Comer insists his job was ‘never to impeach’ as GOP doubts grow about Biden impeachment vote

Republicans had hoped that Hunter Biden could have helped prove their central allegation that his father, Joe Biden, engaged in a pay-to-play scheme and acted corruptly while in office.

But Hunter Biden refused to testify behind closed doors. And now the GOP may simply assume what they haven’t been able to prove, that the bribery scheme actually happened.

“Well, I mean, if he doesn’t show up, then I guess we’ll just have to wrap it up without him and assume that these were bribes from foreign countries,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told CNN, adding that unproven allegations that Hunter Biden was involved in human trafficking and money laundering could also be assumed to be true.

In an interview with CNN, Comer gave his latest insight into the committee’s investigation, lowering expectations as doubts begin to grow within GOP ranks about whether it will actually lead to a successful impeachment vote of the president.

Comer said it doesn’t matter to him if Biden is ultimately impeached, arguing his true intent is to conduct the far-reaching probe and then pursue legislation to ban influence peddling. He said that his panel would soon issue a report with criminal referrals, saying he hadn’t decided yet whether to refer the president to the Justice Department for prosecution.

“I would vote to impeach him, but I’m not going to lose any sleep whether he gets impeached or not because we know the Senate’s not going to convict,” Comer said of the Democratic-controlled Senate. He insisted: “My job was never to impeach.”

Hunter Biden offered to testify publicly but not behind closed doors, arguing Republicans would have distorted his testimony. Instead, the younger Biden showed up at Comer’s