Republican efforts to impeach President Biden have taken center stage on the House Oversight Committee, where the partisan battles have highlighted the stark differences between the panel’s top leaders as they wage what is essentially a proxy war in the Biden-Trump rematch.
The issue has pit House Oversight Chair Jamie Comer (R-Ky.) against ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who share a name but virtually nothing else.
The investigation has propelled the relatively unknown Comer to the national stage, where Republicans are tapping into his experience growing up in a family of bankers in rural Kentucky.
“I’m just an average guy with a financial background, business background, not an attorney. So that’s why I don’t go into great detail about impeachment,” Comer said in a sit-down interview with The Hill.
“But I do understand how to follow the money.”
Comer, 51, leads a committee stocked with some of the GOP’s most right-leaning firebrand lawmakers, a role in which he often clashes with Raskin, 61.
Comer and Raskin speak during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The Harvard-educated former constitutional law professor has his own band of liberal rabble-rousers who share his knack for putting not just GOP claims, but Republican internal dynamics at large, under the microscope.
“I was a constitutional law professor for a quarter century. So I don’t consider myself first and foremost a partisan warrior. I have devoted my life to the study and the defense of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” Raskin said in an interview with The Hill, arguing that the GOP hasn’t come close to the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment.
“They can’t even name what the alleged offense is. So I would hope to be able to use my constitutional experience and knowledge to bring some perspective to an investigation that has gone completely off the rails.”
That is not how Comer sees him.
“I feel like through this whole process, Raskin has been like a criminal defense attorney for the Biden family,” Comer said, at one point describing their relationship as “toxic.”
“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve lost a lot of respect for Jamie Raskin.”
Raskin avoided such direct attacks on Comer, saying he had “no criticism of his skills, or his talents, but the substance of what they’re standing for now is corrupt and dangerous.”
But he took a shot at a chairman who had bucked his leadership to support the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, and has since helmed an investigation key to the MAGA base.
“I consider him as someone with great intellectual and moral promise who has allowed himself to be dragged down by what’s happened to the Republican Party,” Raskin said.
It’s a shift from a year ago, when both men described their relationship as “cordial.”
Raskin shakes hands with Comer during a Committee meeting in the Rayburn House Office Building on January 31, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The Oversight Committee has never been a shining example of bipartisanship, but its rancorous nature only dials up when its leadership is in the opposite party as the president.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), a friend of Comer’s, described the panel as one where “brawlers go to brawl.”
Its most recent meeting turned into a contentious seven-hour review of whether to hold the president’s son in contempt, capped by a photo of an exasperated-looking Comer resting his forehand in his hands.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), who has known Raskin for decades, said the two are “kind of a mismatch.” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) called them “paradoxical members of Congress.”
“You have a constitutional law expert who is steeped in facts and evidence and genuinely cares about the American people and doing the right thing and doing things based on reality,” Goldman said.
“Then on the other hand you have Chairman Comer who operates in a factless world and continues to spiral down a rabbit hole out of desperation to justify what are unsupported allegations of misconduct.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) put her view more bluntly.
“One Jamie tells the truth. The other Jamie tells a lot of lies. Jamie Comer tells the truth; Jamie Raskin lies constantly,” she said.
Greene speaks with Comer during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services hearing on Capitol Hill December 5, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
But Armstrong characterized their style differently.
“Jamie [Comer] is very detail-oriented. I mean, he’s a former state official and all of those things. Jamie Raskin is a former constitutional law lawyer and likes rhetorical legal arguments that are significantly different than how Jamie communicates,” he said.
“I think most people relate to Jamie Comer better. He talks like a normal person, not like a lawyer. And I think that’s helpful.”
Republicans view the impeachment investigation into the Biden family finances as a probe into an influence peddling operation that goes straight to the top.
For Democrats, the accusations — including allegations Biden accepted a bribe — stem from debunked conspiracy theories first floated by Trump allies.
“If you listen to a lot of the conservative armchair quarterbacks that were always barking out that what I should have been doing was, ‘Oh, go for their taxes. That’s what they did to Trump. They released his taxes.’ And I said taxes mean nothing.…If you want to know the true picture of someone’s income, you have to get bank statements,” Comer said.
“I’ve seen billionaires that have never paid a penny in taxes, and I’ve seen people that work at McDonald’s and pay 65 to 70 percent of their income in taxes. At the end of the day, the bank statements don’t lie.”
The first impeachment hearing however was largely considered a win for the Democrats, with Raskin saying he saw a thread in GOP witness statements that he leveraged to highlight that they didn’t see enough evidence to support impeaching President Biden.
