House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky launched a probe against Vice President Kamala Harris last week, requesting that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection turn over all correspondence with her office – despite that she never oversaw the border.
Comer says the goal of the probe is to “understand [Harris’] role” in policy about migration through the U.S.-Mexico border. The very conveniently timed probe follows Comer having to abandon his dream of impeaching President Joe Biden, due to that investigation’s total lack of evidence.
But Comer is so in the habit of baselessly investigating his rivals that he just can’t give it up. And to say the least, his latest probe is as purely political and as meritless as his Biden probe.
Comer’s probe appears to stem from the widespread GOP fiction that Harris has been Biden’s “border czar,” with Comer saying in a Sunday interview on Fox News that Harris was “in charge” of the border and that she “failed miserably.”
However, her role in the administration’s immigration policy was not focused on the border but instead on diplomacy with officials in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, with a goal of figuring out how the U.S. can help those nations stem migration to the U.S.
Furthermore, Customs and Border Protection is overseen by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom House Republicans impeached on partisan grounds earlier this year. And given Harris’ diplomatic role, she likely has very little, if anything, to do with border patrol.
In fact, in his letter to Customs and Border Protection, Comer blows up his own party’s “border czar” lie by admitting that Harris’s work wasn’t concerned with the border itself.
“Instead of focusing on the southwest border … Vice President Harris focused on the purported ‘root causes of irregular migration’ from Central America,” he writes.
In his Fox News interview, Comer attempted to further justify his probe by citing the cost of the Biden administration’s border policy.
“You know, this has had a huge impact on Medicaid because many of these people when they cross the border, they get free health care,” he said. “That’s what Medicaid is, is free health care. They get transported all over the United States.”
Oh yes, the cushy, pampered life of the Central American refugee.
Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the best trolls of Comer in the Democratic conference, is treating this new probe with the seriousness it deserves.
--30--
Written by Joan McCarter, a member of the Daily Kos staff. Cross-posted from Daily Kos.
