House Republican leaders have responded after first son Hunter Biden blew off a duly issued congressional subpoena to provide closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee that was scheduled for Wednesday, though he did make an appearance in Washington, D.C., to rail at the GOP.
“We’ve issued a lawful subpoena to the president’s son, and we expect him to come in and be deposed,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky), chairman of the Oversight Committee, told reporters earlier in the day.
“This is a normal process in an investigation. This has been a serious, credible, transparent investigation from day one. We published four bank memorandums. We’ve had countless press conferences. This is an investigation of public corruption at the highest levels,” he continued.
“We accumulated mountains of evidence that is concerning to an overwhelming majority of Americans. We have specific questions that are in there and allow you to see the piles and piles of documents, bank statements, emails, text messages that we worked very hard on in this committee over the last eight or nine months. We expect to depose the president’s son and then we will be more than happy to have a public hearing with him,” Comer added before turning the mic over to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
“I would echo what the chairman said,” Jordan began. “We’re disappointed he didn’t show up. He was just across the way at the Capitol. You’d think he could have come to sit for questions.
“To do an open format now, you’ll get filibusters, speeches, all kinds of things. What we want is the facts. The way you get the facts in every single investigation I’ve been involved is you bring people in for an interview behind closed doors where you can get those facts. Then as the chairman said, we would love for him to come public,” Jordan continued.
“I would say this. Mr. Biden’s counsel and the White House have both argued the reason he couldn’t come for a deposition was because there wasn’t a formal vote for an impeachment inquiry. That will happen in a few hours. We think it will pass,” he continued.
“We think the House of Representatives will go on record with the power that solely resides in the House to say we’re in an official impeachment inquiry phase. When that happens, we’ll see what their excuse is then. They should have been here today. Once we take the vote, we expect him to come in for his deposition, and frankly, we’ll also look at contempt proceedings as we move forward,” Jordan concluded.
WATCH:
🚨BREAKING: Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan announce plan to hold Hunter Biden in CONTEMPT after refusing to comply with subpoena for closed-door deposition pic.twitter.com/Qz8SK9w6PK
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 13, 2023
