Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell they will not let his client dictate the terms of how he will testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which Comer chairs.
Lowell wrote a letter to the committee Tuesday proposing a public hearing in response to a subpoena issued earlier this month to Hunter Biden, whose business dealings are central in the impeachment investigation of President Joe Biden, his father.
But Comer and Jordan, although appreciative of Hunter Biden willing to testify Dec. 13, wrote in a letter to Lowell, which Newsmax obtained, that Hunter Biden will be required to answer questions in a deposition setting before any public hearing. Lowell wrote he didn’t trust Republicans to provide a truthful account of the deposition.
"Pursuant to the terms of the subpoenas, the Rules of the House of Representatives, and the respective Committee rules, this testimony will occur initially in a deposition setting, as has been the consistent practice of Committees of the House of Representatives in recent Congresses — during both Republican and Democrat majorities — as well as these Committees during this inquiry," Comer and Jordan wrote. "We also appreciate your confirmation that Mr. Biden is willing to testify at a public hearing. We look forward to his testimony in a hearing at the appropriate time."
The lawmakers pushed back on Lowell about "baseless and misleading assertions" that he wrote in his letter to the lawmakers.
"It implies that the Committees have no valid legislative purpose for these subpoenas," they wrote. "Any such assertion is incorrect. The Supreme Court has recognized that Congress has a ‘broad and indispensable’ power to conduct oversight, which ‘encompasses inquiries into the administration of existing laws, studies of proposed laws, and surveys in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling Congress to remedy them.
"The Committees require Mr. Biden’s testimony to inform potential legislative reforms relating to federal ethics and financial disclosure laws. In addition, the Committees are investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden based on evidence received to date showing that President Biden was aware of at least some of his family’s business ventures and sought to influence potential business deals that financially benefited his family."
They also said Lowell was wrong to suggest there is no evidence to support that Hunter Biden’s business dealings implicated the official actions of his father.
"This is contrary to the facts already established through the investigation," they wrote. "As we have detailed in the memorandum explaining the scope of the impeachment inquiry, witnesses have testified not only that Mr. Biden sold the Biden ‘brand,’ but also to how Mr. Biden placed his father on speaker phone twenty times with business associates."