James Comer Archives

Drug cartels are using drones to pinpoint Border Patrol agents’ locations

February 7, 2023

Two Border Patrol chiefs appeared before the House Oversight Committee and described the extraordinary challenges the agency is facing on the southern border. They said cartels are going to great lengths to avoid apprehension, that includes using drones and camouflage.

In Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, cartels are using drones to pinpoint agents’ locations, hoping it will help them smuggle drugs and people. According to the sector chief, the Rio Grande Valley had 10,000 drone incursions in a single year.

“We have made great progress in countering the threat of small unmanned platforms. However, the adversaries have 17 times the number of drones, twice the amount of flight hours and unlimited funding to grow their operations,” Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Gloria Chavez said.

The Tucson sector chief testified that his agents are encountering single adult men, not families. Many of those men have criminal histories. They wear camouflage, run and even fight agents to avoid apprehension.

“Many are previously deported felons who know they’re inadmissible to the United States, and many pose a serious threat to our communities,” Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin.

Chief Modlin said for an added fee, the immigrants are given cellphones to navigate through the desert and mountains. Other tactics include saturating an area with large groups to overwhelm agents. Cartels also recruit American high schoolers on social media to drive immigrants after they cross. It’s a very dangerous, sometimes deadly and illegal venture.

“No one crosses in the Tucson sector without going through the cartels,” Modlin said. “In the Tucson sector, everything south of the border is controlled by the cartels.”

As for the politics, Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., blamed the president for the increase in crossings.

“President Biden and his administration have created the worst border crisis in American history. The cartels are leveraging chaos at the border,” Rep. Comer said.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Md., said Republicans have voted against bills that could have helped the situation and have not presented a solution.

“Our basic problem is a political one: legal channels of immigration have been choked off in the wake of congressional failure to act in bipartisan fashion on immigration policy,” Rep. Raskin said.

There was bipartisan support for stopping the flow of fentanyl, which was described as a matter of life and death.
Democrats becoming increasingly critical of Biden’s classified documents

January 23, 2023

Democrats are becoming increasingly critical of President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Their statements came after the Justice Department searched President Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware Friday and found six more documents. Some were from his eight years as vice president while others went all the way back to his time as a senator.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said it’s “unacceptable” and that Biden should be “embarrassed.”

“When that information is found it diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it. Because it’s not supposed to happen. Whether it was the fault of a staffer or attorney makes no difference. The elected official bears ultimate responsibility,” Durbin said on CNN’s State of the Union.

But Democrats are still supportive of the president’s response. They said he has been more transparent and more cooperative than former President Trump, who defied a subpoena for documents at his Florida home.

“President Biden is someone who respects the rule of law, who respects the importance of classified documents, and that this was a consensual search. That the Department of Justice was invited to come to his home and to search every nook and cranny, top to bottom, to find anything they possibly could,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said on ABC’s This Week.

The senators explained that when they view classified information, they do it in a locked room or SCIF (secure compartmented information facility) and can’t take anything with them when they leave. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsels to investigate both the Biden and Trump cases.

“I think that Merrick Garland did the right thing by putting the special counsel, and I think that we should wait until the special counsel, rather than making this a political circus, let them find out the facts. What one was more damaging? Are they both about the same, did not cause any problem? Or is one more reckless and irresponsible than the other?” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said on Meet the Press.

In addition to the special counsel, President Biden is also being investigated by the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., put in an official request with the Secret Service to hand over all the information it has about visitors to the Biden’s Wilmington residence by Feb. 6.
McCarthy vows to look at both Biden and Trump classified documents

January 18, 2023

“Yes, Yes, Yes.” That’s how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responded when asked if Republican-controlled congressional committees will look into the classified documents cases of both President Biden and former President Trump.

McCarthy said the House has an obligation to oversee the Justice Department and he has expressed concern that President Biden and Trump are not receiving equal treatment.

“They put a special prosecutor but only after people raised the issue. But are the same amount of agents investigating this that are investigating President Trump? Is the same push behind it? It just does not seem fair,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsels to lead the Justice Department’s investigations. Jack Smith, who just returned from The Hague after prosecuting war crimes in Kosovo, will investigate Trump. Robert Hur, who was appointed by Trump to serve as the United States Attorney for Maryland, will investigate Biden.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer already put in a request with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain for documents and communications related to the Biden case. He’ll be joined on the Oversight Committee by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who used their vote for speaker as leverage to get the appointments.

The list includes Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. Gosar and Greene were both stripped of their committee assignments by Democrats. Now, with the House in Republican control, they have one of the most sought after positions.

