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Hunter Biden will testify behind closed doors before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, as part of the ongoing Republican impeachment inquiry into his father.
Mr Biden will sit for deposition on 28 February according to Republican sources. The announcement appears to have resolved a dispute over demands for his testimony that had escalated in recent weeks. The president’s son had previously insisted on testifying publicly.
“His deposition will come after several interviews with Biden family members and associates. We look forward to Hunter Biden’s testimony,” said Representatives James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committees’ respective chairmen.
Republicans had been set to advance a contempt resolution against him to the House floor this week but called it off on Tuesday to give the attorneys additional time to negotiate.
The agreement concludes months of contentious back-and-forth between Mr Biden and Republicans who have been investigating his overseas business dealings for over a year in an effort to connect it to his father.
Republicans, led by Comer and Jordan, first subpoenaed the president’s son in November, demanding that he appear before lawmakers in a private setting by mid-December.
Mr Biden and his attorneys had refused to comply with the private interview, saying that it would allow information to be selectively leaked and manipulated by House Republicans and insisted that he would only testify in a public setting.
When Republicans denied those terms, he and his attorneys made two separate appearances at the US Capitol.
In both instances, Mr Biden again refused to testify privately, instead delivering statements to the press where he defended his business affairs and castigated the yearslong investigations into him and his family.
The impeachment inquiry into the president Biden which began in September, has focused heavily on his son’s international business affairs, questioning whether the president profited from that work.
It has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating president Biden in wrongdoing involving his son’s work.
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