Hunter Biden refuses to testify publicly, calling inquiry a `circus'
Hunter Biden, the president's son, on Wednesday rejected a request from House Republicans to testify next week at a public hearing in their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, blasting the GOP's plans as a “made-for-rightwing-media circus act.”
House Republicans had asked Hunter Biden to appear at a hearing March 20 alongside three of his former business partners. Two of them have been convicted in fraud cases, and the other is angry over being cut out of a deal.
But Abbe Lowell, Biden's lawyer, cited a scheduling conflict while slamming the proceeding in a letter to Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the Oversight Committee.
“Your blatant plannedfor-media event is not a proper proceeding but an obvious attempt to throw a Hail Mary pass after the game has ended,” Lowell wrote.
House Republicans have been working for months to try to tie the foreign business deals of Biden, who is facing gun- and tax-related charges, to his father as part of their impeachment inquiry. But they have so far failed to produce evidence of wrongdoing by the president — much less high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment.
The judge in the gun case has tentatively set Biden's trial for early June.
Hunter Biden sat for a closed-door, six-hour interview with House investigators last month, frequently sparring with Republicans and criticizing their questions while offering explanations — often ones that were exceedingly unflattering to himself — for his actions. Despite the pending criminal charges against him, Biden, 54, never invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“Mr. Biden's answers to every question you, your colleagues and staff posed to him were the final nail in the coffin of your wasteful yearlong misadventure,” Lowell wrote.
Biden agreed to a closeddoor deposition only after Republicans refused his demands to be allowed to testify in public. GOP lawmakers threatened to hold Biden in contempt of Congress before he relented.
Comer pointed to Biden's earlier insistence on public testimony in his response to Lowell's letter.
“The House Oversight Committee has called Hunter Biden's bluff,” Comer said. “Hunter Biden for months stated he wanted a public hearing, but now that one has been offered alongside his business associates that he worked with for years, he is refusing to come.”
House Republicans plan to hold a hearing next with former business associates of Hunter Biden: Jason Galanis, Devon Archer and Tony Bobulinski.
Galanis, who is serving 14 years in prison for fraud, told the panel that the “entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden.”