throw Republicans off their game, blow away false evidence, expose their hypocrisy, and even hammer Donald Trump.

If all that seemed like it took a lot of behind-the-scenes planning, it did. But it won’t be the last time. Because as The Daily Beast reports, Democrats have a plan to make these hearings just as silly as the claims Republicans are making about Biden.

As soon as they gained control of the House in 2023, Republicans launched a series of supposed investigations into President Biden. And his children. And his brother. And anyone else they can lump in to the “Biden Family Investigation.”

For months, Rep. James Comer, who is heading up investigations in the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, who has the same role for the House Judiciary Committee, have been releasing false claims and mischaracterizing innocuous issues like a father loaning his son money for a car payment. But Republicans didn’t let having zero evidence stop them from announcing an impeachment inquiry in December.

The investigations have a clear goal: to reduce Biden’s chances of reelection and to signal to Trump that they’re trying to get revenge for his two impeachments. Republicans likely feel like these endless investigations worked well for them before the 2016 elections, when they spent two full years hectoring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Benghazi.

But this time around, the whole thing, whether it’s Republicans badgering an art dealer who sold some of Hunter’s paintings, a disappearing informant, or flashing revenge porn on the floor of the House, has been ridiculous from start to finish. The House GOP has been on a year-long fishing expedition featuring a level of obsession that would embarrass Captain Ahab, and they haven’t even found a minnow.

As Republicans ramped up the Biden attacks, Democrats responded. Rep. Jamie Raskin put together a “Truth Squad” that includes Reps. Greg Casar, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Daniel Goldman, and Jared Moskowitz. If some of those names sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been front and center in disrupting Republican plans.

It was Crockett who forcefully kicked off a confrontation with Rep. Nancy Mace who, on a committee where every Republican member is white, accused Hunter Biden and Democrats of engaging in “white privilege.” Crockett forced Mace to try and defend her indefensible remarks, and then Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the gate closed by pointing out how Mace voted to eliminate the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights.

As The Daily Beast article highlights, Moskowitz was on hand with a poster showing a chummy photo of Trump and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein when it seemed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was going to once again show nude pictures of Hunter Biden. “You come up here and talk about Hunter Biden’s behavior and you’re so disgusted,” said Moskowitz, “but the guy that you all kneel to associates himself with a pedophile.”

Those quick responses, along with Hunter Biden staring down Republicans from the visitor section, became the most viral moments from the hearing. Put together with sharp responses from other Democrats who refused to play Comer’s game, Republicans were left looking like this:

MAGAt House hearing. A picture is worth 1 MILLION words. EVERY hearing Comer has had, has been a disaster. Hunter Biden showed up at the hearing and spooked the MAGAts. Then they got a tongue lashing from @RepRaskin @RepJaredMoskowitz @RepJasmine Comer knew it was a disaster! pic.twitter.com/mRSCu5am0j

— Charm | DEMOCRATS deliver & NO CHAOS! 🇯🇲 💙🌊 (@CharmRobinson3) January 10, 2024

The best thing to come from all this is that Raskin and the Democrats have been joined by a new set of critics attacking Comer and his pointless investigation. As Kerry Eleveld reported earlier, Republicans are none too happy that this absurd “investigation” has gone on so long and come up so dry.

“James Comer continues to embarrass himself and House Republicans. He screws up over and over and over," said a source identified as "close" to House GOP leadership, who appeared to be playing CYA for the leadership team. The source's big fear was that Comer would ultimately fail to provide the foundation necessary (i.e. evidence) to follow through with impeaching Biden.

These anonymous Republicans don’t seem to be seriously considering that maybe Comer is failing not because he’s incompetent (or at least, not only because he’s incompetent) but because Joe Biden did nothing wrong. But then, they are Republicans. They’re used to having leaders whose closets are jam-packed with skeletons.

Republicans are trying to repeat their perceived success with Benghazi, but this time Democrats know the game and they have a plan to disrupt it. That plan isn’t necessarily convincing Republicans that Biden did nothing wrong, but it sure is making these hearings more fun to watch.

