WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Oversight panel on Thursday formally invited President Joe Biden to testify before his committee as a part of its impeachment probe.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who leads the committee, proposed in a letter Thursday that Biden appear on April 16, and cited testimony at a public hearing last week from former business associates of Hunter Biden — Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis. Comer said their testimony contradicted statements the president has made about his involvement in his son’s business dealings. He first announced his plans to invite the president to testify at the end of that hearing, which also included former Ukrainian businessman Lev Parnas.
“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the Committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from Members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” Comer wrote.
The proposed testimony would come at a pivotal moment for Biden’s main 2024 challenger, former President Donald Trump. The trial for Trump’s New York criminal case is set to begin a day earlier, on April 15.
Comer’s letter specifically cites President Gerald Ford’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 as precedent.
In response, the White House pointed to a post on X from spokesman Ian Sams last week when Comer made the public announcement that he planned to invite Biden to testify.
“Comer knows 20+ witnesses have testified that POTUS did nothing wrong,” Sams said in the post. “He knows that the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he’s received have refuted his false allegations. This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment. Call it a day, pal.”
Democrats on the Oversight panel wrote on X Thursday that Republicans “couldn’t find an impeachable offense,” and called evidence in…
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