EXCLUSIVE — The House Oversight Committee chairman leading investigations into President Joe Biden said his panel being stacked with “MAGA” firebrands will not undercut the seriousness of the committee’s work.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) brushed off reports that the White House was celebrating the appointment of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) to his committee, saying he talked to the newest and most outspoken members about keeping the committee on track.
“They’re all passionate about oversight,” Comer said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “And I’ve spoken with them, and I said: ‘We’ll probe and investigate lots of things, but nothing’s going on Oversight stationary unless there’s evidence to back it up.’”
HOUSE OVERSIGHT ZEROES IN ON BIDEN FINANCES IN WAKE OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pledged to reinstate Greene and Gosar to committees after both were stripped of their assignments under Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for incendiary remarks and social media postings. McCarthy also cut various deals to empower his harshest critics in the Freedom Caucus, including Boebert, in his bid to win the speaker’s gavel after 15 rounds of voting.
The White House quickly pounced on the appointment of “extreme MAGA members” to the Oversight Committee and found an opening to paint the chief panel investigating Biden as unhinged.
“Chairman [James] Comer once said his goal was to ensure the committee’s work is ‘credible,’ yet Republicans are handing the keys of Oversight to the most extreme MAGA members of the Republican caucus who promote violent rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said last week.
Comer noted he launched his investigations into Hunter Biden and Biden family influence-peddling long before the newest MAGA members were appointed to Oversight by the Steering Committee. Going forward, Comer pledged his committee will follow the evidence as it dives into the first major investigations of the Biden presidency.
“We need to make sure that anything that we put on Oversight stationary, anything that we rise to a level of a committee hearing, that we have ample evidence,” Comer added.
Just a couple of weeks into the new majority, Comer has already fired off a series of documents requests regarding President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and suspicious activity reports tied to Hunter Biden. Comer previewed to the Washington Examiner that his committee seeks to take a deep dive into Biden family finances to expose who is funding the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and who was paying thousands of dollars for Hunter Biden’s artwork through a New York exhibition.
Comer’s Oversight Committee will have 26 Republicans, with several of the 21 GOP members who withheld support for McCarthy during the speakership vote, including Boebert, Gosar, and Reps. Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, Byron Donalds, and Anna Paulina Luna. Boebert and Biggs didn’t vote for McCarthy even on the final 15th ballot and were among the six who shifted their vote to “present” to lower the threshold for McCarthy to get the gavel.
Gosar served on the Oversight panel previously but was stripped of the assignment in November 2021 for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Greene, who backed McCarthy for speaker from the start, was removed from her Education and Budget committee assignments in February 2021 for social media posts endorsing violence against prominent Democrats and touting conspiracy theories that mass school shootings were staged.
Asked about the political theater criticisms of the new GOP members, Comer pivoted. He noted the Democratic side of Oversight is filled with “members of the Squad and many of the most outspoken members of the Progressive Caucus.”
Left-wing “Squad” members Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Cori Bush (D-MO) are among the Democrats on the committee.
Comer also took a jab at former Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for his handling of the Russia collusion impeachment investigation into former President Donald Trump.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I don’t want to be like Adam Schiff,” Comer said of running his committee. “I think Adam Schiff did a lot to destroy the credibility of congressional oversight.”
McCarthy has vowed to keep several prominent Democrats off committees with his new GOP majority, including ousting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and removing Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House Intelligence Committee.
The Washington Examiner reached out to both Greene and Boebert for comment.
