House Republican James Comer’s stunt just backfired

Now that House Republicans have royally botched their Joe Biden impeachment hearing (which wasn’t even an impeachment hearing), they seem to have given up on that idea for now. But House Republican James Comer is still trying to use his committee to play up conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden. To that end, Comer subpoenaed Hunter Biden to testify.

It’s not clear what Comer was hoping would happen. Perhaps he was expecting Hunter Biden to tie up the subpoena in court until the end of the term (congressional subpoenas aren’t really enforceable if you actively fight them), and then Comer could claim that Hunter Biden is trying to hide something by refusing to testify.

Instead, Hunter Biden announced today that he’s perfectly willing to testify to James Comer’s committee – but only in public. This would allow Hunter Biden to publicly set the record straight about all the phony Ukraine conspiracy theories that the Republicans have made up about him. And it would prevent Republicans from being able to issue dishonest leaks to the media about what Hunter Biden did or didn’t say behind closed doors.

Suffice it to say that James Comer’s stunt has now backfired on him. Either he has to let Hunter Biden publicly testify in a way that’ll drain all the air out of the Republican conspiracy theory balloon. Or Comer has to decline Hunter Biden’s offer to testify, which would result in the narrative that Republicans – and not Hunter Biden – are the ones with something to hide. These House Republicans just aren’t very good at this.