House Republicans are planning to take the first official steps towards attempting to have President Joe Biden’s son Hunter charged with criminal contempt of Congress after he declined to sit for a closed-door interview and demanded to give evidence in public instead.
The House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee on Friday announced plans to mark up a resolution referring Hunter Biden for prosecution for not appearing for the 13 December deposition after receiving a subpoena compelling him to testify before the GOP-led Oversight panel, which has been conducting a year-long and largely fruitless probe into his father with the aim of tying the 46th president to his son’s overseas business ventures.
At the time, the younger Mr Biden came to the Capitol and spoke to reporters outside the building to say he was willing to give evidence, but not in a closed session that would allow Republicans to selectively release parts of his testimony with the aim of embarrassing him and his father.
His attorney, Abbe Lowell, had indicated his client was willing to give evidence before the GOP-led panel. But Mr Lowell had stressed that his client would only testify in an open hearing, citing the GOP committee’s penchant for selectively leaking transcripts of testimony in ways that bolster their preferred narratives.
Mr Biden confirmed these concerns in his statement, slamming the GOP panel for “having distorted the facts by cherry picking lines from a bank statement, manipulating texts I sent, editing the testimony of my friends and former business partners, and misstating personal information that was stolen from me”.
“There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing,” he said. “They have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life, so much so that their lives have become the false facts believed by too many people”.
House Oversight chair James Comer and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan subsequently announced plans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress.
In a statement, Mr Comer and Mr Jordan said Mr Biden’s “willful refusal to comply with our subpoenas constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the appropriate United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution”.
Mr Comer’s Democratic counterpart, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, said in response that there is “no precedent for the US House of Representatives holding a private citizen in contempt of Congress who has offered to testify in public, under oath, and on a day of the Committee’s choosing”.
“Instead of taking yes for an answer, Chairman Comer has now obstructed his own hapless investigation by denying Hunter Biden the opportunity to answer all the Committee’s questions in front of the American people and the world,” Mr Raskin said.
He added that Mr Comer is set on forcing a private deposition instead of a public hearing “because he wants to keep up the carefully curated distortions, blatant lies, and laughable conspiracy theories that have marked this investigation”.
Criminal prosecutions for contempt of Congress are exceedingly rare, with only two being brought in recent years, both of former Trump administration officials who refused to testify before the House January 6 select committee.
Both ex-White House officials, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, have been convicted after jury trials and are appealing their convictions.
Two other ex-Trump officials, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, were referred for prosecution for the same reason, but the Department of Justice declined to indict either of them, in part because their attorneys had engaged with committee staff.
