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       lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
       
       
       ARTICLE VIEW: 
       
       White House declines invite for Biden to testify in House Oversight
       impeachment inquiry
       
       By Annie Grayer, CNN
       
       Updated: 
       
       9:54 PM EDT, Mon April 15, 2024
       
       Source: CNN
       
       The White House informed House Oversight Chair James Comer that
       President will not accept his in a committee impeachment inquiry
       hearing, according to a letter obtained first by CNN, further insulting
       the Republican-led effort.
       
       “Your impeachment investigation is over,” Special Counsel to the
       President Richard Sauber wrote to Comer on Monday. “We decline your
       invitation for President Biden to testify.”
       
       In the letter, Sauber said that the president “has done nothing
       wrong” and accused Comer of peddling “false and unsupported
       allegations.”
       
       In a statement to CNN, Comer criticized Biden for declining to testify
       publicly and called on the president to answer questions that
       accompanied the hearing invitation. Comer’s statement did not address
       whether he plans to take any further steps now that Biden has declined.
       
       “It is unfortunate President Biden is unwilling to answer questions
       before the American people and refuses to answer the very simple,
       straightforward questions we included in the invitation,” Comer said
       in the statement.
       
       House Republicans have not uncovered evidence of wrongdoing by the
       president and currently do not have the votes in the House to impeach
       him given their narrow, divided majority. As a result, the impeachment
       inquiry appears stalled as Republicans lack consensus on how or when to
       end their investigation.
       
       Comer had invited Biden to testify at a hearing this week but had not
       formally scheduled that hearing.
       
       Comer has single-handedly spearheaded the effort to invite the
       president to testify before his committee, sources said. The invitation
       to appear before Comer’s committee was not co-signed by House
       Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan or House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith,
       who are leading the inquiry with Comer and have signed onto several
       letters with him. Comer gave House Speaker Mike Johnson’s team a
       heads up he would be inviting Biden, but Johnson wasn’t involved in
       the decision, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN.
       
       The invitation to the president was seen, even among some Republicans,
       as a last-ditch effort to restart momentum on an investigation that
       after dozens of witness interviews and hundreds of thousands of bank
       records, has failed to uncover evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.
       
       This story has been updated with additional reporting.
       
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