Hunter Biden’s visit to the Capitol surprised Republicans and his father’s advisers

When Hunter Biden interrupted a House Oversight Committee vote on Wednesday for contempt of Congress, Republican lawmakers weren’t the only ones caught off guard. President Biden’s advisers were surprised to see him there too.

According to several people with knowledge of the younger Mr. Biden’s legal strategy, he and his legal team, which includes Washington scandal lawyer Abbe Lowell and Los Angeles-based lawyer Kevin Morris, saw no reason to take a shine to the White House. upwards.

Hunter Biden and his team would have wanted the response they got: shock, surprise, and ultimately the Republicans’ unwillingness to swear him in on the spot so he could testify in public, rather than behind closed doors that the Republican Party wanted asked.

The chaotic scene on Capitol Hill came as the White House tried to keep its distance while the president’s son deployed an aggressive new legal strategy to hit back at the various political and legal battles he faces.

President Biden, who talks to his son almost every day, is supportive but is not kept informed of the details of every legal decision, according to the people familiar with the strategy, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations .

Hunter Biden, 53, is eager to fight back against attacks and try to regain control of his life story, which has been marked by tragedy and an addiction to crack cocaine, from people he believes are using him as a way to take his father with him. down.

In fact, it wasn’t Republican bickering but a question about his father that prompted Biden to break his frowning silence on Wednesday. Although he remained silent during his brief appearance at the hearing, after leaving he couldn’t resist answering a question about why he put his father, then vice president, on speakerphone while he was trying to land lucrative consulting deals.

“Do you have a father?” he replied as he continued walking. ‘Is he calling you? Will you answer the phone?”

White House officials say privately that the younger Biden has the right to defend himself, but that there are risks associated with additional public attention to his legal troubles. Biden is due back in court in California on Thursday to face charges over allegations he evaded taxes on millions of dollars in income. He also faces separate weapons charges in Delaware.

But publicly, the White House is trying to portray the president’s son as a private citizen who makes decisions independently of his father’s government.

“He makes his own decisions, as he did today, about how to respond to Congress,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday. She did not respond to follow-up questions about whether President Biden was aware of the plans to go to Capitol Hill in advance.

Hunter Biden last appeared on Capitol Hill in mid-December, when he made comments not only in defense of himself, but also in defense of his father. The president is facing an impeachment inquiry from Republicans, who have so far struggled to find evidence that he engaged in misconduct as vice president to help his son’s business ventures.

“Let me say as clearly as possible: my father had no financial involvement in my business – not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a private Chinese businessman, not in my investments at home, nor abroad and certainly not as an artist,” the younger Mr. Biden said. He insisted he would not appear for a private deposition that House Republicans had scheduled because of his refusals.

At the time, he had warned his father that he was going to talk, and the White House announced that the president had known his son would hold an impromptu news conference. Shortly afterward, Reps. James R. Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the two Republican committee chairmen leading an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, sent a letter to the White House saying they would investigate whether the president had interfered with congressional procedures. .

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden sat quietly with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He nudged Mr. Lowell’s arm when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, had spread explicit photos of him began speaking at an earlier Congressional hearing.

It was a signal that it was time to leave. As Ms. Greene shouted after him, the younger Mr. Biden left the room, taking a group of reporters with him. Outside in the hallway, Mr. Lowell tried to read from a statement as a man shouted, “What kind of crack do you normally smoke, Mr. Biden?”

The spectacle was judged almost entirely along party lines, denounced by Republicans as a photo op and political stunt, and by Democrats as a brazen attempt to highlight hypocrisy among Republicans, who appear unwilling to to have Mr Biden testify publicly.

There is a sense within the White House that more media attention is not always a good thing, but officials say the president — faced with a widening impeachment inquiry — is deferring to his son.