After Trump Indictment, GOP Prosecutors Want to ‘Go After the Bidens’: James Comer

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, delivers remarks during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington on Feb. 1, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said the Trump indictment has spurred calls from county GOP attorneys about how they can “go after” President Joe Biden and his family.

He suggested that the unprecedented charges against the former president, viewed by many Republicans as politically motivated, opened a “can of worms,” which might ultimately spark political retaliation from GOP attorneys.

“I had two calls yesterday, one from a county attorney in Kentucky and one from a county attorney in Tennessee,” Comer said on Fox News on April 5. “They were Republican, obviously, both states are heavily Republican. They want to know if there are ways they can go after the Bidens now.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, unveiled a list of 34 felony charges against former President Donald Trump. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, which center around a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

Daniels in 2016 was prepared to go public with claims that she and Trump had an affair in 2006. However, Trump has persistently denied these claims.

With this move to indict Trump, Comer said, “they’ve set precedents now that we can’t go back on.”

The result, Comer suggested, would be more “ambitious political people like Alvin Bragg” pursuing “big pie-in-the-sky federal cases” for political ends.

“It’s just not a good path that we need to go forward on in our judiciary,” Comer said.

Warnings of Repercussions

Comer is not the first lawmaker to warn of possible damage wrought upon American institutions by the indictment.

“Today, American politics crosses a line that it’s never going to come back from,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in a video posted to his Twitter page after Trump’s arraignment, “... especially on the basis of how ridiculous these charges are.”

Specifically, Rubio echoed Comer’s point that the case gives a green light to prosecutors on both the left and right to target their political enemies.

“What’s going to stop them? Nothing’s going to stop them. Because today we set a new normal,” Rubio said. “Today, we set the new normal that if you really want to take someone down, nothing should stop you. You should be able to manipulate the law any way you want to charge someone.”

Comer, in tandem with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), has been mounting investigations into the weaponization of the federal government, particularly via the FBI, Department of Justice, and IRS. The two contend that Democrats have exploited the tools of government against their political enemies.

Republicans have placed Trump’s indictment into the same category of “weaponization.” Comer and Jordan have also made some moves to investigate Bragg and those close to him.

After it leaked that Bragg might request a gag order against Trump, preventing the 2024 candidate from discussing the case, Comer and Jordan released a response calling the report “unconstitutional.”

“To put any restrictions on the ability of President Trump to discuss his mistreatment at the hands of this politically motivated prosecutor would only further demonstrate the weaponization of the New York justice system,” the duo wrote. “To even contemplate stifling the speech of the former commander in chief and current candidate for President is at odds with everything America stands for.”

On April 7, Jordan also issued a subpoena for Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who led an investigation into Trump and pushed for his arrest.