Hunter Biden delivered defiant testimony before House lawmakers on Wednesday, marking the latest and most high-profile development for Republicans’ monthslong impeachment inquiry into the president.
Biden appeared for his closed-door deposition just before 10 a.m. at the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. House Office Building, where he is expected to answer questions under oath from House Republicans on whether President Joe Biden assisted in his son’s business dealings.
Hunter Biden declined to take questions when greeted by a crowd of reporters and cameras as he entered the Capitol Hill building.
But behind closed doors, Hunter Biden defended his father and railed against House GOP efforts to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors, saying there is no evidence, according to his opening statement.
“I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist,” Hunter Biden said, according to the statement. “Never.”
“You have built your entire partisan house of cards on lies,” Hunter Biden continued, adding that he wants his deposition to “put an end to this baseless and destructive political charade.”
Hunter Biden, testifying while his father was undergoing an annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, slammed the impeachment inquiry led by the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees.
“For more than a year, your committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad,” he said.
“You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any,” he added.
About an hour into the deposition, a crowd of Democrats from the House Oversight Committee flooded out of the hearing room and to the cameras to denounce the inquiry. “They’ve got nothing,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) proclaimed.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lamented the “deep sea fishing expedition.”
Hunter Biden’s testimony comes after Republicans have pushed for months for the president’s son to appear behind closed doors, which he and his legal team initially refused, instead offering to sit for public testimony. However, that refusal was met with a threat by House Republicans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, resulting in an agreement to sit down for a private deposition with public testimony to follow.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) addressed reporters on his way into the hearing to lay out Republicans’ case ahead of Hunter Biden’s testimony. Comer referenced previous testimony in which witnesses said “Joe Biden was the brand” his son used to boost his business dealings, but the chairman faced tense exchanges with reporters on whether there is direct evidence linking the president to Hunter Biden.
“This is public corruption 101,” Comer said.
Republicans first subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November, demanding he appear before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees by mid-December. However, the younger Biden’s legal team refused to comply with the request, arguing it was illegitimate because it was issued before the House voted to open an inquiry.
House Democrats also pushed back against Republicans’ request for closed-door testimony, claiming Republicans would only release select portions of his testimony to the public that could be taken out of context to further their case.
Instead, Hunter Biden made two separate appearances on Capitol Hill to rail against the subpoena, angering House Republicans who demanded he sit before the committee. In one instance, the president’s son gave a statement to lawmakers during an impeachment hearing before leaving without taking any questions.
Hunter Biden’s appearance comes one week after Republicans heard from the president’s brother James Biden in a closed-door interview. However, that high-profile deposition lacked the testimony they needed to incriminate Joe Biden, as his brother testified that the president had no involvement in any of his business decisions.
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The inquiry is an examination of three main allegations, all of which relate to Hunter Biden: whether Joe Biden improperly used his position of power to enrich himself and his family, whether he used his influence to pressure the Department of Justice to help his son avoid criminal charges, and how involved he was in his family’s foreign business dealings.
Up until this point, the committees have failed to uncover definitive evidence tying Joe Biden to criminal activity or any misconduct that constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor. Instead, Democrats and their staffers have accused Republicans of wasting money and resources on an investigation they say is politically motivated.
