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Comer’s Investigation Will Fail
When the chips are down, I pride myself on being the optimist at the table. I have followed the work of Comer and his Oversight Committee, anxiously watching the progress of their investigation, and been amazed at the results: corruption of several Biden family members, shell committees with no purpose, millions of dollars into Biden family bank accounts—the list goes on. But after these results were reported, after months of tedious review of the data and interviews of people connected to the story, the New York Times finally clarified the true situation for me when they said there was no evidence of wrongdoing:
Nothing will happen to Biden or his family.
I knew that the evidence of media collusion was overwhelming, but I had to hope that someone—anyone—in the legacy media at a large newspaper would start the ball rolling. After all, this despicable series of events is the story of the decade, if not the century. Hundreds of lies have been told. Crimes have been ignored. Millions of dollars have been exchanged. Collusion with international figures has been identified.
No one cares.
If the DOJ chooses to disregard subpoenas that have been issued, there is essentially nothing that can be done. Trying to work through the court system for those who are not cooperating will be laborious and time-consuming. From what I have discerned, there is no recourse. This is the document that explains the steps that can be taken to enforce subpoenas. If you see some practical steps in the document that would be useful in this situation, let me know.
Christopher Wray wrote a long letter explaining why the FBI would not release a form they had in their possession, that said, in part :
The FBI explained that confidential human sources are ‘critical to the work of FBI as well as other members of the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities.’
‘Department of Justice policy strictly limits when and how confidential human source information can be provided outside of the FBI,’ the letter states.
‘You have asked for what you say is a ‘precise description’ of an ‘alleged criminal scheme’ contained in is a single FD-1023 report. You express concern that the FBI has inappropriately ‘failed to disclose’ such a report ‘to the American people,’ the FBI states. ‘It is critical to the integrity of the entire criminal justice process and to the fulfillment of our law enforcement duties that FBI avoid revealing information—including unverified or incomplete information— that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public.’
The FBI said ‘even confirming the fact of the existence (or nonexistence) of an investigation or a particular piece of investigative information can risk these serious harms,’ which is ‘why it is—and has long been— standard practice for law enforcement agencies to decline to confirm or deny such a fact.’
‘Thus, your request for a single FD-1023 report that you say includes a ‘precise description’ of an ‘alleged criminal scheme’ risks the harms that our confidentiality rules protect against,’ the FBI wrote.
And now the FBI informant who shared the information about that report can’t be located.
To back up my perception, I encourage you to go to youtube and watch videos of Senate and House committee members interviewing people and asking them why they aren’t responding to requests for data and information. The first is an interview with Senator Rand Paul; the second is an interview with Christopher Wray, and there are several others listed on the site. In almost every interview, the people basically say that they are following the rules of the department or agency, which supersede any Congresssional requests.
Too bad.
And just today I heard that the DOJ has removed all the members of the IRS investigative team working on the Hunter Biden tax fraud probe.
Funny, that.
I believe that even if Comer’s committee finds specific evidence incriminating Biden, the media will brush it off or delegitimize it.
Even if the committee continues to investigate, it will fail.
Published in Domestic Policy
I note the improvements, but also note that many of those “reforms” continue practices that can be exploited. They were not full on implementation of voter ID, in presence voting with limited exceptions for mail in balloting, creating fully auditable records, etc. So I don’t feel assured that free and fair elections have been secured. And the more recent experience in Arizona is suggestive of a split in Republican circles between comfort with the status quo and outrage. It feels like a preview of 2024 and, if so, no comfort at all. The question isn’t reforms in many states; it is about reforms in key states.
So both fraud and delusion sink us, not just fraud. (Sigh)
Possibly. CoVid made 2020 sui generis. It is possible that enabled fraud that will be difficult to sustain post CoVid. It also presented something of an uphill climb for an incumbent president. Joe’s empty suit campaign allowed suburban voters to project whatever their desires were on him, and his turtle strategy enabled by the media worked well. I know several suburban voters in my company who were Trump/ Biden voters anecdotal perhaps, but enough to put me on the spectrum of fraud/realign rather than in the straight up fraud.
