Hunter Biden will not appear for a closed-door deposition today, defying a subpoena from House Republicans who are investigating the Biden family’s finances.
“I’m here to testify at a public hearing today,” Hunter Biden said in a statement outside of the Capitol this morning. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics . . . or hear what I have to say.”
The decision comes ahead of an expected vote in the GOP-led House later Wednesday to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, intended to strengthen the oversight powers of lawmakers.
Hunter Biden has maintained that he would only answer questions in a public hearing. His legal team has pointed to past comments in which House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) all but dared Hunter Biden to testify – publicly or privately – and the team has said they don’t trust House Republicans not to selectively leak his testimony.
“For six years I’ve been targeted by the unrelenting Trump Machine asking ‘where’s Hunter,'” Hunter Biden said. “Here the answer; I’m right here.”
Comer over the past two weeks has rebuffed Hunter Biden’s offer to publicly testify before the committee, and Republicans have threatened to initiate proceedings to hold him in contempt of Congress if he fails to cooperate.
The impeachment inquiry, which was launched by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in September without a vote, has so far failed to prove the GOP’s claim that Joe Biden financially benefited from his son’s foreign investment deals.
However, the vote brought about by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to have near-unanimous support among Republicans.
The foundation of the impeachment inquiry, outlined by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a briefing with reporters last week, rests on an unsubstantiated accusation that has become the linchpin of allegations regarding the Biden family’s purported corrupt and criminal conduct.
Republicans allege that Joe Biden as vice president pushed for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to quash a probe into the former owner of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden sat on the board. But that allegation has been widely refuted by former U.S. officials, as well as Ukrainian anti-corruption activists. As part of the inquiry, House Republicans also have elevated claims that the Biden administration slowed a Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial background, but that testimony has been repeatedly disputed by officials involved in the case.
“There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing,” Hunter Biden said Wednesday. “Their false facts have become the beliefs of too many people.”
“They have taken the light of my dad’s love for me and presented it as darkness,” he continued. “They have no shame”
Some vulnerable Republican lawmakers previously were resistant to voting on the matter of impeachment – and remain opposed to proceeding with formal articles of impeachment given the underwhelming body of evidence Republican investigators have amassed so far. But after White House special counsel Dick Sauber issued a Nov. 17 letter challenging the legitimacy of the inquiry and demanding that subpoenas and requests for interviews with Biden family members and White House aides be rescinded, GOP lawmakers have rallied behind the idea of strengthening the House’s legal hand by moving to authorize the investigation with a vote.
“The House will likely need to go to court to enforce its subpoenas, and opening a formal inquiry – backed by a vote of the full body – puts us in the strongest legal position to gather the evidence and provide transparency to the American people,” Johnson argued in an op-ed published Tuesday morning.
There is still at least one Republican outlier who remains skeptical of the GOP’s year-long investigation into Biden. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) told reporters Tuesday that he was still leaning toward voting against authorizing the inquiry. But while Buck said that he saw no link between the actions of Hunter and Joe Biden in Ukraine, he said he did not appreciate Sauber’s letter to Congress that struck a defiant posture toward oversight efforts.
“I don’t like what the White House did when they sent back a letter saying, you haven’t passed an impeachment inquiry so we aren’t going to give you these documents – I don’t think that’s based on the Constitution,” Buck reasoned. “But at the same time, I don’t see the link between the actions of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. I think there’s lots of reasons to fire Viktor Shokin in Ukraine, and I don’t think it was related to Hunter Biden – so I’m really torn.”
Outside of Hunter Biden, who has this year been indicted on gun charges in Delaware and tax charges in California, the majority of people who have been asked to appear before or cooperate with GOP-led committees directing the inquiry have complied to varying degrees. Current and former officials involved with the ongoing federal investigation into Hunter Biden appeared for closed-door depositions after a tentative plea deal for him collapsed in August. And David Weiss, the federal prosecutor who was tapped to serve as special counsel investigating the president’s son, took the rare and unusual step of making himself available for questioning by Congress before the investigation was completed.
House GOP investigators have also been given access to suspicious activity reports through the Treasury Department, have obtained bank records through subpoenas and are set to receive 62,000 records from the National Archives from Biden’s time as vice president. Those are in addition to the 20,000 records requested by Comer that the Archives has already made public.
If Republicans move to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, the Oversight Committee has to provide 72 hours notice before the resolution can make its way through the committee and then on to the House floor. It’s unlikely that a vote would happen this week, unless lawmakers stay in session through the weekend.
Congress held several former Trump administration aides in contempt last year after they defied subpoenas issued by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. If the House approves a contempt resolution, it goes to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to pursue the contempt referral. Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor criminal offense that can result in up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Jacqueline Alemany, Matt Viser
Hunter Biden did nothing wrong. I’m willing to lie under oath to Congress again in order to protect the Bidens. Adam Schiff will cover for me again.