White House warns of upcoming conspiracy theory-based investigations from House GOP
By: Oliver Willis (The American Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Oliver Willis - November 18, 2022 9:47 AM233
House Republicans have a history of promoting conspiracy theories against Democratic presidents.
The White House said on Thursday that President Joe Biden will not be distracted by politicized investigations initiated by the incoming Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans won enough seats in the 2022 midterm elections to secure a small majority in the House of Representatives next year, and they have immediately said that they will initiate a series of investigations into Biden based on conspiracy theories.
In a statement to CNN published on Thursday, Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel's office, said, "President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on Americans' priorities, and we hope congressional Republicans will join us in tackling them instead of wasting time and resources on political revenge."
Following the news on Wednesday that Republicans had won a majority, Biden issued a statement promising to work with Republicans on areas of bipartisan agreement, but noted that he would remain committed to important progressive issues.
"In this election, voters spoke clearly about their concerns: the need to lower costs, protect the right to choose, and preserve our democracy. As I said last week, the future is too promising to be trapped in political warfare," Biden said. "The American people want us to get things done for them. They want us to focus on the issues that matter to them and on making their lives better. And I will work with anyone - Republican or Democrat - willing to work with me to deliver results for them."
Instead of committing to work with the president, House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a Thursday appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" that Republicans will launch investigations targeting Hunter Biden and into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, among other topics that have been fodder for conspiracy theorists on the right for several years.
House Republicans held a press conference on Thursday expressing their intention to investigate a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which they claim contains details of corruption and malfeasance on the part of the Biden family. The announcement follows months of pressure from Fox News to conduct an investigation into the president's son.
In a fact check, Politifact noted that while the laptop contained salacious information about Hunter Biden's personal life, "Nothing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden as vice president with regard to his son's tenure as a director for Burisma, a Ukraine-based natural gas company."
This isn't the first time House Republicans will use their majority to pursue conspiracy theories.
In the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton was in office, House Republicans made unfounded allegations surrounding the death of White House aide Vince Foster, who died by suicide. Republicans made wild allegations that Foster had been murdered in connection with real estate investments made by Bill and Hillary Clinton. An investigation by special counsel Robert Fiske reaffirmed in 1994 that Foster died from suicide.
Under President Barack Obama, Republicans initiated multiple investigations into the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, attempting to prove conspiracy theories that the Obama administration undermined the security of the outpost. Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state at the time of the attack, and McCarthy celebrated in 2015 that the investigation hurt Clinton's ratings ahead of her presidential campaign.
Voters rejected Republican election conspiracy theorists at both the state and federal level in the 2022 midterms, elections Republicans were projected to sweep.
A year ago, McCarthy predicted that Republicans would take more than 60 seats away from the Democratic majority in the House. But now the party is projected to only hold a single-digit majority, and NBC News has projected a net gain of 15 seats. Democrats will remain in control of the Senate.
The election results were the best performance by a sitting president's party in a midterm in 20 years, since the 2002 midterm election under former President George W. Bush.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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Although the majority of Republicans may believe all the conspiracy theory crap, a majority of all Americans dont. The recent election showed that pretty convincingly. Right wing media wont let Republicans regain credibility though.
You think after the last six years of non stop Democrat led investigations that there wasn’t going to be a price pay?
That’s just obtuse thinking.
The party that is posed to elect an election denier as house leader who promoted a conspiracy involving stealing elections using mailboxes is worried about "conspiracies."
Sure.
But the best defense is a good offense. Uncomfortable facts are just conspiracy theories or Russian disinformation. Democrats aren't going to stop playing the hits.
What are the chances that Jim Jordan based investigations are not conspiracy based ?
Is there a number less than zero?
Less conspiracy based than believing Trump was colluding with Putin to steal an election?
Yes. For sure.
The American people have the right to know if Biden has committed any illegal actions during his tenure as Senator, VP, and President. The people also have the right to know if the actions and associations of Biden and his son Hunter with regard to nations like Ukraine and China might have led to state secrets and our national security being compromised.
