Hunter Biden has finally agreed to sit for a closed-door deposition before Congress, as the full House prepares to vote on two resolutions to hold him in contempt for ignoring subpoenas related to his father’s impeachment inquiry.
Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell said the president’s son will comply with the House GOP’s investigation in a letter sent to House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) on Friday. The letter to Congress comes two days after both committees passed separate resolutions in response to Hunter Biden’s defiance of orders requiring him to sit for a closed-door deposition in December.
“If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr. Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,” Lowell wrote. “We will accept such a subpoena on Mr. Biden's behalf.”
In the letter, the lawyer argued that the congressional subpoenas directed toward his client were “legally invalid” because they were issued before the full House approved the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Congress issued the subpoenas in November, a month before the investigation received official legislative support.
On September 12, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) informally launched the Biden impeachment inquiry, which was later approved on December 13 — the same day that Hunter Biden skipped his closed-door deposition, and instead held a press conference on Capitol Hill where he said he was willing to testify if it was an open, public hearing. Both Comer and Jordan vowed to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to attend the scheduled deposition that day.
“Rather than accepting Mr. Biden's offer to voluntarily sit for a public hearing, you are now seeking to have the full House find him in contempt based on subpoenas for a deposition that you issued on November 8 and 9, 2023,” Lowell said in the letter. “I write to make you aware (if you are not already) that your subpoenas were and are legally invalid and cannot form a legal basis to proceed with your misdirected and impermissible contempt resolution.”
Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees, both of which have the authority to serve subpoenas regardless of whether the House approved the impeachment inquiry, have said they would welcome a public hearing with Hunter Biden as the witness. However, they first want to hold a private deposition to ask him specific questions about his father’s alleged involvement in his foreign-business dealings before giving the younger Biden a public platform to speak.
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden unexpectedly crashed Oversight’s contempt hearing. The committee voted to hold Hunter in contempt later that day.
“Hunter Biden brazenly walked into our hearing unannounced after committing a criminal act when he defied our duly issued subpoenas,” Comer said in a statement on Wednesday. “We have no idea why he showed up. Some of my Democratic colleagues claim it was to answer questions. Did his lawyers tell the Democrats that? Hunter Biden's lawyers did not tell us why he was here. They told us nothing.”
Hunter abruptly left the hearing just minutes into the proceedings, just as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) was about to speak.
“Today demonstrates why Hunter Biden must be found in contempt of Congress,” Comer added. “He says he will answer questions. But only when and where he wants to. Democrats want Hunter Biden to receive special treatment. Hunter Biden thinks he is entitled to special treatment. We cannot allow that. All Americans must be treated equally under the law. And that includes the Bidens.”
House Republicans continue their investigation into whether Joe Biden financially benefited from his son’s business deals in foreign nations such as China and Ukraine.
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