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New report shows Mike Johnson’s role as pivotal ‘architect’ of 2020 election denial efforts in House

Mild-mannered House Speaker “MAGA” Mike Johnson is not a headline-seeking showboater when it comes to election denialism. Instead, he largely avoided attention as he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. And now he’ll be holding the gavel when the House reconvenes on Tuesday with one of its main priorities being continuing the baseless impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.

You won’t find Johnson engaging in over-the-top provocative actions, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did when she posed with QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley during a December meeting in Arizona of Turning Point USA, a right-wing youth group. And on Jan. 6, 2021, Johnson avoided direct involvement in the “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House that ended in the attack on the Capitol. But he did play a key role in providing the legal fig leaf that enabled 147 Republican lawmakers—139 House members and eight senators—to vote against approving the Electoral College count and Joe Biden’s victory.

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Johnson was not among the six Republican lawmakers—including current House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio and Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona—who were subpoenaed to appear before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.  Johnson received just one passing mention in the committee’s final report, Politico reported.

But a report released last week by the Congressional Integrity Project to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection highlighted Johnson’s role as “congressional architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, advocating an interpretation of the Constitution so outlandish that not even the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority could swallow it,” reported the Brennan Center for Justice.

Politico wrote:

A relatively junior House Republican at the time, Johnson was nevertheless the leading voice in support of a fateful position: that the GOP should rally around Donald Trump and object to counting electoral votes submitted by at least a handful of states won by Joe Biden.

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was the most prominent public face of the congressional effort to fight the results of the 2020 election, his mentee, the newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson, was a silent but pivotal partner.
So let’s take a closer look at Johnson’s record as a propagator of the Big Lie, because it exposes the danger of what might happen if there is another close presidential election and the GOP retains control of the House with Johnson as speaker.

“You don’t want people who falsely claim the last election was stolen to be in a position of deciding who won the next one,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The Associated Press.

“Johnson is more dangerous because he wrapped up his attempt to subvert the election outcomes in lawyerly and technical language,” Hasen said.

Before being elected to Congress in 2016, Johnson, a constitutional law attorney, served as senior legal counsel from 2002-2010 for the Alliance Defense Fund (now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom), a Christian conservative legal advocacy group that opposes abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Johnson himself wrote opinion pieces against marriage equality and endorsing briefs filed by the ADF meant to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults, Rolling Stone reported. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the ADF as a hate group in 2016.

So it was no surprise that Johnson sent out this tweet on Nov. 7, 2020, when media outlets largely called the race for Biden:

I have just called President Trump to say this: "Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans' trust in the fairness of our election system."

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) November 7, 2020

Two days later, Johnson sent out another tweet indicating that he was in regular contact with Trump:

President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted. Fair elections are worth fighting for!

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) November 9, 2020

Politico wrote that in an interview with a Louisiana-based radio host on Nov. 9, Johnson added details on his call with Trump and made clear that “they already had their eye on a Supreme Court showdown.” Johnson said he thought “there’s at least five justices on the court that will do the right thing.”

Then on Nov. 17, Johnson repeated the debunked claim put forth by Trump lawyers that there was an international conspiracy to hack Dominion voting machines so Trump would lose the election, The Associated Press reported. The AP quoted Johnson as saying:

“In every election in American history, there’s some small element of fraud, irregularity,” Johnson said in the interview. “But when you have it on a broad scale, when you have a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, when you have testimonials of people like this, it demands to be litigated.”

As more states moved to confirm their election results, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a hail-Mary lawsuit in early December asking the Supreme Court to reject the election results in four states carried by Biden—Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—on the basis that those states introduced pandemic-related changes to election procedures that were illegal.

In Congress, Johnson, who had served on Trump’s first impeachment defense team in early 2020, helped lead the effort to get 126 Republican lawmakers to sign an amicus brief supporting the Texas lawsuit. Johnson tweeted:

President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress. Indeed, "this is the big one!" https://t.co/eV1aoNlpvq

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) December 9, 2020

Then on Dec. 11, in a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit. On Dec. 14, the electoral college members met in their states to cast their ballots for president. That same day Johnson said in a radio interview that Congress still had the final say on whether to accept Biden’s electors on Jan. 6, 2021, Politico reported.

On Jan. 5, Johnson met with fellow GOP House members in a closed-door meeting to discuss what they should do in Congress the next day.