The election was definitely “rigged” in that many states change their laws for CoVid improperly and allowed things which shouldn’t have been allowed. Also the media acted as a praetorian guard around Biden who because of CoVid was allowed to hide in the basement. Trump also had the wrong theory of the case for the campaign. He thought he was in a base turnout election and he was really in a change election. He didn’t effectively run on his record. He threw a lot of red meat to the base which alienated independents.
In most of the states in 2022 we saw changes that should have helped, but Dobbs throws a wrench into the analysis of that. It seems clear that may have been dispositive in Michigan, the VA house races, and perhaps elsewhere. Republicans also nominated several first time and unconventional candidates that ran explicitly on the fraud 2020 narrative this proved to be a loser for Republicans. I am not sure if that is because of the unconventional candidates or because of the 2020 fraud message or a bit of both. A special note in Arizona, Doug Masters choose to run a radically unconventional campaign even going so far as to not hiring a campaign manager. It turns out when you try to do things in a unique untried way it sometimes doesn’t work out too well. Also while I liked Kari Lake and think she has some talents she elected to close the campaign by alienating the McCain wing of the republican party. That is normally not a good move late in the race and may have cost her. It certainly put her inside the margin of fraud.
Agree 100%. Covid was a unique opportunity to take advantage of the loose standards of mail-in voting.
I don’t know what you mean by the “realignment.” Please explain.
I haven’t decided whether Dobbs hurt the GOP or not in the mid-term elections. I know it’s a convenient issue to blame on the less than expected republican wave, and even Trump did that. But DeSantis, who enacted a very restrictive abortion law in Florida before the mid-terms, won by 19 points, and DeWine who enacted an even more restrictive abortion law in Ohio, won by a whopping 26 points (!) despite the fact that his democrat opponent ran strictly on the abortion issue. Maybe abortion is only a major drawback to the GOP in Blue States?!
I never expected any popular surge from the fraud issue. It is not something you can use to boast of your own qualifications.
I would not put her inside the margin of fraud. I would put her inside the margin of stupidity. She told McCain voters “I don’t want your vote,” just days before the election. One of the most moronic statements I’ve ever heard from somebody running for office. If just 1/2 of 1% of voters (one out of two-hundred people), was irked enough by this disparaging comment to change their vote to the democrat, then that was enough to cost her the election. Dumb, Dumb, and Dumber……..
It did indeed, plus the worst idea in human history the ballot dropbox.
In 2020 the Republican party moved from being a college educated suburban party to a exurban working class party. This means Trump did better in rural counties and in the cities but worse in the suburbs. This is born out by data and by my own anecdotal observations. It had not completed in 2020, so Trump did not get the same share of the Hispanic vote for instance that went to the Republicans in 2022. The process had started; however, and 2022 seems to confirm that this may be a trend. The realignment hypothesis goes something like this. It had started in 2020 predominantly in the suburbs and this benefit Biden and the Democrats but the realignment hadn’t progress far enough in the cities and with minorities specifically Hispanics and African American males to offset this moment. In 2022 the trend continued leading to better showings in house races by republicans with minorities, but they were not able to regain much ground in the suburbs.
Many Republicans didn’t have much of a strategy or answer so it became a cudgel to beat them about the head and shoulders. Effective politicians who maintained a consistent message and also didn’t necessarily make it the sole focus of their campaigns did well. I don’t think Dobbs is a guaranteed loser. I do think that many republicans complete blew the messaging in 2022. I would agree this hurts the GOP more in blue states because it can be use to drive up marginal democratic turnout. Especially if abortion is actually on the ballot.
Yet several folks made it the cornerstone of their campaigns. It was a mistake that first time and unconventional candidates can fall for. I am generally not a big fan of outsider campaigns because they can get tied around the axle on issues. Turns out running for office is a skill set like any other.
I completely agree. Don’t end your campaign by alienating marginal voters in your own coalition.
Doesn’t give me much confidence – look at all the low scores.
2022 went the Democrat way because they built and funded a large election machine.
That is part of it. Republican fecklessness is part of it too. The democrats spent a lot of money in Republican primaries getting their preferred candidate to run in the general. This turned out to be a good strategy for them.