Late Wednesday night after CNN’s Manu Raju first reported that House Oversight dipshit James Comer had backed off on his push to hold FBI Director Chris Wray in contempt for refusing to provide him with a copy of the FD-1023 “Biden bribery” document – even after both Comer and ranking Dem Jamie Raskin were shown the document in a SCIF – the Gateway Pundit and other right wing propaganda outlets spun the FBI’s agreement to allow all members of the Oversight committee, Republicans and Dems, as a “cave” which prompted Comer to end the contempt effort.
The first problem however is that earlier in the week, Comer had already drawn the line at either the FBI hands over the document or they move for contempt. “FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody [of the committee],” Comer told reporters after he and Raskin had viewed the document on Monday, adding “and we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.” Sticking to his guns, Comer went ahead and introduced the contempt resolution to the committee at around 12:30 PM EDT on Wednesday, teeing it up for a vote the next day.
Shortly after that, at 2:09 PM EDT CNN’s Alayna Treene reported that the FBI offered to show the full committee the document, quoting Speaker Kevin McCarthy from that morning as saying “All [Wray] has to do is follow through and allow everybody on the committee [to view it],” adding down the thread that “A spokesperson for Comer and Oversight Republicans told CNN they have not yet been approached by the FBI about this latest accommodation.” But right wing scam operation the Oversight Project already knew what was going to happen, tweeting this lament at 5:28 PM EDT:
Anything less would be a retreat and further kneecap Congressional oversight authority.
The American people deserve more.
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) June 7, 2023
Somehow they called it even before Comer himself did, but still circa 7:00 PM EDT Comer told Fox News the Oversight GOP were “still planning on having the contempt hearing. But they’re negotiating. They’re offering deals now to try to cooperate with us in our investigation. So, I’m listening to the FBI offers. But as of now, we still plan on moving forward,” per Fox’s Chad Pergram.
Finally about two hours later Comer released a statement claiming “the FBI has caved and is now allowing all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to review this unclassified record that memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden,” which was, for reasons described above, was complete bullshit since it was the FBI that made the offer. Of course the propagandists dutifully reported it as such and made no mention of McCarthy tugging at Comer’s leash.
And that dear readers is the true “genius” of the MAGA media ecosystem. Even a reasonable compromise over some relatively minor point in an overall bullshit storyline is turned into a clear victory over the FBI – at a time when such “wins” are oh so desperately needed.