Kevin McCarthy's Plan to Benghazi the Bidens
By: Amanda Carpenter (The Bulwark)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Seven years ago, when House Speaker John Boehner resigned after years of frustration over trying to corral the far-right part of his caucus, Kevin McCarthy was favored to succeed him. That is, until one night on Sean Hannity's show, McCarthy said the quiet part out loud in discussing why House Republicans had poured so much time and energy into investigating the Benghazi attack: "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping." McCarthy's fellow Republicans decried the comments and called on him to apologize. He tried to backtrack; it didn't work. Ultimately, he had to give up on his bid for the speakership.
Ironically, the brainwormed partisan mindset that cost McCarthy the gavel in 2015 is probably why he'll get it in 2023.
He faces a challenge similar to Boehner's: He needs to contain the members of the MAGA caucus, or at least distract them with some shiny object. His solution harks back to his 2015 Kinsley gaffe about the Benghazi investigation. McCarthy recently unveiled a "Commitment to America"—a knockoff of Newt Gingrich's 1994 "Contract with America"—that promises, as one of its four planks, to hold "government accountable." By that, McCarthy means investigations. And the Biden family is at the top of the list.
McCarthy's plan to Benghazi the Bidens isn't subtle. In July, he cowrote a New York Post op-ed with Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, the top Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees, titled "We'll investigate Bidens' shady business dealings when Republicans take the House in November." The placement of the op-ed was deliberate. The New York Post is where the story about Hunter Biden's laptop controversially originated.
Comer, who stands in line to take over the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee, has for many months made "Biden Family Investigation" a key focus of the minority staff of the committee. It is, he says, "a matter of national security to know if President Biden is compromised because of his son's shady business dealings with foreign adversaries." If Comer becomes chairman, he says, "We're ready to go in January."
"The Democrat Party, the Biden Administration, Big Tech, the Swamp, even Hollywood and others have done everything in their power to run cover for the Biden family," he said in a press release last month. Russian sanctions on the Biden family are, Comer claims, "evidence" of Hunter's "business schemes with our adversaries," who "see the President's son as a pressure point to exploit."
An example of the kind of investigative trails Comer intends to go down: He recently told Hannity he has "proof" that President Biden was involved in a 2017 deal to sell American natural gas to China. Prompted by Hannity about whether the president needs to be "investigated for, basically, selling out his office," Comer replied: "I think it's safe to say now that the oversight investigation of Hunter Biden is now shifting to an investigation of Joe Biden."
McCarthy, Comer, and Jordan are by no means the only high-ranking Republicans with Hunter Biden on the brain.
The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, is taking a more muted approach, but he has clearly signaled his support for making investigations of the Biden family a centerpiece of Republican politics for the remainder of the Biden administration.
McConnell's focus, for now, is a federal probe into Hunter Biden's finances that began in 2018, before Joe Biden announced his 2020 presidential candidacy, even before Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on Biden. It is bizarre that, four years later, this investigation remains unresolved—a situation McConnell is taking advantage of.
Given the lag, Republican senators are trying to raise questions about political interference in the Department of Justice and asking that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney handling the case be given special counsel authorities and protections. Last month, McConnell and 32 other Republican senators—one-third of the Senate—sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting these expanded investigative powers.
In their letter, the GOP senators list examples of supposed "politicization" by the Justice Department—ranging from COVID measures, the search of Mar-a-Lago, and "neglect" in protecting Supreme Court justices and pro-life activists from violence—and said that turning the department's extant Biden inquiry into a special counsel investigation would "go a long way in restoring faith in our governmental institutions."
Although the GOP senators concede that they have "no way of knowing the entire scope" of the investigation, they claim that "evidence seems to be mounting that Hunter Biden committed numerous federal crimes, including, but not limited to, tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations."
Based on what exactly? The Senate Republicans pointed to previous investigations by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. Those investigations' final reports were released in the fall of 2020 (here and here) and largely echoed accusations then-President Trump made about the Bidens related to Burisma—the accusations that led to Trump's first impeachment.
Like McCarthy's accidental admission about the political purpose of the Benghazi investigations, Johnson wasn't coy about the timing of his investigation of Hunter Biden, saying in an August 2020 radio interview, "I would think it would certainly help Donald Trump win re-election and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden."
If the 2023 investigations into the Bidens bomb as the 2020 investigations did, McCarthy has plenty of backup options for keeping his caucus marching in step: Investigations into the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, the immigration crisis, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the origins of the coronavirus are also on tap.
Theoretically, any of those issues could serve as the basis for an impeachment vote in a future Republican House. This might explain why Republicans like Rep. Nancy Mace say it's likely Republicans would impeach Biden if they win in November, without articulating why. For many Republicans, impeaching Biden is more about payback for the Trump impeachments than policy. As Sen. Ted Cruz put it: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."
McCarthy's biggest problem, however, isn't creating a basis for impeachment; it's giving his members something to do besides impeaching Biden. One could see a scenario in which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene calls fruitlessly for impeachment votes as often as the Tea Party called for Obamacare-repeal votes in the Boehner-Ryan House era. In fact, House Republicans have already introduced 14 resolutions to impeach Biden and members of his administration.
So, investigations it is. For McCarthy, they are both a 2022 campaign promise and what he hopes will serve as a partisan glue to keep his raucous caucus united for the 2024 elections. If impeachment follows, so be it.
