Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, sits with his attorney Abbe Lowell as he makes a surprise appearance at a House Oversight Committee markup and meeting to vote on whether to hold Biden in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a request to testify to the House last month, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 10, 2024.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
House Republicans said Sunday that they intend to issue new subpoenas for President Joe Biden’s son Hunter in the coming weeks after his lawyers agreed to comply with a “proper” subpoena if it was requested.
“As an accommodation to Mr. Biden and at your request, we are prepared to issue subpoenas compelling Mr. Biden’s appearance at a deposition on a new date in the coming weeks,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to the president’s son lawyer, Abbe Lowell.
The Sunday letter responds to Lowell’s Friday message offering to accept a “new proper” subpoena should Comer and Jordan decide to issue one.
In their reply, Comer and Jordan said they would take Lowell up on Biden’s “newfound willingness to testify.”
Hunter Biden in December agreed to give public testimony but refused a congressional subpoena to testify behind closed doors, sending House Republicans into a fury. Comer and Jordan led an effort to hold Biden in contempt of Congress for defying the December subpoena, which Congress will vote on next week.
In his Friday letter, Lowell called the initial subpoenas legally invalid because they were issued before the presidential impeachment inquiry that they served was formalized, which Comer and Jordan denied on Sunday.
“To be clear, the issuance of these subpoenas does not in any way suggest or imply that the Committees believe the assertions in your January 12 letter to have any merit,” Comer and Jordan wrote.
Lowell also criticized Jordan and Comer for pursuing a vote to hold Biden in contempt for defying an initial congressional subpoena for a closed-door deposition in December, despite Biden agreeing to give public testimony.
Jordan himself was unanimously referred to the bipartisan House Ethics Committee for refusing to respond to a subpoena to testify about what he knows about former President Donald Trump’s role in the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6.
Lowell, Comer and Jordan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
House Republicans have been investigating the president’s son’s foreign business dealings, claiming with little concrete evidence that President Joe Biden unlawfully benefitted from them. The Biden family and the White House have denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
The Hunter Biden investigation is part of a broader impeachment inquiry into the president, which is one of several impeachment probes that House Republicans are currently leading.