If there might be something more than salacious rumors, than go for it Republicans, but from all I’ve read, chasing another one of their tall tales exposing them for that which they are, LYING HIPPOCRITTERS.
Funny, just like when they had everyone in their base in a tizzy over the approaching (immigrant Horde) in 2018, that somehow vanished right after the election, this midterms had The GOP fixing gas prices, inflation, jobs, tough on crime, reducing the cost of anything and everything, But I don’t recall them stating they wished to again tear US Apart with Baseless unproven conspiracy theory’s,
Just lke the Benghazi umpteenth investigation,thinking we’re gonna see a lot of baseless attacks on anything With a D .This , all while there IS a mountain
Of evidence against Trump, yet, they can not see it….?
If you only listen to leftwing talking point bullshit; then I am sure that is all you hear.
I am sure you believe that Biden never was involved with Hunter's business dealings. When he is pictured with 12 or more of Hunter's employers. Hunter angrily admits that he doesn't like giving half of his pay to Joe. He also bitches about having to pay for Joe's cell phone, home repairs, etc. I am sure the Chinese (CCCP to be exact); Ukrainians; and Russian oligarchs loved giving a drugged out, alcoholic, sex addicted, moron like Hunter millions so he could do what again?
Hunter even admits he can get his father to do anything.
The "Big Man" that Hunter's lap top refers to holding a cut of the profit for is not the member in Hunter's pants. Despite Democrat's claims.
As for Trump.
Democrats have had 6 years to get something prosecutable on Trump; and so far zip, nada, nothing. First it was collusion with Russia- that turned out to be a Hillary campaign paid for smear job that Democrat sycophants in the FBI seized on and ran with.
Then it was obstruction to the Russian collusion investigation- that proved that Mueller is past his usefulness expiration date- as he quickly walked back statement after statement under questioning. Even Democrats admitted they had a huge nothing burger.
Then came the famous phone call with Ukraine- that was pieced together by a TDS driven moron that wasn't even in the room. Democrats went ape shit when Trump shit canned a US ambassador- who by the way didn't like Trump, didn't like working for Trump, and publicly bad mouthed him. Democrats and she forget that all ambassadors serve at the will of the President, and can be fired for any reason. Democrats impeached Trump after a closed investigation that barred Republican cross examination. Republicans in the Senate predictably told Democrats to fuck off.
Then it was Jan 6th- still nothing- even after the Pelosi hand picked TDS driven moron committee.
Now it is his taxes- civil suit by NY- because their own prosecutors couldn't find shit to charge him with after years of investigating. A lawsuit in Atlanta over the 2020 election. And a special counsel on Trump's mishandling of classified documents.
Hurry the fuck up Democrats! The only thing you are proving is how incompetent you are at bringing down "the most corrupt person ever"!
Reality denial of the century.
www.proquest.com /docview/2737654173/4038AD685AFF4D70PQ/10
The Lowest Form of Political Comedy
6-7 minutes
JOE CONASON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Now that the Republicans have eked out a tiny majority in the next Congress, their leaders have announced the party's legislative agenda: zero legislation but endless "investigation."
Nobody except small children could have been surprised by the House Republican announcement, which was like a rollout touting the sequel of a mediocre sci-fi franchise. While this show too will attract diehard fans, it lacks freshness or appeal.
When Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years in 1994, Newt Gingrich's first order of business was to order up investigations on every conceivable front. Both House and Senate Republican leaders named special committees to excavate the Whitewater "scandal" -- a long-ago land deal in rural Arkansas that had cost Bill and Hillary Clinton around $45,000 after a swindle perpetrated by their business partner, a mentally ill operator named James McDougal they had met through mutual political associates. Despite the Clintons' thoroughly documented financial loss, the Republicans and the media endlessly promoted a false version of the story that supposedly implicated the Clintons criminally.
