Hunter Biden on Wednesday morning made an unexpected appearance at an Oversight Committee hearing considering whether he should be held in contempt of Congress.
House Republicans were evidently surprised to see the president’s son in person at the Capitol Hill meeting, which comes after GOP lawmakers accused him of refusing to comply with a subpoena last month for a closed-door deposition related to their impeachment inquiry into his father. Noticing Biden had entered the room, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked: “Who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today?”
Addressing Biden, Mace erupted with a verbal tirade: “You are the epitome of white privilege coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here.”
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The outburst prompted objections from Democrats, but Mace continued: “I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now and go straight to jail.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-NY) then floated the idea of the panel holding a vote to have Biden testify publicly there and then, alleging that the “only folks that are afraid to hear from the witness with the American people watching are my friends on the other side of the aisle.”
“Let’s vote,” Moskowitz continued. “Let’s take a vote. Who wants to hear from Hunter, right now, today?” gesturing for a show of hands in the room. “Anyone? Come on. Who wants to hear from Hunter? No one. So I’m a visual learner. And the visual is clear. Nobody over there wants to hear from the witness.”
Biden walked out of the room a short time later as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) began speaking, leading to her deriding him as a “coward.”
Her comments then provoked a rebuttal from Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who reminded that the “gentle lady from Georgia” had previously shown “dick pics” of Biden in the same committee room.
The off-the-rails hearing came after Republicans launched contempt proceedings against the younger Biden last month for his refusal to comply with a subpoena for his deposition in the impeachment inquiry into his father. That Republican-led probe has relied heavily on unsubstantiated claims that President Joe Biden benefited financially from his son’s foreign business dealings.
Hunter Biden has repeatedly refused to sit for a closed-door deposition, arguing that it would give Republicans a chance to railroad him by distorting what is actually said in the meeting. Instead, he and his lawyers have repeatedly offered to answer questions publicly.
In the wake of the chaos at his contempt hearing Wednesday, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, accused Republicans of trying “to use him as a surrogate to attack his father.” Lowell said his team had made six offers to Republicans for Hunter to provide testimony, but to no avail.
“Our first five offers were ignored, and then, in November, they issued a subpoena for a behind closed doors deposition, a tactic Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said,” Lowell said.
