House Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees take votes Wednesday on resolutions seeking to hold the president’s son Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview.
The votes on the resolutions are part of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. If the committees approve the resolutions, they would go to the full House for a vote. If the House votes to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, the decision on whether he should be criminally charged then falls on the Justice Department.
The committee’s chairmen, Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Monday released reports recommending Hunter Biden be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with their subpoena requiring him to appear for closed-door testimony last month. In the reports, Comer and Jordan offered the president’s son the opportunity to find a time conducive to his schedule, but he did not try to comply with their request. On the day the deposition was scheduled to take place, Hunter Biden made public remarks outside the Capitol but didn’t take questions.
Comer and Jordan called for Hunter Biden to be held accountable for his “unlawful” defiance of their subpoena.
Hunter Biden’s legal team said he would only answer questions in a public setting. His lawyers argued in letters to the committee leaders that the Republican-led committees would release out-of-context excerpts of the closed-door testimony as a way to try to smear the president.
Comer and Jordan said they would provide Hunter Biden the chance to testify publicly if he first participated in a closed-door interview.
Hunter Biden’s team and House Republicans have been locked in a battle over his compliance in the GOP’s wide-ranging impeachment inquiry into the president. Comer and Jordan have alleged that Hunter Biden was involved in foreign business dealings with ties to his father, but they haven’t presented solid evidence to back up their claims the president benefited from his son’s business dealings.
As part of the impeachment effort, Comer and Jordan asked the White House last month to provide any communications it has had with Hunter Biden’s legal team, telling White House counsel Edward Siskel that they seek to determine whether the president had a role in his son’s decision to defy their subpoena.
Separately, Hunter Biden on Thursday is set to be arraigned in Los Angeles on nine federal tax-related charges brought by special counsel David Weiss, including allegations that he failed to pay taxes, evaded an assessment and filed a fraudulent form.
The younger Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement after the charges were filed that if Hunter Biden were not the president’s son, “the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.” Lowell added that Hunter Biden had “paid his taxes in full” more than two years ago.
Rebecca Kaplan and Ryan Nobles contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
