Hunter Biden makes unexpected appearance at contempt of Congress hearing

Hunter Biden’s unexpected appearance at a House committee hearing set off a chaotic debate in the chamber over whether he should be held in contempt of Congress.

Hunter Biden, flanked by Kevin Morris, left, and Abbe Lowell, right, attend a House Oversight Committee meeting. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Hunter Biden’s unexpected appearance at a House committee hearing set off a chaotic debate in the chamber over whether he should be held in contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoenas late last year and angered some Republican politicians who called his presence a political stunt.

His showing Wednesday at a House Oversight Committee hearing was the latest move in a combative legal strategy aimed at portraying the president’s son as a victim of partisan attacks by House Republicans. A vote to hold him in contempt would set up a potential third criminal prosecution that could coincide with his father’s re-election campaign.

“You are the epitome of white privilege coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.). “What are you afraid of?” ” Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now and go straight to jail,” she said.

Democrats pointed to public comments made in the past by Republican committee leaders saying that they would allow Hunter Biden to testify publicly in an open hearing — and dared Republicans to put him on the witness stand right then and there.

“Who wants to hear from Hunter right now, today? Anyone? Come on. Who wants to hear from Hunter?” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), suggesting that the panel vote on the idea. “Nobody over there wants to hear from the witness.” Wednesday’s proceedings stem from Hunter Biden’s decision not to comply with subpoenas that the House Judiciary and the House Oversight and Accountability committees issued late last year. The two panels held simultaneous hearings Wednesday in different rooms on the same topic: His failure to appear for a deposition in a congressional impeachment probe into whether President Biden benefited from his family’s business dealings.

Instead of sitting for closed-door questioning, the president’s son gave a brief speech on Capitol Hill where he said he would answer any “legitimate questions” from House investigators. The younger Biden offered to testify but insisted on doing so publicly out of concern about selective leaks of his testimony. House Republicans said he couldn’t dictate the terms of his appearance and needed to first answer questions privately.

Senior White House staff and Biden allies are uncomfortable that Hunter Biden keeps putting himself in the spotlight and wish he would maintain a lower profile, according to people familiar with the situation. They see little upside in reminding voters of his antics, which involve failure to pay taxes on time and inappropriate behaviour as he struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol.

“If you’re sitting in the White House right now, you’re like, ‘Please, Hunter Biden. We know your dad loves you. Please stop talking in public.’ This is not helpful to any of them for him to be out there,” said former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki in December, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press shortly after Hunter Biden defied the subpoenas. “The White House would like him to probably go away right now.” By appearing at the Oversight hearing Wednesday, Hunter Biden sought to highlight his willingness to co-operate with the panel’s inquiry on his own terms.

Hunter Biden sat in the audience between his lawyers Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris and listened to the early part of the hearing. They stood up and left after less than an hour, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) was speaking. “Excuse me Hunter, apparently you’re afraid of my words,” she said. Hunter Biden didn’t make an appearance at the simultaneous Judiciary Committee hearing on the same topic.

Lowell read a statement outside the Oversight committee room, accusing Republicans of using his client as a way to attack the president and repeating that his client has offered to work with the committee several times in the past, including an offer made Wednesday. Ignoring those efforts, Lowell said, shows “they cared little for the truth.” The twin House proceedings Wednesday set Congress on a path that could add to Hunter Biden’s legal difficulties, though he might not be prosecuted even if he is held in contempt. The contempt-of-Congress charge carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. If the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approves the measures, the matter will be referred to the Justice Department.

Separately, Hunter Biden is due in court Thursday in Los Angeles for an initial appearance on tax charges related to failing to file returns on time and for allegedly claiming false deductions on some of the forms he did file.

The contempt-of-Congress resolution puts the president’s family drama in the spotlight as the 2024 presidential campaign gets fully under way. President Biden has pitched himself as an antidote to former President Donald Trump’s chaotic tenure in office. But his son’s actions have given Trump, the likely GOP nominee, ammunition to undermine that claim.

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s art dealer appeared behind closed doors to testify before House Oversight members about the buyers of paintings by the president’s son, who has launched a new career as an artist. Three of the 10 buyers of Biden’s art were Democratic donors and their purchases amounted to 70% of his proceeds, according to people familiar with the testimony.

The lion’s share was to Morris, the Hollywood lawyer who sat with Hunter Biden on Wednesday and has become personally close to him, the people said.

Hunter Biden has opted for a combative legal strategy on several fronts. In recent months, he has filed lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and the Internal Revenue Service over alleged breaches of his privacy.

In July, the younger Biden was set to admit to failing to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018, as part of a plea deal in which he would have avoided prosecution on a gun charge. But the deal dissolved during a hearing in which federal prosecutors and Biden’s legal team disagreed in open court about the immunity it granted the president’s son from potential additional charges.

Hunter Biden was later indicted on three felony gun charges related to a 2018 firearm purchase. In that case, he has sought to subpoena Trump and former Attorney-General William Barr as he prepares to raise a defence that his prosecution on felony gun charges stems from an “unrelenting pressure campaign” by the former president and his Republican allies.

In December, Hunter Biden was charged with nine tax offences in an indictment accused him of failing to pay his taxes on time between 2016 and 2019 and claiming false deductions for various personal expenses, including membership to a sex club, pornography and his daughter’s law-school tuition.

If the House votes to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, he would be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. Such a referral would put the Justice Department in the fraught position of determining whether to pursue another criminal case against the president’s son. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

A White House spokesman, Ian Sams, said the contempt resolution and a separate hearing Wednesday, which is part of a GOP effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, represent “baseless attacks” on Biden’s White House and family.

Democrats used the Oversight hearing to raise questions about the legitimacy of the underlying impeachment probe into President Biden, noting that after a year investigating, the committee has yielded nothing about the president that rises to the standard for removal from office.

“We were here for a year [and] you did not lay a glove on Joe Biden,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), the top Democrat on the panel. “Why are we here? We can’t go after Joe Biden, he’s clean. Let’s go after Hunter Biden.” Republicans noted that there is nothing unusual about their investigative process, which is to bring in witnesses for closed-door interviews before holding subsequent public hearings. Indeed, Raskin used this playbook for a probe he was part of during the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and was insistent that witnesses followed the subpoenas.

“Please tell your children out there in America, if you get a subpoena to go before Congress, if you get a subpoena to go to the court, go,” Raskin said on MSNBC in July 2022 as a former Trump aide was defying a subpoena.

In past administrations, both Democratic and Republicans, the Justice Department has often declined to pursue contempt-of-Congress cases. But in most of those cases, the Justice Department considered whether to prosecute government officials who asserted executive privilege in refusing to appear for questioning or turn over documents to Congress, legal experts said.

Following referrals from Congress, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington brought contempt charges in recent years against former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro in connection with their defiance of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Congress also voted, largely on party lines, to hold former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, the deputy chief of staff for communications in the Trump White House, in contempt of Congress on similar grounds. But prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against those two.

Bannon was found guilty in 2022 and later sentenced to four months in prison. He has remained free pending an appeal of his conviction. Navarro was found guilty in September and is set to be sentenced later this month.

As a private citizen, Hunter Biden hasn’t asserted executive privilege in his dealings with House Republicans. For prosecutors, the decision to bring charges could be complicated by questions about the validity of the underlying investigation, his offer to testify — albeit only in public — and the criminal charges he already faces in the two other cases, legal experts said.

Hunter Biden and his legal team objected to a closed-door deposition because he feared that House Republicans would cherry-pick his responses to present him in a negative light.

Dow Jones