After a chaotic, drama-filled contempt hearing earlier this week, Hunter Biden appears to have changed his mind about sitting for a closed-door deposition as part of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into his father.
Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told House Republicans their previous subpoenas were “invalid” because the House had not authorized an impeachment inquiry into the president when they were issued in November, NBC News reported. But Biden will comply now if they issue “a new proper subpoena,” now that the House has voted (along party lines) to authorize the impeachment inquiry.
“I write to make you aware (if you are not already) that your subpoenas were and are legally invalid and cannot form a legal basis to proceed with your misdirected and impermissible contempt resolution,” Lowell wrote in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Comer and Jordan — who himself defied a congressional subpoena without any consequences — said they would work with Biden to schedule a date for the deposition. But until then, they intend to carry on with a full House vote on a resolution to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying the earlier subpoenas.
“While we will work to schedule a deposition date, we will not tolerate any additional stunts or delay from Hunter Biden,” they told Lowell.
House Republicans have been gunning for Biden’s testimony as part of their dubious effort to impeach his father. He had said that he would only testify publicly and not behind closed doors, lest House Republicans misrepresent his testimony to the public.
Clarissa-Jan Lim
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for MSNBC Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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