“Joe Biden, be prepared. We are going to uncover every corrupt business dealing, every foreign entanglement, every abuse of power, and every check cut for The Big Guy,” Greene said in a statement.

Greene was also appointed to the Homeland Security Committee, giving her two plum seats.
White House, Secret Service don’t keep visitor logs for Biden home

January 16, 2023

Neither the White House nor the Secret Service maintain visitor logs for President Biden’s personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware. They’re making the disclosure because the House Oversight Committee put in an official request with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain for all logs going back to Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Biden took office.

“Like every president in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the White House counsel’s office said in a statement obtained by Fox. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”

A Secret Service spokesman said the agency does screen visitors but does not maintain a record of who they checked.

“We don’t independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence,” Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told reporters.

The Secret Service said the same for former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home when classified documents were found there.

In his letter to Klain, Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., wrote it is “troubling” that classified information has been stored at the Biden home.

“President Biden’s mishandling of classified materials raises the issue of whether he has jeopardized our national security. Without a list of individuals who have visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents,” Comer wrote.

Comer also requested all documents and communications by Biden aides that are related to the case.

“Because this is the same type of investigation that the Democrats were so outraged and launched and demanded happen to President Trump. What we see with President Biden is there are multiple locations. We would never have known about the possession of the classified documents were it not for investigative reporting by CBS,” Comer said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Democrats contend President Biden’s team has handled the situation well and returned the documents the day they were discovered.

“That is a very different posture than what we saw with Donald Trump, where he was fighting for a period of more than 8 months to not turn over hundreds of missing documents that the Archives was asking about,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said on State of the Union. “I think every American has an interest in seeing that classified documents are properly handled by whoever is president and by any administration. And all we’re looking for is equal treatment.”

A growing list of congressional Democrats have spoken out, saying this is a serious matter and needs to be thoroughly investigated. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel on Thursday.

The AP contributed to this report.
What’s in the House rules package?

January 9, 2023

During his acceptance speech Saturday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said, “now the hard work begins.” But before the House of Representatives can get to work, it needs to approve a rules package. This resolution will govern how the chamber operates for the next two years. Negotiations over what’s in it are a big reason why it took 15 votes for Speaker McCarthy to secure the gavel.

Here are the top highlights:

Motion to vacate

It allows a single member to force a vote on removing the speaker from office. So if any of McCarthy’s opponents don’t like the job he’s doing, they can bring their grievance straight to the floor.

“So I’m not going to say there won’t be one person who tries to abuse that motion, but I’m confident that McCarthy’s going to be able to be given the green light to govern and to lead this conference,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said on Meet the Press when asked if McCarthy can last two years without a challenge.

Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic

It creates a 12 member panel that will investigate the pandemic’s origins and look into the U.S. government’s response. The plan is to have 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats, but the speaker will have the final say.

The committee will also try to make a final determination as to whether gain of function research, which is when a virus is artificially strengthened, played a role. According to the National Institutes of Health, that research is done to help virologists understand a virus’ genetic makeup and how it interacts with a host.

On the budget

The rules package replaces what’s called “pay-as-you-go” with “cut-as-you-go.” That will require any spending increases to be offset by equal or greater decreases in other areas. “Pay-as-you-go” allows spending increases to coincide with projected revenue increases. This will have a big impact on government funding negotiations.

There will also be a 72-hour period between when a bill is introduced and when it receives a vote. This is in response to complaints that some massive bills are released and voted on almost immediately without enough time to review what’s in it. That includes the 4,100 page omnibus spending package in December, that was released at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday and voted on Thursday.

Getting the rules approved

Republicans will need to be almost entirely inline with each other to get this package approved. But some members are expressing doubts. They believe McCarthy may have conceded too much to the most conservative lawmakers in order to become speaker.

“I like the rules package. It is the most, open, fair and fiscally conservative package we have had in 30 years. I support it. But what I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret to get a vote or a vote present,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

I am a NO on the house rules package. Welcome to the 118th Congress.

— Tony Gonzales (@TonyGonzales4TX) January 7, 2023

Those private deals include getting more conservatives in key committee positions. Some Republicans say because of that, they are either voting no, or are considering voting no.

Drug cartels are using drones to pinpoint Border Patrol agents’ locations

Democrats becoming increasingly critical of Biden’s classified documents

McCarthy vows to look at both Biden and Trump classified documents

White House, Secret Service don’t keep visitor logs for Biden home

What’s in the House rules package?

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