House Republicans revealed on Wednesday that they plan to hold a public hearing on their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, an announcement that came just as a closed-door deposition with their most high-profile witness, Hunter Biden, concluded.
The first son made “some contradictory statements that I think need further review,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told reporters. “So this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase, which will be a public hearing.”
The long-awaited interview with Hunter Biden lasted several hours. Democratic lawmakers periodically emerged from the deposition room to claim Hunter Biden provided no new revelations and to criticize the inquiry as a waste of time. Republicans, however, characterized the deposition differently, saying Hunter Biden could not recall certain details and that discrepancies cropped up in his remarks.
Comer said he would release the transcript of the deposition publicly in the coming two or three days, so long as he and Oversight ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) both approved it.
Raskin indicated that the transcript would be exonerating for Joe Biden, whom Republicans are investigating to determine whether he was involved in or profited off his family’s foreign business ventures.
“Everything that we learned was what we knew before, which was that President Biden is not involved and has never been involved in his son’s businesses,” Raskin said, adding that the deposition involved Republicans “picking over the flotsam and jetsam of this shipwrecked investigation, where they were talking about this meal or that meal or this chance meeting or that chance meeting.”
When the deposition ended, Hunter Biden strode confidently up to reporters with his attorney Abbe Lowell, remarking to one journalist that the day went “great.”
Lowell accused Republicans of having an outsize focus on Hunter Biden’s battle with drug addiction during their questioning. The younger Biden’s past lucrative ventures in Ukraine, China, Romania, and elsewhere occurred while he was grappling on and off with severe bouts of drug and alcohol abuse.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said his past drug use raised questions about his qualifications to partake in the business activity that he did, such as sitting on the board of a Ukrainian energy company or aiding a Romanian businessman with his legal troubles.
“It’s been impressive to listen to Hunter Biden either give excuses about being a drug addict and how difficult it is to go through years of addiction and then swing the next minute to his extreme expertise in business experience that placed him on so many boards,” Greene said. “You see, the theme that we heard in the room was Hunter Biden is a liar.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), a longtime oversight hawk who was present during the deposition, told the Washington Examiner his main takeaway was that Hunter Biden is a “young man with a poor memory.”
There is little indication at this stage that Republicans’ inquiry will lead to a vote to impeach Joe Biden, as they have turned up scant evidence that the president directly profited or was actively engaged in either his son’s or his brother James Biden’s business pursuits.
Comer has been adamant that his committee, in conjunction with the House Judiciary and Ways and Means committees, is not done with their investigative work, however. Comer has also said the inquiry could merely lead to legislative reforms related to peddling political influence for profit. Hunter and James Biden have a well-documented habit of promoting the Biden name in exchange for business in the United States and abroad.
Regarding a forthcoming public hearing, Hunter Biden did not respond to questions about whether he would agree to appear for one.
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The prospect of Republicans having a “second shot” at the first son after talking to him behind closed doors on Wednesday would not work to Hunter Biden’s benefit, one senior GOP aide said, noting lawmakers could reconfigure any lines of questioning that they felt had been unsuccessful the first time around.
“No lawyer wants his client to testify more than once,” the aide said.
