House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a congressional contempt resolution for Hunter Biden on Monday, just weeks after the first son avoided his stand before the panel.
If adopted, the resolution would authorize House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to “take all appropriate actions to enforce the subpoena” that has been served on the 53-year-old, including referring him to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
On Wednesday, a House panel will consider the bill during a markup session before finally holding a vote to send it to the floor.
Comer, 51, said in a report accompanying the resolution that the president’s son had violated federal law by skipping his Dec. 13 interview with the committee, which the chairman called a “critical component” of the Republican impeachment inquiry into Hunter’s father, President Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the contempt of Congress resolution for Hunter Biden on Monday. AP The resolution comes just weeks after the first son avoided taking the stand before a congressional panel. Getty Images
Hunter Biden, 53, appeared on Capitol Hill the same day to deliver an impassioned plea for sympathy alongside his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who is representing him on federal charges of illegal gun possession and tax fraud.
“For six years, I have been the target of the Trump attack machine that has been relentlessly shouting, ‘Where’s Hunter?’ Well, here’s my answer, ‘I’m here,’” the younger Biden told a crowd of reporters gathered outside the US Capitol building.
“Let me state as clearly as I can: My father is not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a Burisma board member, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home. nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.”
Lowell previously demanded that his client be allowed a public hearing instead of a private deposition, saying Comer had used “closed sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public.”
Lowell previously demanded that his client be allowed a public hearing, instead of a private deposition, saying Comer had used “closed sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts.” AP
In a statement Friday, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) echoed those concerns and said there is “no precedent” for “holding private citizens in contempt of Congress who have offered to testify in public, under oath, and on Committee election day.”
“Chairman Comer doesn’t want Hunter Biden to testify in public, just as he refuses to publicly release more than a dozen interview transcripts, because he wants to preserve the carefully orchestrated distortions, outright lies, and ludicrous conspiracy theories that have characterized the investigation this. ,” Raskin said.
“However, the facts and evidence all point to no wrongdoing and no wrongdoing can be blamed on President Biden.”
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was indicted in November 2021 by Washington, DC, US Attorney Matthew Graves for contempt of Congress after refusing to cooperate with the House Select Committee on January 6 and convicted the following year, even though he was a private citizen at the time of the Capitol riots .
“Mr. Biden’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena is a criminal act,” Comer added. Getty Images
Bannon is appealing the decision, as is Trump official Peter Navarro, who was also convicted of failing to appear before the Select Committee on Jan. 6.
GOP lawmakers are investigating whether Joe Biden ever took official action, influenced US policy or abused the public trust as a result of payments made to him or his family by foreigners.
Reports and bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee show Hunter and James Biden, as well as other members of the Biden family, received money from interests and associates in Mexico, Kazakhstan, Romania, China, Ukraine and Russia.
There is also evidence that then-Vice President Biden met with associates from many of those countries — after repeatedly denying doing so during the 2020 presidential campaign and since taking office in January 2021.
There is also evidence that then-Vice President Biden met with allies from many of those countries — after repeatedly denying it during his 2020 presidential campaign. Getty Images
An FBI informant further revealed that the owner of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, had paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each to get a prosecutor investigating the company fired, although this claim was not independently supported.
Biden, 81, boasted after leaving the Obama White House that he had pressured then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in exchange for a $1 billion US loan guarantee.
Congressional Democrats have insisted the removal was prompted by concerns among US and European officials that Shokin was corrupt — but Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer disputed this in an interview last year.
Prosecutors were considered a “threat” to Burisma, who at the time was paying his then-second son up to $1 million annually to sit on his board, Archer told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview last August.
In his report on the contempt resolution, Comer said his committee had “collected significant evidence indicating that President Biden knew of, participated in, and profited from foreign business interests engaged in by his son, which the Committee intends to question Mr. Biden during his deposition.”
“Mr. Biden’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena is a criminal act,” he added. “It is in contempt of Congress and the warrant refers to the appropriate United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution as provided by law.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