Politico wrote:

”This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually,” Johnson said at the meeting, according to a record of his comments obtained by POLITICO, before urging his fellow Republicans to join him in opposing the results.

On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, just hours before the mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, Johnson tweeted:

Rep. Mike Johnson, Jan. 6, 2021: “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic!  It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.” pic.twitter.com/4gTYgv3Pc8

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) October 25, 2023

After the mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, Johnson condemned the violence, according to The New York Times, but he defended the actions of Republican lawmakers to object to Biden’s victory. And when Congress reconvened, more than half of the House GOP caucus supported objections to Biden’s victory.

In an October 2022 report published weeks before the midterm election, The New York Times emphasized Johnson’s role in the vote:

In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.

On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, he presented colleagues with what he called a “third option.” He faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, without supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters. His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case. …

Even lawmakers who had been among the noisiest “stop the steal” firebrands took refuge in Mr. Johnson’s narrow and lawyerly claims, though his nuanced argument was lost on the mob storming the Capitol, and over time it was the vision of the rioters — that a Democratic conspiracy had defrauded America — that prevailed in many Republican circles.

Johnson has not wavered from his position that he and other House GOP members had been right to object to the election results. 

In its report, the Congressional Integrity Project noted that Johnson had voted against creating a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, calling it “a third impeachment.” He also voted against holding former White House adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 select committee.

And just months before the House GOP caucus voted unanimously in October to install Johnson as speaker, he gave oxygen to the baseless conspiracy theory held by right-wing Republicans that federal agents orchestrated the Jan. 6 insurrection. He alleged that FBI Director Christopher Wray was “hiding something” about the FBI’s presence in the Capitol on Jan. 6, the Congressional Integrity Project reported.

In November, Johnson fulfilled a promise he made to far-right members of the House GOP caucus in order to secure the speaker’s post when he announced plans to publicly release thousands of hours of security camera video footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, blurring the faces of individual protesters. Earlier last year, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson used selectively edited security camera footage to make the claim that Jan. 6 was largely a peaceful protest and the demonstrators were “not insurrectionists, they were sightseers.”

In its report, the Congressional Integrity Project said one of the biggest dangers is that the attempted Jan. 6, 2021 coup never ended because Johnson and the same Trump allies behind that insurrection are now fully behind the sham Biden impeachment effort.

These Republicans include Johnson, Jordan, Comer, and such firebrands as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, the report said.

With the report, Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, issued a statement that read:

“The same MAGA Republicans who led Donald Trump’s deadly insurrection and attempt to overthrow an election he knew he lost, are the same ones pushing the bogus impeachment of President Biden. MAGA Republicans are a threat to all Americans and our democracy. They will stop at nothing to pursue their radical, out-of-touch agenda, including violence. All of their actions on behalf of the disgraced former president in an attempt to distract from his 91 criminal indictments and help him return to the White House in 2024—and they don’t care who stands in their way.”

RELATED STORY: House GOP kicks off a new year of dysfunction with another impeachment

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Ex-prosecutor on Hunter Biden case says GOP falsehoods have led to threats

Lesley Wolf worked in relative obscurity for nearly 16 years as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, but now the former federal prosecutor says she’s been threatened and harassed after Republicans falsely accused her of going easy on Hunter Biden.

In her prepared opening statement, released to the media, for a closed-door deposition demanded by House Republicans as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Wolf said:

“My desire to serve my community and my country, such a great source of pride, has recently come at significant cost. As a private person, the once routine and mundane details of my life have become the subject of public interest in an invasive and disturbing manner. Far worse, I have been threatened and harassed, causing me to fear for my own and my family’s safety.”

Her deposition on Thursday came a day after the House, on a party-line vote, formalized the Republican majority’s impeachment inquiry even though they haven’t found any evidence that the president benefited from his family’s foreign business dealings or accepted bribes.

Wolf joins the growing list of prosecutors, judges, obscure government officials, election workers, and others who have been targeted and harassed after incurring the wrath of former President Donald Trump and his minions—for merely doing their jobs.

On Friday, a federal jury in Washington awarded $148 million in damages to two former election workers in Georgia—Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss—for the harm caused to them by defamatory statements made against them by disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani following the 2020 election. 

