Oh, and Trump will do a CNN town hall tonight, at which the Carroll verdict is likely to be discussed at length.
Under these circumstances, if you were a Republican and the head of the House Oversight Committee, and you'd been telling people for days that this morning you'd hold a press conference to discuss all sorts of skeezy things the Biden family has allegedly done, the sole purpose of which would be to embarrass the president, wouldn't you consider postponing that press conference to a time when it might get a little more public attention?
James Comer and his fellow Oversight Committee members just plowed ahead, and while their press conference is, naturally, the lead story on the Fox News and New Yok Post sites, no one else cares. Okay, CNN cares -- a little. Here's CNN's story:
House Oversight Chairman James Comer laid out new details to support allegations that members of Joe Biden’s family including his son Hunter received millions of dollars in payments from foreign entities in China and Romania including when Biden was vice president....However:
... the committee does not suggest any illegality about the payments from foreign sources. The bank records by themselves also do not indicate the purpose of the payments that were made.Among the committee's allegations, according to Fox:
... Comer has suggested that Biden may have been improperly influenced by the financial dealings, particularly by his family’s foreign business partners, but the latest report does not show any payments made directly to Joe Biden, either as vice president or after leaving office.
... the committee said it discovered that Hunter Biden, through his associate Rob Walker, received more than $1 million from a foreign company reportedly controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu, the subject of a criminal probe and prosecution for corruption in Romania.But as The New York Times reported in 2019, Rudy Giuliani
participated in an effort that would have helped [Popoviciu], and was in fact recruited to do so by Louis J. Freeh, a former F.B.I. director who had been brought onto the matter by Hunter Biden.A 2018 Times story was headlined "Giuliani Criticizes Crackdown on Corruption in Romania."
... Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has waded into the debate on the side of the accused, sending a letter to Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, criticizing the country’s anticorruption efforts.Hunter Biden -- like Rudy Giuliani -- appears to be an influence peddler. But I don't see any evidence that Joe Biden pocketed any money or moved to alter any government policies on the basis of what his son said or did.
The letter, dated Aug. 22, expressed concern about the “continuing damage to the rule of law being done under the guise of effective law enforcement” in Romania — a position that seemed at odds with official United States policy.
Mr. Giuliani wrote that an amnesty should be given to those who had been convicted in the crackdown, citing the “excesses” of the country’s anticorruption agency.
Today's press conference apparently didn't even mention the "Biden crime family finances global prostitution ring!!1!!!" allegations that have been sending tingles up right-wingers' legs recently. These allegations came up in yesterday's Times profile of Congresswoman Nancy Mace, which linked to this tweet:
Read several of those Suspicious Activity Reports at the Treasury just now.
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) April 17, 2023
The number of Biden family members involved (more than previously known), the amount of money involved (astronomical), the shell companies, the accusations of prostitution rings… wild... pic.twitter.com/hGORfBbhTF
Senator Ron Johnson has been worked up about this, too:
Sen. Johnson: “We have the evidence that Hunter Biden paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes that were sex trafficked through an international sex trafficking ring…”
— TheStormHasArrived (@TheStormRedux) May 9, 2023
He went on to explain that Joe Biden was footing the bill 😳
Pretty hard hitting for Fox News 💥 pic.twitter.com/6oITcMKBOS
But no, Joe Biden isn't the head of a global prostitution operation. Even the New York Post, in a story published last year about Hunter's reported "dalliances with a Russia-linked escort ring," said that Joe Biden "inadvertently financed" the sexual encounters.
I'm sure I speak for many Democrats when I say that Hunter Biden has probably done quite a few unsavory and probably illegal things, but Joe Biden appears to have done nothing worse than support his son emotionally and financially, with some of the cash likely to have been spent in very dubious ways. If Hunter is indicted, it's probably for a good reason. It still won't prevent me from voting for Joe.
Today's House GOP press conference will be completely ignored by most Americans. Either Comer and his cronies don't understand that the rest of us aren't obsessed with Hunter Biden or they just want to preach to the right-wing choir. If they were interested only in reaching other people in their bubble, they probably succeeded. If they wanted to try getting the rest of us to care, they should have waited a few days.
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