House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to Hunter Biden’s lawyer pushing back on his attempt to not sit for a closed-door deposition and instead appear before a public hearing.
As part of their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Comer subpoenaed Hunter Biden, the president’s son, to sit for a deposition before the committee, which would take place behind closed doors and led by committee staff. But last week, Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said that Hunter Biden wouldn’t sit for a closed-door deposition and would only testify publicly before the committee.
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The letter, co-signed by Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), sent to Lowell pushes back on their request and demands that Hunter Biden sit for a deposition, but the committee will welcome a public hearing after the fact.
“We appreciate your confirmation that Mr. Biden is available and willing to testify on December 13,” the letter reads. “Pursuant to the terms of the subpoenas, the Rules of the House of Representatives, and the respective Committee rules, this testimony will occur initially in a deposition setting, as has been the consistent practice of Committees of the House of Representatives in recent Congresses—during both Republican and Democrat majorities—as well as these Committees during this inquiry.”
“We also appreciate your confirmation that Mr. Biden is willing to testify at a public hearing. We look forward to his testimony in a hearing at the appropriate time,” the letter continued.
Lowell claimed that he wanted the hearing to be public so Comer couldn’t release portions of the depositions to “manipulate” or “distort the facts and misinform the public.”
“Your Committee has been working for almost a year—without success—to tie our client’s business activities to his father,” Lowell said in his letter. “You state that one of your purposes is to review how a President’s family’s business activities raise ethics and disclosure concerns to inform the basis for a legislative solution.”
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This infuriated Comer who responded by saying the “assertion” that their investigation has no legislative intent is “incorrect.” He claims that the legislative intent is ”investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment” against the president and that they have found evidence showing the president “was aware of at least some of his family’s business ventures and sought to influence potential business deals that financially benefited his family.”
“He doesn’t get to make the rules,” Comer said of Hunter Biden while talking to reporters. “You’re talking about a white guy from an influential family that has told the IRS, the FBI, and the DOJ to go fly a kite. He’s not going to tell the House Oversight Committee that. He will have the deposition and then the public hearing; that’s the way.”
