Republicans pause effort to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, say they are talking with his attorneys

Table Of Content

• news Alerts
• White House rejects long-shot House Republican effort to get President Joe Biden to testify
• More from CBS News
• Up Next in News—
• The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees to consider contempt of Congress resolution Wednesday
• Republicans push ahead with Hunter Biden contempt charge after his surprise visit to Capitol Hill
• Politics

The pressure on Hunter Biden to be deposed is increasing as the GOP-led House prepares to vote next week on formalizing its impeachment inquiry of his father, President Biden. Should the House formalize its inquiry, the move could throw more legal weight behind subpoenas, as Republicans on the House Oversight, Ways and Means, and Judiciary Committees continue to seek documents and testimony. The contempt resolution says Hunter Biden’s testimony is “a critical component of the impeachment inquiry” against President Biden, whom the resolution says may have “abused his office of public trust” by participating in his son’s business. The action sets up a House vote on recommending criminal charges against a member of President Joe Biden’s family as the GOP moves into the final stages of an impeachment inquiry into the president himself. The Republicans who lead the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Judiciary Committee announced Friday that they will hold votes on contempt charges against Hunter Biden as the GOP moves into the final stages of its impeachment inquiry. The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, previously said in a statement that “there is no precedent” for the House to hold in contempt of Congress a private citizen who has offered to testify under oath publicly and on a day chosen by the committee.

Republicans pause effort to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, say they are talking with his attorneys - PBS NewsHour

Republicans pause effort to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, say they are talking with his attorneys.

Posted: Tue, 16 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

news Alerts

The newly announced subpoenas follow the Republican-led House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Wednesday voting to approve resolutions recommending President Joe Biden's son be held in contempt of Congress for defying a previous congressional subpoena. Further angering Republicans, Hunter Biden and his team have chosen to appear at the Capitol on two separate occasions — once at an Oversight hearing last week and another time on the day of his scheduled deposition last month. In both instances, the younger Biden 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. WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans plan to move forward next week with holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress after the president’s son defied a congressional subpoena to appear for a private deposition last month. WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans plan to move forward next week with holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress after the president’s son defied a congressional subpoena to appear for a private deposition last month.

White House rejects long-shot House Republican effort to get President Joe Biden to testify

The House can then refer the recommendation to the Justice Department, which would ultimately decide whether the president’s son should be criminally charged. The committees’ votes Wednesday on contempt of Congress come a day before Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his first court appearance on tax charges filed by a special counsel in Los Angeles. It’s the latest step for the inquiry, which began in September, but has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in wrongdoing involving his son’s business dealings. He called a GOP subpoena in November for a closed-door deposition "a tactic that the Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said." "Mr. Biden's flagrant defiance of the Committees' deposition subpoenas -- while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters -- is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions," the report stated.

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In a letter to Edward Siskel, assistant to the president and White House counsel, obtained by NBC News, the GOP chairmen said they are seeking to determine whether the president played a role in his son’s decision to defy a congressional subpoena to appear for a closed-door deposition. Hunter Biden’s legal team had pushed back on the committee’s request to appear behind closed doors, saying their client was only willing to answer questions in a public setting. In letters to the chairmen, his legal team contended that the Republican-led committees would release excerpts of the closed-door testimony in small batches that lacked proper context in an effort to damage the president politically.

"There is no precedent for the U.S. House of Representatives holding a private citizen in contempt of Congress who has offered to testify in public, under oath, and on a day of the committee's choosing," said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight committee. The two Republican-led committees voted last week to recommend that the full House hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena in the Republican impeachment inquiry into his father. The younger Biden had offered to testify at a public hearing, and he appeared on Capitol Hill to make a statement in December on the day ordered in his subpoena but did not appear for the closed-door testimony the committees requested. Comer and Jordan late last month demanded that the White House provide any communications it has had with Hunter Biden’s legal team in an escalation of their impeachment inquiry into the president.

