WASHINGTON: Hunter Biden appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill for a defiant, closed-door deposition with lawmakers, a crucial second for Republicans as their impeachment inquiry into his father and the household’s enterprise affairs teeters on the point of collapse.
“I am here today to provide the committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business,” Hunter Biden stated in a gap assertion obtained by The Associated Press.
The deposition might mark a decisive level for the 14-month Republican investigation into the Biden household, which has centered on Hunter Biden and his abroad work for shoppers in Ukraine, China, Romania and different international locations. Republicans have lengthy questioned whether or not these enterprise dealings concerned corruption and affect peddling by President Joe Biden, notably when he was vice chairman.
“We’re deposing Hunter Biden because he’s a key witness in our investigation of President Joe Biden,” Rep. James Comer, one of many Republican chairmen main the inquiry, stated.
Yet after conducting dozens of interviews and acquiring greater than 100,000 pages of paperwork, Republicans have but to supply direct proof of misconduct by the president. Meanwhile, an FBI informant who alleged a bribery scheme involving the Bidens — a declare Republicans had cited repeatedly to justify their probe — is dealing with expenses from federal prosecutors who accuse him of fabricating the story.
Despite the stakes of their investigation, it’s unclear ultimately how a lot helpful info Republicans will be capable to extract from Hunter Biden through the deposition. He is underneath federal investigation and has been indicted on 9 federal tax expenses and a firearm cost in Delaware, which suggests he might refuse to reply some questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment rights.
But by mid-day, Hunter Biden had not asserted these rights, in response to Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., one of many members contained in the deposition. Instead, Mace advised reporters Wednesday that the president’s son had offered testimony within the first hour that was “defiant and dishonest.”
Democrats on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees got here out through the break to name out what they referred to as an “embarrassing spectacle where the Republicans continued to belabor completely trivial points.”
“Based on this first hour, this whole thing really has been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the people’s resources,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the highest Democrat on the Oversight Committee, stated.
The job of interviewing Hunter falls primarily to Comer and Jim Jordan, the GOP chairmen main the impeachment investigation. They first subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November, demanding that he seem earlier than lawmakers in a personal setting. Biden and his attorneys refused, warning that his testimony could possibly be selectively leaked and manipulated. They insisted that Hunter Biden would solely testify in public.
On the day of the subpoena, Hunter Biden not solely snubbed lawmakers ready for him in a listening to room — he did additionally whereas showing proper exterior the Capitol, holding a press convention the place he denounced the investigation into his household.
Both sides finally agreed in January to a personal deposition with a set of situations. The interview with Hunter Biden is not going to be filmed and Republicans have agreed to rapidly launch the transcript.
Hunter is the second member of the Biden household questioned by Republicans in current days. They carried out a greater than eight-hour interview final week with James Biden, the president’s brother. He insisted to lawmakers that Joe Biden has “never had any involvement,” financially or in any other case, in his enterprise ventures.
Looming massive over the interview are developments on the opposite aspect of the nation in Nevada, the place federal prosecutors this month indicted an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who claimed there was a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the president, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian power firm. Prosecutors in court docket paperwork assert that Smirnov has had “extensive and extremely recent” contact with people who find themselves aligned with Russian intelligence.
Smirnov’s attorneys have stated he’s presumed harmless.
Republicans pressed the FBI final summer season over the informant’s claims, demanding to see the underlying paperwork and finally releasing the unverified info to the general public. The declare was cited repeatedly in letters that House Republicans despatched to impeachment witnesses.
Many GOP lawmakers say they’ve but to see proof of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required for impeachment, regardless of alleged efforts by members of the Biden household to leverage the final identify into company paydays domestically and overseas.
But the Republican chairmen main the impeachment effort stay undeterred by the sequence of setbacks to their marquee investigation. Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, stated final week that the informant’s indictment “does not change the fundamental facts” that the Biden household tried to profit off the household identify in a number of abroad companies.
And Comer advised Fox News on Tuesday that Smirnov was by no means “a key part of this investigation.”
Both Comer and Jordan have insisted for the previous yr that their investigation and inquiry is targeted solely on Joe Biden and what actions, if any, he took whereas as vice chairman or president to profit his household. But at almost each flip, their probe has had a constant and heavy deal with Hunter Biden. Several strains of inquiry have been opened into Hunter’s worldwide enterprise affairs, his paintings gross sales and even his private life and on-and-off battle with habit.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden has no scarcity of authorized complications off Capitol Hill as he faces prison expenses in two states from a particular counsel investigation. He’s charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke legal guidelines towards drug customers having weapons in 2018, a interval when he has acknowledged combating habit. Special counsel David Weiss filed further expenses late final yr, alleging he did not pay about $1.4 million in taxes over three years.
He has pleaded not responsible in each instances.
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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and video journalists Nathan Ellgren and Rick Gentilo contributed to this report.
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