Washington Post columnist Philip Bump revealed in a piece Tuesday that he recently started getting a barrage of text messages asking that he support a number of Republican causes. The texts, he said, oddly came from figures including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Donald Trump's attorney John Eastman and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
"I am curious," said the well-known liberal writer, "As to whether this was a change in approach by Republican fundraisers or an effort to troll me with spam personally, but that’s beside the point."
On Monday evening, he said, he received a request to donate to Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who is chairing an impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
“40 FBI Informants. In the Biden Family. For 15 years,” the text told him. “It’s Chairman Comer and you need to read this”
The message linked to a WinRed fundraising page — it struck Bump as bizarre that Comer was desperately trying to fundraise off of his hearings.
"After all, the allegation about the informants wasn’t something that came from his and his party’s efforts," Bump wrote. "The pitch couches that a bit, asserting in boldface text that '[i]t has come to light' that these informants purportedly existed. But there’s no news release about it from the normally news-release-enthusiastic House majority and no mention of it on Comer’s X/Twitter feed. The account for the Oversight Committee did mention it once, pointing back to the source of the claim: Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)."
Grassley and Comer have been coordinating on the Biden investigation, suggesting that the president and his family were involved with some kind of bribery scheme with foreigners. "No evidence corroborating the claim has emerged; evidence undercutting it is generally ignored," Bump wrote.
This month, Grassley sent a letter to the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland claiming the FBI, under President Donald Trump and Biden, put off investigations into the claims. Implying that he's getting information from the FBI itself, Grassley admits, "I've been made aware that at one point in time the FBI maintained over 40 Confidential Human Sources that provided criminal information relating to Joe Biden, James Biden and Hunter Biden." He didn't share other information to substantiate or verify it.
"That Comer is raising money off Grassley’s claim — raising money by exaggerating the claim to assert that there were 40 informants for 50 years — is the point," wrote Bump.
"This wasn’t his work; it was simply an allegation that those who would respond to an 'I’m fighting Biden for you' appeal would find compelling. I once referred to Comer’s efforts as a fishing expedition, but he’s not simply throwing out bait to see what he gets, he’s throwing out as much bait as he can to vacuum up as many fish as there are in the sea."
Bump closed by explaining it's easy to twist the story into a scandal, particularly when Comer, Grassley and Fox are pushing the same claims of conspiracy.
"It’s like Trump and election fraud: He keeps saying the election was stolen, so all sorts of things that very much aren’t evidence of that point are granted the default assumption that they are," said Bump.
"Comer takes pixelated images of checks and well-edited videos claiming that Biden’s on the take, puts them on a hook and tosses it into the right-wing ecosystem. Then he refreshes his WinRed page to see how much his 2024 reelection bid is bringing in."
New House Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) has indicated the house will vote on the impeachment under his leadership and open an official probe.
