Hunter Biden tells House GOP in defiant statement he didn’t involve his father in his business

WASHINGTON: Hunter Biden appeared on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to testify behind closed doors with lawmakers, marking a key moment for Republicans as the impeachment inquiry into his father and his family’s business affairs teeters on the brink of collapse.

“I am here today to provide the committees with one indisputable fact that must end the false premise of this investigation: I did not involve my father in his business,” Hunter Biden said in an opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. “

The statement could mark a turning point in the 14-month Republican investigation of the Biden family, which has focused on Hunter Biden and his foreign work for clients in Ukraine, China, Romania and other countries. Republicans have long questioned whether those trade deals included the promotion of corruption and influence peddling by President Joe Biden, especially when he was vice president.

Representative James Comer, one of the Republican chairmen leading the investigation, said, “We are removing Hunter Biden because he is a key witness in our investigation of President Joe Biden.”

Yet after conducting dozens of interviews and obtaining more than 100,000 pages of documents, Republicans have yet to produce direct evidence of misconduct by the president. Meanwhile, an FBI informant who alleged a bribery scheme involving the Bidens — a claim Republicans have repeatedly cited to justify their investigation — is facing charges from federal prosecutors who have accused him of fabricating the story. is charged.

Despite the risks to their investigation, it is ultimately unclear how much useful information Republicans will be able to glean from Hunter Biden during his testimony. He is under federal investigation and has been indicted on nine federal tax charges and a firearm charge in Delaware, meaning he can refuse to answer certain questions by claiming his Fifth Amendment rights.

But by afternoon, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Hunter Biden had not claimed those rights, according to one of the members inside the statement. Instead, Mace told reporters on Wednesday that the testimony the president’s son gave in the first hour was “outrageous and dishonest.”

Democrats on the Oversight and Judiciary committees came out during the break and called it a “shameful spectacle” where Republicans kept discussing completely trivial points.

“Based on this first hour, this whole thing is really a tremendous waste of our legislative time and people’s resources,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.

The task of interviewing Hunter has largely been assigned to Comer and Jim Jordan, the GOP chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry. They first subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November and demanded that he appear before lawmakers in a private setting. Biden and his lawyers refused, saying that his testimony could be selectively leaked and manipulated. He insisted that Hunter Biden would only testify publicly.

On the day of the subpoena, Hunter Biden not only insulted lawmakers waiting for him in the hearing room — he also did so while holding a press conference just outside the Capitol, where he condemned the investigation into his family.

Both sides eventually agreed to a private statement in January with some conditions. The interview with Hunter Biden will not be filmed and Republicans have agreed to quickly release the transcript.

Hunter is the second member of the Biden family to be questioned by Republicans in recent days. He conducted a more than eight-hour interview with James Biden, the president’s brother, last week. He stressed to lawmakers that Joe Biden “has never had any involvement” in his business ventures, financial or otherwise.

The interview largely follows developments in the other part of the country, Nevada, where federal prosecutors this month indicted an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who claimed to have colluded with the president, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian man. There was a bribery scheme worth millions of dollars. Energy Company. In court documents, prosecutors claim Smirnov has had “extensive and recent” contacts with people associated with Russian intelligence.

Smirnov’s lawyers have said he is presumed innocent.

Republicans pressured the FBI last summer over the whistleblower’s claims, demanding to see the underlying documents and ultimately release the unverified information to the public. This claim was mentioned repeatedly in letters sent by House Republicans to impeachment witnesses.

Several GOP lawmakers say they have yet to see evidence of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” necessary for impeachment, despite alleged efforts by Biden family members to leverage the alias into corporate paydays at home and abroad Are.

But the Republican president who led the impeachment effort remains undeterred by a series of setbacks in his major investigation. Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said last week that the whistleblower’s indictment “does not change the fundamental facts” that the Biden family tried to leverage the family name in several offshore businesses.

And Comer told Fox News on Tuesday that Smirnov was never “a significant part of this investigation.”

Both Comer and Jordan have stressed over the past year that their investigation and inquiry focused solely on Joe Biden and what actions, if any, he took while he was vice president or president to benefit his family. yes. But at almost every turn, their investigation has focused consistently and heavily on Hunter Biden. Several lines of inquiry have been opened regarding Hunter’s international business affairs, the sale of his artworks, and even his personal life and repeated battles with drug addiction.

Meanwhile, Hunter Biden has no shortage of legal headaches from Capitol Hill as he faces criminal charges in two states from a special counsel investigation. He has been charged with firearms counts in Delaware, alleging he broke a law against drug users owning a gun in 2018, a period when he admitted struggling with drug addiction. Special counsel David Weiss filed additional charges late last year, alleging he failed to pay nearly $1.4 million in taxes over three years.

He has declared himself innocent in both the cases.

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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves and video journalists Nathan Algren and Rick Gentillo contributed to this report.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – The Associated Press)