Weekly The Generation, Year 1, Issue 13
November 28, 2023
Hunter Biden is open to testifying publicly before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Dec. 13 in a letter his lawyer sent to the panel Tuesday.
The president’s son was subpoenaed by House Republicans in early November and summoned to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview as part of an escalation of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president.
“We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door,” his lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a Tuesday letter to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky.
A spokesperson for House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer did not immediately respond to a request to comment by NBC News.
In his letter, Lowell rebuked Republicans for their subpoenas focusing on the Biden family’s business dealings, which were issued after Comer requested thousands of bank records connected to Hunter and the president’s brother James Biden, as well as other members of their family, and several business associates.
“Your Committee has been working for almost a year—without success—to tie our client’s business activities to his father. You state that one of your purposes is to review how a President’s family’s business activities raise ethics and disclosure concerns to inform the basis for a legislative solution,” Lowell wrote. “But all your focus has been on this President’s family while turning a blind eye toward former President Trump and his family’s businesses, some of which the family maintained while serving in office—an area ripe to inform your purported legislative pursuits.”
Lowell noted that the president’s son is a private citizen who never served in any public office nor worked in any family business, unlike members of the Trump family, before accusing Republicans of having “manipulated” Hunter Biden’s “legitimate business dealings” and his battles with substance abuse addiction “into a politically motivated basis for hearings to accuse his father of some wrongdoing.”
Lowell said Hunter Biden’s legal team had offered to meet or speak with the committee to understand the basis of its inquiry and provide relevant information but had never responded to their offer. Instead, Lowell said, Republicans issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden and other Biden family members and their associates “in what appears to be a Hail Mary pass with your team behind in the score and time running out.”
“Your fishing expedition has become Captain Ahab chasing the great white whale,” he wrote. “It is no wonder so many news articles report your own Republican colleagues criticizing your proceedings and commenting that your time would be better spent on critical issues facing the country.”
The letter from Hunter Biden’s legal team comes as legal representatives for the president’s brother James have been in communication with the committee, two sources familiar with the committee’s work told NBC News. The committee has asked James Biden to appear for an interview with the panel on Dec. 6.
This story has not been edited by The Generation staff
