Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., speaks during a hearing on Texas voting rights in Washington, DC, on July 29, 2021.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have shown interest in joining the Oversight panel.
GOP ranking member James Comer told Politico that the conservative pair were eyeing the committee.
Republican leaders hope to retake the House this fall and vigorously probe the Biden administration.
GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who could potentially lead the powerful House Oversight Committee if Republicans take control of the lower chamber after the 2022 midterms, said high-profile conservative congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have shown interest in becoming members of the panel.
In a recent interview with Politico, Comer — who is currently the Oversight ranking member — said that if he led the panel, it would not devolve into “a dog-and-pony show.”
“This isn’t a committee where everybody’s gonna scream and be outraged and try to make the witnesses look like fools,” he told Politico as he launched a political attack against past Democratic-led investigations.
“Unlike Adam Schiff, we’re gonna have something concrete, substantive on Hunter Biden or I’m not going to talk about Hunter Biden,” he added.
Yet both Greene and Boebert have railed against presidential son Hunter Biden — whose business dealings in Ukraine have become a popular target among Republicans — in starkly political terms.
Republicans hope to use a House majority to conduct vigorous oversight against the Biden administration, which has already started to prepare itself against potential probes regarding everything from the 2021 US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to the shortage of baby formula that become a critical supply-chain problem earlier this year.
At the moment, a significant number of the panel’s members are also a part of the House Freedom Caucus, which is overwhelmingly loyal to former President Donald Trump.