Congressional Republicans’ anti-Biden crusade appeared to suffer an embarrassing setback this week. Gal Luft, the elusive “informant” whom the GOP has relied on to fuel allegations, was charged with being an unregistered agent for China, trying to broker secret arms deals, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, and lying to federal agents.
Or put another way, the source at the heart of Republican conspiracy theories appears to have a bit of a credibility problem.
As we discussed earlier in the week, common sense might suggest that this is now the point at which Republicans either look for new witnesses or find a different obsession. And yet, there was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday, telling reporters that the criminal charges against the GOP “informant” actually makes the party’s anti-Biden case “stronger.”
Kevin McCarthy just said that their fake 'whistleblower' turning out to be an indicted spy illegally working with the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t undermine the GOP’s investigation but instead “would only make the case stronger.” Can’t make this up. pic.twitter.com/O9MOKGkAMV
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 13, 2023
As it turns out, congressional Democrats apparently don’t see the developments the same way.
On Wednesday, two Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, not only pressed Committee Chairman James Comer to hand over the information he received from Luft, they urged Comer to determine whether the GOP-led panel “may have been unwittingly duped by Mr. Luft in furtherance of the [Chinese Communist Party’s] interests.”
Yesterday, as HuffPost reported, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida went further down the same path.
“You want to talk about national security?” Moskowitz continued. “It’s why you guys are here. It’s about national security but [Republicans on the Oversight Committee are] working with an indicted Chinese agent who does business with the Iranian regime and is an illegal arms dealer to Libya.” He added: “All of this in order to own Hunter Biden. That’s how far they’ve stooped. It reads like a ‘007’ movie, this indictment, except they’re working with the villain.”
Moskowitz went on to explain that he’s sent a request to the House’s select committee on China, asking its chairman to investigate whether the Chinese Communist Party has “manipulated” the information Oversight Committee Republicans have relied on. The Florida Democrat also noted that he’s contacted the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, asking them to also examine the implications of Oversight Committee Republicans “working with” an “indicted foreign agent.”
Goldman wasted little time in endorsing Moskowitz’s efforts.
Evidently, they weren’t persuaded by the House speaker’s assurances that the Republicans’ case is now “stronger.”
