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Opinion What does the GOP have on Biden? A whole lot of nothin’.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) speaks during a news conference at the Capitol on Wednesday about the investigation into the Biden family's finances. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
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Republicans who have been trying for years to “prove” that President Biden is somehow corrupt made a big show Wednesday of revealing their smear campaign to be a shameless, empty exercise in rumor and innuendo.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Steve Doocy, one of the hosts of the morning show “Fox & Friends,” which is normally the safest possible space for Republican politicians to trumpet their talking points.

“You don’t actually have any facts to that point,” Doocy said Thursday to House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who was trying to sell the idea that the president, his brother James and his son Hunter were part of some shadowy influence-peddling scheme. “And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is — there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.”

That wasn’t the reaction Comer had hoped to get in a GOP-friendly venue the morning after his much-hyped news conference releasing the findings of the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the president’s family. You might have missed Comer’s event, because it happened while another Republican member of Congress, Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), was being taken into custody and arraigned on felony charges of wire fraud, money laundering and other federal crimes.

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Santos — who has admitted lying about his education, employment history, ethnicity and much else — pleaded not guilty to all charges; he declined to say who put up the $500,000 bond allowing him to be released from custody. I read the 13-count indictment filed by prosecutors, and — unlike Comer’s hot air — it cites plenty of facts.

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Comer’s committee was supposed to be the principal instrument by which House Republicans made good on their pledge to dig up some kind of dirt on Biden. With the leading candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, facing felony charges in Manhattan, a civil verdict holding him responsible for sexual abuse, and the possibility of soon being hit with more state and federal charges, Republicans would love to be able to tar Biden with at least the appearance of illegality.

So far, however, Biden has had every right to perform the “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” gesture that Barack Obama borrowed from Jay-Z. The GOP has come up with a whole lot of nothin’.

Republicans have chanted the name “Hunter Biden” like a mantra and surely will continue to do so. Indeed, the president’s son has a troubled past of drug addiction and questionable business dealings. He is under federal investigation, and it is not inconceivable that at some point he might face criminal charges.

It is also apparently true, as Comer revealed with great fanfare, that Hunter Biden, “other Bidens” and “Biden associates” at various times formed more than 20 companies to conduct business transactions — akin, on a much smaller scale, to the roughly 500 such business entities established by Trump.

But Comer produced zero evidence for the central “influence peddling” allegation that he makes yet — as Fox News host Doocy pointed out — cannot cite facts to support: that Biden, while serving as vice president, took action to enrich his family members or “associates.”

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The committee’s investigators went down deep rabbit holes involving business dealings that companies associated with members of Biden’s family conducted with firms in two countries, Romania and China. The theory seems to be the following: Biden, as vice president, was critical of corruption in Romania even as his son dealt with a corrupt Romanian businessman. One of the Chinese businesses Hunter Biden had a relationship with was led by a man who once was close to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Therefore …

Therefore, what? The committee produced no evidence to suggest that Joe Biden did anything at all to help his son’s overseas business partners, or even that Biden knew which foreign companies his son, other family members and “associates” had transactions with. To the extent that Biden dealt with Romanian or Chinese officials when he was vice president, his statements and actions would appear to have damaged, rather than helped, the interests of the companies in question. And there is no evidence that one penny of any funds Hunter Biden might have been paid by foreign companies ever reached his father.

Comer vows to continue the so-far fruitless hunt. I have an idea: Why doesn’t he examine how President Donald Trump protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from meaningful international censure following the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi — and how the Saudis later invested $2 billion in the start-up hedge fund launched by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner?

Sorry, I forgot. Comer is running a political exercise, not an investigation. Republican influence-peddling — however glaringly obvious — is the last thing he wants to find.

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