Hunter Biden used his private Wednesday testimony before House investigators to deliver a blistering rebuke of Republicans’ investigation into his father, President Joe Biden.
The president’s son is meeting with members and aides on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees as part of Republicans’ sweeping impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, which has largely focused on the business deals of his family.
In his opening statement, Hunter Biden tried to directly puncture the central premise of the House GOP’s monthslong probe. He said that his focus during what is expected to be an hourslong interview will be driving home “one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business.”
“For more than a year, your Committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism — all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any,” Hunter Biden said in his opening statement, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.
His appearance behind closed doors results from months of public sparring between his team and House Republicans, who view him as a key witness in their investigation.
Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) first subpoenaed Hunter Biden for a private interview last year. That sparked weeks of barbs between Hunter Biden’s lawyers and House Republicans, culminating in the president’s son skipping his first closed-door deposition in December.
Instead, Hunter Biden spoke briefly to reporters outside of the Capitol and Republicans moved toward holding him in contempt of Congress— a vote that was only scrapped after they reached a deal to schedule his closed-door interview on Wednesday.
Even so, the interview may not provide House Republicans the boost they need as they struggle to get support within their own ranks for their effort to impeach President Joe Biden. Despite pressure from the right flank and the party’s base. Republicans estimate that dozens of their colleagues are so far unconvinced that investigators have shown evidence of a crime — a bar they need to meet in order to support impeachment.
“We have a lot of questions for Hunter Biden specifically revolving around the 100-plus suspicious activity reports he got, specifically around what some of his associates have testified that Joe Bieen communicated frequently with all of these shady characters,” Comer told reporters on Wednesday.
Hunter Biden’s testimony comes the week after Republicans met for hours with James Biden, his uncle and Joe Biden’s brother.
Republican investigators have compiled thousands of pages of bank and financial records and hundreds of hours of interviews with witnesses as they’ve hunted for evidence that would link actions Joe Biden took as president or vice president to his family’s business deals.
While they’ve turned up plenty of instances of Biden’s family members using their last name to try to bolster their own influence, in addition to poking holes in previous statements by Joe Biden and the White House, Republicans have not yet found any proverbial smoking gun.
Devon Archer, one previous associate of Hunter Biden’s, testified that he would put Joe Biden on speaker phone during dinners, or that the now-president stopped by dinners with business associates — but he also underscored that business wasn’t discussed in those moments. Rob Walker, another former Hunter Biden associate, told investigators that Joe Biden wasn’t involved in their business deals.
Even as he recounted how Joe Biden stopped by a lunch with business associates while out of political office in 2017, Walker characterized the appearance as exchanging “pleasantries.”
