Hunter Biden makes surprise appearance at House committee hearing to hold him in contempt

WASHINGTON — The son of the president arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning to attend in person congressional committee meetings called to hold him in contempt of Congress — setting up an unprecedented standoff on live television between Hunter Biden and House Republicans who have long sought his testimony as part of their impeachment inquiry into his father.

Hunter Biden was accompanied by his attorneys Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris. He did not respond to questions. 

House Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees are holding separate committee votes on Wednesday recommending that Hunter Biden be charged with contempt of Congress.  

Hunter Biden is at odds with Republicans over their demand that he testify behind closed doors. The president’s son, who is facing two separate criminal indictments, has agreed to testify publicly, an offer Republicans have refused, continuing to insist that the testimony be given behind closed doors.

During the Oversight Committee’s markup Wednesday morning, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., called for Hunter Biden’s arrest on the spot for defying the congressional subpoena.

“Hunter Biden you are too afraid for a deposition, and I still think you are today,” she said.

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” she added.

Hunter Biden and his legal team left the hearing shortly before Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., delivered remarks at the Oversight hearing in which she called him a “coward.”

Biden’s surprise appearance comes a day before he is due to plea not guilty at his first appearance in court on separate tax charges in Los Angeles, and is the latest in an escalating back and forth between himself and House Republicans. In correspondence with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee in the fall and in a news conference in front of the Capitol last month on the day he was compelled to be interviewed, Biden said he would comply with the subpoena but only in public testimony, citing both the Judiciary and House Oversight chairmen’s own previous comments that it could take place in public. 

Biden and his attorneys have maintained that House Republicans’ claims of illegal conduct are baseless and have argued that they will selectively leak or mischaracterize his comments for partisan purposes if it takes place during a closed-door deposition. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have said Biden must first testify behind closed doors, and in a report released Monday stated that “Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions,” the reports read. 

The top House Democrat on the committee, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, previously said in a statement “there is no precedent” for the House to hold a private citizen in contempt of Congress who has offered to testify under oath publicly and on a day chosen by the committee.

Biden’s attorney Lowell previously told NBC News in a statement: “It’s clear the Republican Chairmen aren’t interested in getting the facts or they would allow Hunter to testify publicly.

“Instead, House Republicans continue to play politics by seeking an unprecedented contempt motion against someone who has from the first request offered to answer all their proper questions. What are they afraid of?”

As part of the impeachment effort, Comer and Jordan asked the White House last month to provide any communications it has had with Hunter Biden’s legal team, telling White House counsel Edward Siskel that they seek to determine whether the president had a role in his son’s decision to defy their subpoena.