House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) explained on Newsmax Tuesday why he opposed Hunter Biden’s offer to publicly testify, claiming that he first wants a closed-door deposition and not “chaotic” public hearings in which Democrats “can’t conduct themselves in a mature, credible manner.”
“We’re doing this investigation the way it’s supposed to be done, and the subpoena calls for Hunter Biden to come in for a deposition,” Comer told The Balance host Eric Bolling. “And that’s what we expect to have: a deposition where the transcripts will be released. When you have a deposition, the committee votes to release the transcripts. After the January 6 committee, the depositions were filmed. So this deposition will be filmed.”
Comer, who subpoenaed President Joe Biden’s son earlier this month amid the Kentucky lawmaker’s unsubstantiated allegations of “shady business practices,” said he welcomed the younger Biden’s public testimony—at a later date.
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“This will be testifying in public, but not in a chaotic scene where the Democrats—who have already demonstrated they can’t conduct themselves in a mature, credible manner during a hearing,” he said.
“We have tens of thousands of pages of documents where we need to sit down and ask specific, substantive questions without filibustering, without interruption, without going five minutes back and forth with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Dan Goldberg (D-NY) and little Moskowitz jumping up and down,” he said.
Comer may be referencing a hearing weeks ago—yet one in which Comer himself swore and called Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) a “smurf.”
In that Nov. 14 hearing, Moskowitz mentioned a Daily Beast report finding that Comer, who has seized on loan repayments from James Biden to his brother, made payments to his own brother.
Comer wasn’t happy with Moskowitz.
“That story that you tweeted also said that I had a shell company. That is bullshit!” he exclaimed. “I think that the problem is, you know, the White House tried to get CNN to write that story. They went around and investigated all this bullshit.”
After Moskowitz, who was wearing a blue jacket and tie, attempted to reclaim his time, Comer got personal.
“No! I’m not going to give you your time back! We can stop the clock. You all continue to—you look like a Smurf here,” he shot back, after which Moskowitz suggested Comer be deposed.
By late Tuesday night, Moskowitz and Goldman had responded to Comer’s comments on Newsmax, with the former accusing him of being “scared” of Hunter Biden’s testimony. Goldman, meanwhile, wrote on X that since Comer’s first public impeachment inquiry hearing on the matter was “such an abject failure,” he “will do anything to avoid that embarrassment again.”
