Now that Donald Trump has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Republicans are whipping out their black lights and diligently searching President Joe Biden’s basement futon for chocolate chip smudges. A party that’s long been ultra-torqued about so-called hoaxes that clearly and demonstrably aren’t hoaxes is now perpetrating a brazen hoax against Biden, and it’s frankly gotten kind of sad.
Of course, while there’s no real reason to believe anything Republicans say—like, at all, or ever—we have particular cause to be skeptical here. First and foremost, the unverified whistleblower report they’re using to claim Biden took $5 million in bribes from a Ukrainian energy company executive was ostensibly brought to the FBI by Lord Fiddle-Pants Magoo, who’s roughly two bottles of scotch and a dodgy Percocet away from claiming the 2020 election was stolen by the Hamburglar.
For another, their witnesses keep mysteriously disappearing or dying—almost as if they never existed at all. On top of that—and perhaps most telling of all—this information was brought to the FBI in 2020 during the Trump administration and was never acted on. If there were anything at all to any of this, the Eye of Sour-Don would have surely alit thereupon and revealed Biden’s perfidy to the wide world. In fact, a spokesperson for Democrats on the Oversight Committee has stated that the FBI “informed the Committee, in no uncertain terms, that this assessment was closed in August 2020 after it failed to identify sufficient evidence to justify further investigation.”
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Of course, if you’re still not convinced, you might want to listen to someone who’s a bit more trustworthy than Rep. James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who’ve been trying to pass off this leftover nothingburger as fresh red meat for weeks now.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from Texas and member of the House Oversight Committee, has actually seen the whistleblower document in question and—surprise, surprise—she asserts that it doesn’t actually say what Comer, Grassley, et al. claim it does. She joined MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin on Friday to discuss the GOP’s transparent and childish hoax against Biden, and her take on the document in question was revealing.
Watch:
MOHYELDIN: “What do you make of this nonsense from the Republicans? I mean, this recycled Giuliani-created conspiracy theory that now seems to be at the center of this Republican obsession.
CROCKETT: [Laughs] “I mean, the Republicans are, like, good at distractions, and that’s exactly what we have. It is so unfortunate that they are talking about what they read, but let me make it very plain for the people that are watching. The very first document that we read specifically said that we are not to disclose what it is that we’re reading. So I’m going to tell you that, for some reason, I don’t really trust their ability to actually read and take in what it is that they’ve read, because the very first page said do not talk about the contents. And so all I will say, because as Democrats we like to follow rules, is that their rendition of what was in this document is a little different from what I read in this document. Now, granted, I did read the redacted version. I’ve read redacted documents for years and years and years practicing law, but I’m telling you, I don’t think that those few black marks that I saw had all this information that the senator has been talking about.”
Wait, you mean Republicans are maybe, possibly misrepresenting what they’ve seen with their own eyes? And here I was all ready to take one of those special Capitol tours where they hand out complimentary bear spray, zip ties, and “Hang Mike Pence—peacefully!” beer can koozies.
Crockett then notes Republicans’ penchant for whataboutism and their extensive probing of Democrats like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, and predicts that Biden will not face anything like the legal peril Trump has going forward.
She then further called B.S. on Republicans’ public proclamations about the whistleblower document, saying, “Honestly, some of this stuff they’re talking about, I’m like, ‘that wasn’t in there.’”
CROCKETT: “I want people to understand the timeline. This is, I think it was three pages total. It was basically two pages and then a portion of another page that we reviewed. As far as the timeline is concerned, we’re talking about someone recounting something that was told to them at least three years after allegedly they were told this, and they had all these details in their mind and whatnot. And also, to be clear, as my ranking member, who can be trusted with the truth, Jamie Raskin, he laid it out and made it clear that it’s not that this information came and then it was just thrown away. It was actually Trump’s administration, it was Trump’s DOJ, that received this information and they followed through and there was nothing to follow through with. So, yes, we do have all these ghost witnesses and things like that. But let me tell you who has real witnesses. Trump. Trump. His lawyer. They’re coming out for him. They pierced the attorney-client privilege ...”
Yes, the evidence against Trump is real, and it’s spectacular. But Republicans really wish you’d avert your eyes from his bathroom reading, so be prepared for more distractions. No doubt they’ll be equally as absurd as this one and—if Rudy has anything to do with it—even more redolent of Glenlivet and rancid hair goo.
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Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
There have been sooo many hot takes about the 2022 midterms, which is why we're joined on this week's episode of "The Downballot" by Michael Frias and Hillary Anderson of the progressive data firm Catalist to discuss their data-intensive report on what actually happened. They explain how they marry precinct-level election results with detailed voter files to go far beyond what the polls can tell us. Among the findings: Highly competitive races were much more favorable to Democrats than less-contested ones; Republicans paid a "MAGA tax" by nominating extreme candidates; and non-college white women shifted toward Democrats by notable margins compared to 2020.