Neither the Congressional investigations nor the parallel probe by the late Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr -- which squandered tens of millions of dollars -- ever proved any of the baroque assertions, which came to include a fantastic tale of the Clintons smuggling cocaine through a rural airport. And while those probes provoked episodes of hysteria in the press, none had much impact on voters, who reelected President Clinton overwhelmingly in 1996.
Flash-forward to the Obama administration, which came under similarly hollow inquisitions by congressional Republicans after the 2010 midterm. They busied themselves with conspiracy theories about the Internal Revenue Service and other smears, only to see President Barack Obama easily reelected.
Then came the infamous Benghazi investigation, with yet another special House committee assigned to produce redundant nonsense after nine other investigations cleared the Obama administration and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing. Rep. Kevin McCarthy himself famously blurted the true purpose of that fiasco, when he boasted that its entire motive was to damage Clinton's reputation before the 2016 election cycle.
And now we hear again from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the excitable former wrestling coach credibly accused of covering up the sexual abuse of Ohio State students, who promises that GOP investigations will "frame up the 2024 election." Anyone who observed Jordan in frantic and fruitless action during the Benghazi hearings -- especially that epic day when Hillary testified for 11 hours -- will look forward to his upcoming antics. But he will face heavy competition from the manic Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who reportedly has elbowed her way onto the House Oversight Committee, in a deal to support McCarthy for speaker.
When Republicans take power on Jan. 3, 2023, the political abuse of congressional authority is set on rerun. The coming attractions touted by Jordan and Rep James Comer, R-Ky., focus on the international business dealings of Hunter Biden, alleged for years to have entangled the president and other family members. Promising proof of bribery, money laundering and other offenses, the incoming inquisitors point to a laptop computer that once belonged to Hunter Biden and the already debunked claims by a highly dubious former business partner.
But this too is a rerun of the smears mounted by the Trump campaign and its allies years ago, back when then-President Donald Trump tried to coerce the government of Ukraine into framing Biden with a faked "investigation" in exchange for defensive missiles, which led to his first impeachment.
But back to our rerun: Remember how disgraced attorney Rudy Giuliani first showed up with that Hunter Biden laptop? And how he refused to let anyone conduct a forensic examination of its hard drive? Giuliani couldn't account for its chain of custody, but we now know that persons other than Hunter Biden have tampered with its contents. As a source of reliable information, the laptop still remains highly suspect.
Not much better can be said for Tony Bobulinski, the ex-partner of the younger Biden who went over to the Trump camp two years ago. Before the 2020 election, he told the Wall Street Journal that Joe Biden had participated in his son's overseas business affairs and lied about it. But after extensive reporting, the conservative Journal found that the available evidence contradicted Bobulinski's sensational claims.
By his own account, Hunter Biden is a man whose personal tragedies, self-destructive addictions and financial pressures left him deeply troubled. Cynical Republicans have long targeted him for mockery and abuse. What we have learned so far about him and his father is not a story of the father's financial chicanery, however, but of a bereaved and tormented dad trying to save his surviving son.
What will unfold on Capitol Hill in the months ahead will resemble past episodes of right-wing snipe-hunting. After the tenure of the strongest speaker in memory, Nancy Pelosi, we will experience the weakest in Kevin McCarthy. The Republican Party is now in the hands of Trump's stooge Jim Jordan and kooks like Marjorie Taylor Greene, mesmerized by Jewish space lasers, pizza-parlor pedophiles, and the injustice of prosecuting the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Prepare for fabrications, fantasies, and
To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
What, exactly, can House Republicans do that will pass a filibuster in the Senate and gain Biden's signature? Republicans only job is too minimize Biden's drunken spending from the last two years and keep his agenda in check.
The idea that, suddenly, after years of investigating Trump, investigations somehow make legislating impossible is pure bullshit. House members can pass the few bills that get negotiated last minute with Biden and get passed without anyone reading them and hold investigations at the same time. There's no conflict.
Biden is already distracted. Otherwise the White House wouldn't be using the national podium to talk about it.