Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, makes a statement to the press outside the U.S. Capitol about testifying publicly to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.
Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Hunter Biden on Wednesday declined an invitation to testify in public next week as part of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said that neither he nor his client can attend because of a scheduling conflict with one of Hunter’s ongoing criminal cases.
But that’s “the least of the issues,” said Lowell, who blasted the planned public hearing as an act of desperation by Republicans whose impeachment probe of the Democratic incumbent president has come under increasing scrutiny.
“Your blatant planned-for-media event is not a proper proceeding but an obvious attempt to throw a Hail Mary pass after the game has ended,” Lowell wrote.
Hunter Biden sat for a closed-door deposition with the GOP investigators on Feb. 28. In that hourslong interview, he strongly disputed allegations at the center of the impeachment probe that his father was involved in his business dealings.
Comer on March 6 had invited Hunter Biden to testify again on March 20, this time in a public hearing titled, “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office.”
That invitation came weeks after federal authorities arrested and charged Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, with lying to the government about Joe and Hunter Biden. Prior to his indictment, the Republican impeachment investigators portrayed Smirnov’s allegations as a key piece of their case.
“I thought even you would recognize your baseless impeachment proceeding was dead” in light of “the realization that your inquiry was based on a patchwork of conspiracies spun by convicted liars and a charged Russian spy,” Lowell wrote in Wednesday’s letter.
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