Hunter Biden will be held accountable for defying a congressional subpoena when the House returns to work next week, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was scheduled to appear in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which Comer chairs, on Dec. 13 to be deposed behind closed doors about his father's alleged ties to his foreign business dealings. But Hunter Biden wanted the hearing in public, and announced earlier that day on Capitol Hill he wasn't going to comply with the subpoena.
The House could vote to hold the president's son in contempt of Congress, which could lead to a prison term.
"Obviously, it's a pretty long process to hold someone in contempt of Congress," Comer told "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
"Fortunately, we're working during this Christmas break [and] we should have everything ready to go when we reconvene next week in Washington, and hopefully we can hold him in contempt of Congress."
Republicans hold a narrow 221-213 lead in the House and cannot afford many defections when a vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt comes to the floor.
"I told my colleagues in the Republican Conference if Hunter Biden doesn't comply with our subpoena, then we might as well throw the subpoena power away because nobody's going to comply with a congressional subpoena," Comer said. "Hopefully, when we go back Congress, we will hold the president's son accountable, and remember, the president, in his own words, said that anyone that who defied a congressional subpoena should be held accountable.
"That's exactly what we hope to do next week."
Comer said January is going to be a busy month for his committee, and the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees as they continue their impeachment inquiry into alleged criminal activity regarding the president and his family.
"We're still doing transcribed interviews and we're still scheduling depositions," Comer said.
Adding to the House's full plate will be an investigation into whether the president helped his son in defying the subpoena. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a Dec. 13 briefing the president "was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say."
Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to the White House on Wednesday seeking all communications between the White House and Hunter Biden's attorneys.
"We believe that this was a coordinated effort," Comer said. "We believe that the White House has been colluding with Hunter Biden's legal team from day one to obstruct, to intimidate, and now to avert a lawful congressional subpoena.
"These are all very serious offenses. The collusion with disobeying a congressional subpoena, that's actually an impeachable offense. We've got a lot of problems with the White House, and the fact that Jean-Pierre admitted that the president knew what his son was going to do, that's pretty good evidence for me that the president was in on it."
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