Hunter Biden shows up to House hearing to hold him in contempt

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Hunter Biden showed up unannounced to a House hearing led by Republicans to hold him in contempt.

The son of the president made the surprise appearance on Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill, creating a tense moment with the House GOP who has been seeking his testimony in connection to their impeachment proceedings investigating President Joe Biden.

The younger Mr Biden didn’t respond to questions and was accompanied by his lawyers Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris. He proceeded to the House Oversight Committee’s hearing room, where Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the panel’s ranking Democrat, was delivering an opening statement at the start of the session.

House Republicans called the markup to hold a vote on recommending that Mr Biden, 53, be charged with contempt of Congress in both the Oversight and Judiciary committees.

Mr Biden left the hearing room shortly before 10.30 am, just as Georgia GOP Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene began speaking, calling him a “coward”.

Neither a representative for Mr Biden nor the White House immediately responded to a query from The Independent on whether President Biden was aware of his son’s intention to visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Mr Raskin told The Independent that the Maryland Democrat was unaware of Mr Biden’s plans.

Mr Lowell, the veteran Washington attorney who is leading Mr Biden’s defence in the House inquiry, addressed reporters in the corridor after leaving the hearing room with his client.

He reminded the assembled press that Mr Biden — a Yale-educated attorney and former lobbyist turned artist — “was and is a private citizen” and slammed the GOP for seeking to “use him as a surrogate to attack his father”.

“Despite their improper partisan motives, on six occasions … we have offered to work with the House committees to see what and how relevant information to any legitimate inquiry could be provided. Our first five offers were ignored,” he said. “And then in November, they issued a subpoena for a behind-closed-doors deposition, a tactic that the Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said.”

“In the House last fall, Chairman Comer made an explicit offer that people like Hunter … had … the option to attend a deposition or a public hearing, whichever they chose – Hunter chose a hearing where Republicans could not distort, manipulate, or misuse that testimony,” Mr Lowell added.

“Honouring and then ignoring that invitation, and proving once again, that they cared little about the truth and wanted only to, quote, ‘move the needle of political support’, which was a quote Chairman Comer confessed was his true purpose,” he continued, adding later that the GOP committee chairs had put forth an “unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt, who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions”.

The question there is, what are they afraid of?” he added.

The Republican-led Oversight and Judiciary committees are expected the advance their respective contempt resolutions to the House floor, and with the GOP in control of the chamber, both are likely to pass.

Under the portion of the US criminal code laying out how contempt of Congress prosecutions are brought, it will be up to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia to decide whether to present evidence from the House to a grand jury and seek charges against Mr Biden.

According to legal experts, it’s unlikely that such a prosecution will be brought because of Mr Biden’s attorneys’ repeated attempts to engage and negotiate terms with the House panel.

Yet one member of the panel, South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace, argued that the president’s son needed to be arrested then and there as he sat in the committee room.

“Hunter Biden you, are too afraid for a deposition, and I still think you are today,” she said.