“I couldn’t believe that the majority would actually be putting these people up there. But we immediately got the word out to all of our members to read the testimony carefully. And they did and it was absolutely devastating. To see their own witnesses basically destroy their case,” Raskin said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle praised the leaders for their inclusiveness and their character.
Goldman, whom Raskin recruited to run for Congress, described him as a mentor.
“I often talk to my wife about what’s going on and she always says to me, ‘What would Jamie Raskin do?’ That’s how much respect we have for him in our household,” he said.
Goldman speaks with Raskin during a news conference about Republican efforts to open an impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Joe Biden, outside the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Greene described Comer as judicious and inclusive.
“He genuinely reaches out to all of us to make sure that we can participate….he didn’t rush with the impeachment inquiry. He really waited get lots of evidence,” Greene said.
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), a friend of Comer’s, praised the chair’s conduct behind closed doors.
“As far as Jamie goes when you see him behind closed doors. I’ve never seen him say, ‘We’re gonna get these damn Democrats, you know, we’re going to show them.’ I just haven’t heard that,” he said.
And Ivey praised Raskin for strong advocacy even behind the scenes, chuckling as he noted how Raskin insisted on making an on-the-record statement at Hunter Biden’s would-be deposition, arguing with GOP leaders who were ready to close the meeting without any comments from Democrats.
For all the differences between the men, the investigation into the Biden family has in some ways reached a predictable pattern, with each side distributing memo after memo — the GOP releasing financial information and Democrats swiftly hitting back with fact checks.
But Raskin was dismissive of any parallels in strategy, including that both sides see themselves on a fact-finding mission.
“The human mind is obviously a fragile instrument and we have endless powers of self rationalization,” he said. “Having said that, I do think that we do everything in our power to stick to the facts.”
The investigation has also put Comer in the spotlight in a new way: fielding questions from skeptics, even within conservative media.
Comer has had a few difficult TV interviews, at one point telling conservative outlet Newsmax he would no longer go on Fox and Friends, complaining of criticism from one of the show’s anchors
Comer was self-deprecating at turns, knocking his “terrible Appalachian accent” and joking that House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) “gets more words per minute in than I do.”
“Jim’s the best at doing interviews and I’m not. So, you know, it’s tough. I wouldn’t say I’m an effective communicator, but I think people believe what I’m saying because I make it simple,” he said.
Still he credited himself with helping turn around perception on claims Hunter Biden’s laptop was just Russian disinformation and that his father had no awareness of any of his business dealings.
While the GOP has faced challenges with its impeachment of President Biden, polling shows the investigation has at least planted seeds of doubt with the American public over whether he had awareness or involvement with his son’s business dealings.
Raskin credited Comer with being effective on that front.
“There is power in repetition, even if what you’re repeating is false. And so they have succeeded in creating questions in people’s minds about the Biden administration. Those of us who are directly involved on a daily basis with the committee understand that they have not in the real world laid a glove on Joe Biden,” Raskin said.
“He has been effective at making Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and Lauren Boebert and other MAGA Republicans feel very included and very important in the workings of the committee. He has made them important. In that sense, he has kept his right flank engaged. I think it’s made the investigation, overall, pathetically weak, but he’s been able to maintain political coherence within the Republican caucus and in his committee.”
But Comer gave a swift “no” when asked if Raskin has been effective.
“He’s just an MSNBC guest. He wants to go on and take potshots at me, and say ‘There’s no evidence. There’s no evidence.’ I mean, there’s mountains of evidence. We publish it on the internet,” Comer said.
Both men stressed they do have good relationships with members of the other party.
Raskin and Boebert talk during the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled “Overdue Oversight of the Capital City: Part II,” in Rayburn Building on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., appears a left. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Comer listed a string of past and present Oversight members he considered friends, while Raskin said he bonded with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) given the compassion she showed him during his cancer treatment. When she had her first grandchild last year, he sent the conservative lawmaker a onesie for her grandson that read, “I may take a lot of naps, but I’m still woke.”
For all their differences, the two men largely share the same stated goal — crafting legislation to address any abuse of office.
Comer stressed that impeachment was not his ultimate aim, but rather legislation to stem influence peddling. And Raskin wants legislation that would require government officials to disclose and seek approval before taking any money from foreign governments.
But neither expect any legislation to be bipartisan.
“From one Jamie to another, I am still hopeful that we’ll get to be friends and we’ll be able to find more common ground,” Rakin said.
“But I understand that we are in a tough political environment, and I don’t envy somebody being part of Donald Trump’s political party.”
Emily Brooks contributed.