Republicans in the House of Representatives are targeting Biden by focusing on his son’s news conference
Republicans in the House of Representatives said Wednesday they are investigating whether President Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s decision to defy a congressional subpoena in their latest effort to tie the White House to allegations against the son of the president.
This is what the chairmen of the supervisory and judicial committees write a letter to White House counsel Ed Siskel, who is demanding all documents and communications between the president’s office and Hunter Biden, his legal team and Kevin Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer who is friends with the president’s son.
At issue are the events of December 13, when Hunter Biden appeared on Capitol Hill, but not to make a statement behind closed doors, as Republicans demanded. Instead, he held a news conference to denounce the Republicans’ investigation into him and his father, and insisted on testifying only in public, suggesting that Republicans would distort his words with selective leaks.
The younger Mr. Biden is under federal indictment and faces charges of tax crimes related to his foreign business interests, including with companies and partners in Ukraine and China. At the news conference he acknowledged his personal shortcomings, which are described in scandalous detail in the indictment, but said they had nothing to do with his father.
Then Republicans threatened Hunter Biden with contempt of Congress for defying their subpoenas.
In their letter Wednesday, Reps. James R. Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the two chairmen leading an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, said they focused on a statement from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. She had told reporters on December 13 that the president was “certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.”
“In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden had advance knowledge that his son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly ignore two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to investigate as part of our impeachment to investigate whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding,” Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan wrote in their letter.
Saying they were investigating obstruction of Congress, Republicans repeated two of the charges in the federal criminal case against former President Donald J. Trump over his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The House of Representatives voted this month to formally open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden as Republicans seek to link the younger Biden’s behavior to his father as they hunt for evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors. Democrats have dismissed the investigation as a fishing expedition and a political stunt, while Trump has welcomed it.