Hunter Biden’s testimony starts with defiant statement
Hunter Biden testified on Wednesday that he never involved his father, President Biden, in any of his business decisions, and he accused House Republicans of having “built your entire partisan house of cards on lies.”
The president’s son, ahead of what is expected to be a lengthy, and long-awaited, closed-door deposition for the GOP-led impeachment inquiry of the president, wrote an opening statement that was defiant, emotional, and combative.
“I am here today to provide the Committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business,” he said, according to a copy of the statement obtained by The Washington Post. “Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never.”
The testimony comes as House Republicans have struggled to uncover firm evidence that Joe Biden benefited from — or played a role in — the business pursuits of his family members. The testimony from Hunter Biden follows an appearance from President Biden’s younger brother James, who last week testified that Joe Biden never played a role in his businesses. Several other former associates of Hunter and James Biden have made similar statements under oath.
Hunter Biden’s appearance before the Oversight and Judiciary committees could provide Republicans with a final chance to alter the trajectory of an impeachment inquiry that so far has produced mostly exculpatory statements, despite Republicans’ efforts to prove that the president benefited improperly from his family’s businesses.
“This has been a comedy of errors from the beginning,” Representative Jamie Raskin said ahead of the hearing, urging Republicans to “fold up the circus tent” and end the impeachment inquiry.
“We have gotten extremely far afield from the constitutional standard,” the Maryland Democrat said. “Nobody on their side can state what they think Joe Biden did, even as a private citizen, that would constitute some kind of criminal offense.”
The GOP leaders of the inquiry dispute that, saying they have uncovered information suggesting that the president did benefit from the foreign business dealings of his family members and that he used his position to help them.
Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the inquiry would link the business ventures of Hunter Biden directly to his father.
“There’s a pattern with the Biden family: Hunter Biden goes out and tries to get business, but the agreements and the deals never get done until Joe Biden shows up, either on a phone call or dropping by a lunch, dropping by a dinner,” the Ohio Republican told Fox News.
In his opening statement Wednesday, Hunter Biden noted that the credibility of several witnesses cited by Republicans has since been undermined, including Alexander Smirnov, who has recently been charged with lying to the FBI about the Bidens.