One final point: The Benghazi investigation wasn't originally about Hillary Clinton's emails, just as Ken Starr's Whitewater investigation wasn't originally about Monica Lewinsky. But that's what was uncovered, and that's what the public remembers. Who wants to make predictions where an open-ended Biden investigation that already involves a crack pipe and sexts could end up?
You think Jan 6 is a show trial? Wait for the Hunter Biden inquisition.
The GOP conducted 7 or 8 investigations into Benghazi and came up with nothing they could pin on anyone.
Hillary Clinton handed them their ass in one particularly ridiculous 11 hour session.
Normal people knew the Benghazi investigations were nothing more than political smears, only the idiots believed she actually did anything wrong.
But Anyway...
Nah, Biden’s Benghazi is the Afghanistan withdrawal he botched.
Bigly!
You go girl!!!
You shouldn’t talk about your President that way .....
Ooooh ... Biden is going to be Benghazi'd. And we're supposed to be outraged?
Benghazi really did happen. Benghazi was a real screwup. And the violent death of a US ambassador during an attack really is serious business.
The entire political circus of the Benghazi special committee revolved around Hillary Clinton accepting blame and responsibility for what really did happen. Under normal circumstances a Secretary of State would consider resigning. But not Clinton; she was the anointed one to be the first woman President (if that can be said without odd pronouns).
The threat of investigation of Biden apparently is prompting Democrats to respond in the same way. It doesn't matter what really happened, Biden is not to blame. There really is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest Biden isn't blameless.
According to the politics Democrats have pursued since Obama left office, Biden would only be worried if Biden has something to hide. Democrats are as worried about what might be disclosed about Biden as they were about Clinton. Somehow it seems that all this political circus could be avoided by Biden announcing he won't run again in 2024. But, no, that would be unthinkable even if Democrats want someone else.
Yep, Ambassador Stevens and his party were warned not to go because of security concerns and he went anyway. He fucked around and found out. Want to lay blame? There it is.
Wow. Blaming the dead now. Gonna call him a loser now too?
How low can you go?
Yes, Ambassador Stevens was warned that it wasn't safe to go but I'll add this. Ambassador Chris Stevens was a member of the Chinook tribe of Oregon. He was highly respected by the people of Libya as can be seen as they mourned him. He was just known as Chris to the people because he would walk the streets and speak to the ''man on the street''....He felt that he had to go and because of his love of Libya his relationship with the people and his Chinook culture made it next to impossible not to go and that was his motivation and sadly it caused his death.
Just stating a fact.
Didn't say that, did I? He made a poor decision after he was informed that it wasn't safe. Like I said, want to point fingers, start there.
Not low enough, apparently. Buh Bye now.
I wasn't attacking his culture or anything else, all I said was his decision was a poor one.
So we can't blame Hitler for 6 million dead Jewish people?
By your logic, you would blame the dead Jewish people for being killed. It was well known that the Nazi's were violent and hated the Jews, right?
ust stating a fact
The fact is you blamed the Ambassador for being murdered.
Didn't say that, did I?
Did I say you did. What you said was bad enough. Calling him a loser seems right up your ally. Anything to protect the party, eh?
Didn't call him a loser, but I will happily call you deleted for trying to put words in my mouth.
ut I will happily call you a motherfucker for trying to put words in my mouth
Better that than a victim shamer.
[✘]
I'll make this easy... I devote this song to you...
[deleted]
"House Republicans investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, have found no new evidence to conclude that Hillary Clinton , secretary of state at the time, was culpable in the deaths of four Americans, according to the committee’s final report released on Tuesday."
House Benghazi report faults military response, not Clinton, for deaths | Benghazi attack | The Guardian
" A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the C.I.A. and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a C.I.A. rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the C.I.A. was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found."
The report did not conclude that Ms. Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people."
New Benghazi Investigation Finds No Fault in Response - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
When will Republicans get their heads out of their ass's and read their OWN parties investigation conclusions? Both on Benghazi and on the Russian investigation they continue to ignorantly call a "hoax" when it was anything but. Apparently, they're only reading the Qanon cliff notes versions of the investigations.
This country is locked in the murky mire of defeatism. It is to our whole credit as a nation that we have so much to work with, because our politics is pathetic in the 21st century! (Sigh!) When millennials get the power to do so-just "reset" congress and clean 'house' -'scrub it.' Show 'em they mean business! Of course none of that will be easily.accomplished. Those freaks and follies in D.C. will hold on for dear life as if it is their blood being drained out of them.
Well anyway, "kiddies" this is what we have to look forward to for the rest of our lives: failed congresses and 'doomed' presidencies, bar none!
Still: Keep faith and hope alive!!
You mean follow the Jan 6th committee playbook?
Hillary was never held accountable for any of her screw ups or actions. That's primarily why she lost to Trump
The Biden's won't be so unfortunate
And Trump and the GOP never did shit about it..,. god trump supporters are fucking idiots.
In any case, while the United States Washington officials sit around navel-gazing endlessly; China and the world would be wise to use their time constructively to supplant our claim to preeminence. As clearly, the U.S. is guilty as charged for its own political negligence and status "slippage" on the world stage!
No need.
We have far too many people here who keep saying stuff like "America was never great; America has always been a racist country; America isn't better than other countries; America shouldn't strive to be the best" etc.