House Republicans release report recommending Hunter Biden be held in contempt of Congress - NBC News

House Republicans release report recommending Hunter Biden be held in contempt of Congress.

Posted: Mon, 08 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

For months, Republicans have pursued an impeachment inquiry seeking to tie the Democratic president to his son’s business dealings. So far, GOP lawmakers have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating Democratic President Joe Biden in any wrongdoing. The president's son appeared on Capitol Hill on Dec. 13, the day he was called to testify before closed doors, and spoke to the media but did not appear for testimony. Hunter Biden said he would be willing to testify publicly, but Comer declined that offer, saying the president's son must provide private testimony first. "Mr. Biden's flagrant defiance of the Committees' deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions," the House Republicans' report said. "Accordingly, the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability recommends that Congress find Robert Hunter Biden in contempt for his failure to comply with the committee subpoena issued to him."

“There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen,” the president’s son said in those remarks. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also emphasized Wednesday that Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and she refused to say whether the White House was informed in advance of his surprise appearance on Capitol Hill. In 2021, when Democrats controlled the House, Trump administration officials Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows were held in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas issued by the House Jan. 6 committee. Morris notably did not attend Biden’s arraignment in a Los Angeles courtroom last week. He appeared with Biden for a surprise news conference in December in front of the Capitol and sat next to him last week in the House Oversight markup hearing for a resolution to hold Biden in contempt of Congress.

House Republicans prepare contempt charges against Hunter Biden for defying a subpoena

WASHINGTON — Two congressional committees voted Wednesday to formally recommend that the full House hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena in the Republican impeachment inquiry into his father. The inquiry into the president, which began in September, has focused heavily on in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, questioning whether the president profited from that work. It has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating Joe Biden in wrongdoing involving his son’s business dealings. The committees' votes Wednesday on contempt of Congress come a day before Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his first court appearance on tax charges filed by a special counsel in Los Angeles. He is facing three felony and six misdemeanor counts, including filing a false return, tax evasion, failure to file and failure to pay.

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Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support. During their impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump in 2019, Democrats conducted private depositions with witnesses who later testified again during public hearings. Shelving the contempt of Congress charges would likely further stoke conservative criticism that the Justice Department is politicized — especially given that two one-time advisers to former President Donald Trump were prosecuted for contempt of Congress by the Biden administration.

Among other things, the Committees intend to understand the terms of such loans’ you made to Hunter Biden and what benefits you may have received as a result of providing financial assistance to President Biden’s son,” the committee chairmen wrote in a letter to Morris. Lowell accused Republicans of caring "little about the truth" and trying to "hold someone in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions." House Oversight and Accountability Committee chairman James Comer, R-Ky., left, confers with House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as the Oversight panel holds an organizational meeting for the 118th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. Jordan is leading investigative efforts of the Biden administration (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite).

"My husband, his business — being attacked for standing up for — his husband who's gay." Ziegler said he had gone through depression and "isolation within the IRS," where he still works. Weiss appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and refuted that allegation, asserting, "I am, and have been, the decision-maker on this case" and said he'd never been "blocked or otherwise prevented" from pursuing charges. "As we saw earlier with Burisma income, when Hunter Biden was earning that, … and then the payments came back to him, he booked those as a loan, and it was really income," Ziegler said, in reference to the Ukrainian energy company that put Hunter Biden on its board while his father was vice president. Ziegler added that it could be part of "a pattern of using loans as an excuse to cover up what potentially could be income."

Biden’s Hollywood attorney, Kevin Morris, is scheduled to sit for a transcribed interview with House Oversight, Judiciary and Ways and Means committee staff members Thursday, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Raskin also criticized Comer directly for not allowing Hunter Biden to testify in a public forum after extending such invitations for him to do so in various news interviews. Raskin read quotes from the interviews Comer did throughout the fall on the subject.

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and AP writers Kevin Freking and Chris Megerian contributed to this report. Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation on whistleblower allegations that there has been political interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden. He added, “There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing — they have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life — so much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.