House Republicans on Wednesday threatened to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress if he defies a subpoena and does not appear for a scheduled deposition next week.
In a letter to Hunter Biden’s attorney, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, made it clear that if the president’s son does not appear for a Dec. 13 deposition, their committees will move to hold him in contempt.
The letter is the latest escalation in the conflict between House Republicans and President Joe Biden, which appears to be barreling toward a vote next week to formalize their impeachment inquiry.
The letter from the GOP committee chairmen follows one from Hunter Biden’s legal counsel, Abbe Lowell, on Wednesday, reiterating the president’s son’s push to testify publicly on Dec. 13, or at a later date.
Lowell wrote to Comer that Hunter Biden “is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public — a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings.”
But in their reply, Comer and Jordan sought to make it clear that “there is no ‘choice’” for the president’s son to make in this instance.
“[T]he subpoenas compel him to appear for a deposition on December 13,” they wrote. “If Mr. Biden does not appear for his deposition on December 13, 2023, the Committees will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings.”
The back-and-forth comes one day after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters that House Republicans have “no choice” but to forge ahead on a vote next week to formalize their impeachment inquiry.
“The House has no choice if it’s going to follow its constitutional responsibility to formally adopt an impeachment inquiry on the floor so that when the subpoenas are challenged in court, we will be at the apex of our constitutional authority,” he said Tuesday.
But Republicans’ margin for error is razor-thin, with an extremely narrow 221-213 majority following the ouster of ex-New York congressman George Santos — and will whittle down even further at the end of this year when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy steps down. Johnson will need nearly every member of his conference to support the vote, which will put Republican lawmakers — particularly those who represent districts that Biden won in 2020 — on the record going into the 2024 election.
The House Republicans’ monthslong inquiry deals with the business dealings of Joe Biden’s family members, but has thus far not produced any direct evidence of wrongdoing by the president himself.
The White House has repeatedly dismissed the impeachment inquiry as meritless and “illegitimate,” branding it an effort to appease right-wing lawmakers.
“This baseless smear campaign is solely intended to satisfy their most extreme members and proves once again that these House Republicans are wasting time on the wrong priorities, instead of working with the President on real issues American families care about, like lowering costs, creating jobs, strengthening health care, and protecting our national security,” Ian Sams, White House Spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations, said Monday.
At an unrelated event on Wednesday, President Joe Biden dismissed the allegations that he interacted with his son and brother’s business associates as “a bunch of lies.”