Wolf’s problems arose simply because she happened to work for Delaware U.S. District Attorney David C. Weiss, a Donald Trump appointee, who first began investigating Hunter Biden’s financial dealings in late 2018. President Biden retained Weiss in his post so that he could continue the investigation of his son.

Wolf was part of the team that initially worked out a plea deal with Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges this summer. Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time. He also agreed to terms to avoid prosecution on a felony charge alleging that he falsely asserted that he was sober when he bought a handgun in 2018.

But the plea deal collapsed due to differences over the scope of immunity that Hunter Biden would have received from future investigations. In August, Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to special counsel status in the investigation. In September, Weiss’ office indicted Hunter Biden on three felony counts for allegedly illegally purchasing the handgun.

Then, earlier this month, Weiss obtained an indictment from a federal grand jury in California, charging Hunter Biden with nine tax-related criminal charges, including three felony counts. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said his client would not have been indicted if his surname were not Biden.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. And there was nothing in either indictment related to his father.

The president’s son declined to appear for a closed-door deposition in the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, holding a press conference outside the Capitol at which he said he would only testify in public—so Republicans couldn’t selectively leak excerpts from his testimony. House Republicans have threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee—who himself refused a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 select committee—and other MAGA Republicans still feel that the DOJ has gone easy on Hunter Biden.

HuffPost:

Whistleblowers from the IRS’ criminal division claimed in congressional testimony this year that Wolf blocked them from pursuing certain search warrants and generally disagreed with their plans to be more aggressive in investigating the Biden family.

“She limited what they could do in their investigation,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the leaders of the impeachment effort, said on Fox News in June, shortly before requesting a transcribed interview with Wolf and other officials. Jordan subsequently sent Wolf a subpoena.

On Thursday, Wolf joined the ranks of other Justice Department officials who’ve said that politics had nothing to do with their decisions in the Hunter Biden case.

After the hearing, Jordan complained to reporters that Wolf had refused to answer most of the questions she was asked during the deposition., NBC News reported.

But in her prepared opening statement, Wolf broadly defended her work and said she was bound by DOJ policies not to discuss an ongoing investigation.

“At all times while serving as an AUSA, I acted consistently with the Justice Manual, DOJ policy directives, and my statutory/legal and ethical obligations. I followed the facts where they led, and made decisions in the best interests of the investigation. This includes, but is by no means limited to, policies and rules governing politically sensitive investigations, election year sensitivities, attorney search warrants, search warrant filter requirements, and professional conduct rules barring contact with represented parties.”

Wolf also revealed that she had recently left her post as a federal prosecutor, but said her decision “was long pre-dated and was unconnected to the baseless allegations against me.” She said she “agreed to stay with the office months longer than planned because of my belief that my family and I were safer when I remained an AUSA.”

Fox News did not mention this in its online story, nor did that story mention the threats Wolf said she has received as a result of the allegations against her. Instead, its story was headlined: “Jordan says former prosecutor who allegedly scuttled Hunter investigation 'refused' to answer questions.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat, attended the deposition and said that Republicans kept asking Wolf about the Hunter Biden case during the four-hour-plus deposition. Huffpost reported:

“They kept showing her documents and things that they knew that she couldn’t comment on, asking her questions about the ongoing investigation, even though they knew she couldn’t comment on it,” Ivey said in an interview with the outlet.

Ivey does not believe that Republicans deliberately incited harassment against Wolf, but he said it was “irresponsible” for lawmakers to be putting people’s names out in the public to the extent that they have.

“They know at this point that when they put people’s names out there and connect them in these types of investigations, and make suggestions about them being involved in cover-ups and things like that, they know that this is going to be a consequence of that,” Ivey said.

RELATED STORY: Right-wing terrorism fueled by Trump doesn't only focus on Democrats

Weiss voluntarily agreed to respond to the subpoena. She concluded her opening statement by observing all too accurately:

“I have no doubt that after today the threats and harassment and my own fear stemming from them will heighten exponentially. This not only scares me, but as someone who loves this country, it also breaks my heart.  We are living in a day and age where politics and winning seem to be paramount and the truth has become collateral damage.”