Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) warned Sunday that criminal recommendations could be coming for Hunter Biden after this week’s House Oversight and Accountability hearing on the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.
On Wednesday, the committee will hold a hearing titled “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office” featuring Hunter Biden’s former business partners Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis. Biden attorney Abbe Lowell said his client would not appear for the hearing, dismissing it as a “carnival side-show.”
Back in December Biden and his attorneys repeatedly offered to testify publicly, while refusing to appear for a closed-door deposition first.
On Dec. 13, the day he was scheduled to appear for the initial interview, Hunter held a press conference on Capitol Hill to lambast the “MAGA” Republicans who “impugned” his character, “invaded” his privacy, “attacked” his family, “ridiculed” his “struggle with addiction,” “belittled” his “recovery,” and tried to “dehumanize” him “all to damage my father.”
Casting himself as a victim of a dastardly Republican smear campaign, he continued: “They belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me all to embarrass my father who has devoted his entire life to public service,” Hunter said. “For six years I have been a target of the unrelenting Trump attack team. ‘Where’s Hunter?’ Well, here’s my answer. I am here.”
“Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say,” Biden asserted.
He continued: “Here I am, Mr. Chairmen—taking up your offer … I’ve chosen,” he said. “I am here to testify at a public hearing today to answer any of the committee’s legitimate questions.”
Facing Contempt of Congress charges for defying lawful subpoenas, Hunter finally agreed to appear before the Committee for a private deposition on February 28 (transcript here).
Now Republicans want to talk to Biden publicly to see how his testimony matches up to the testimonies of the other witnesses.
“I think that we’re at the point in the investigation where we need to hear the discrepancies,” Comer told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “I fully expect Hunter Biden to show up.”
He added: “If he does not show up, then it’s not going to end well for the Bidens, because we have three witnesses … that have already testified under oath to significantly different stories as to what exactly the Biden influence peddling schemes were.”
The Kentucky Republican warned, “This is very serious because we’re at the point now of criminal referrals.”
Joe Biden has long maintained that he was not involved in his son’s business dealings and never even spoke with him about the family’s influence-peddling operations, but House Republicans have presented what Comer calls “a mountain of evidence” in the form of banks records, email records, text messages, photos, and testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business partners that show otherwise.
“We have spent a year investigating this. We have faced massive obstruction from the White House, from the Biden legal team, yet we have been able to get probably 80 percent of the information that we have requested,” Comer told Fox host Maria Bartiromo. “We have accumulated lots of evidence of wrongdoing.”
“I can’t tell you a single legitimate business the Bidens had, other than they were influence peddling,” he added.
🚨Hunter Biden is getting the hearing he always wanted.@GOPoversight must expose the Biden family's corrupt influence peddling schemes. @POTUS attended meetings, spoke on speakerphone, & had coffee with foreign associates who funneled millions to the Bidens. @MariaBartiromo pic.twitter.com/ZP01UtfC7A
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) March 18, 2024
In a letter to the Oversight Committee, Lowell accused Comer of basing his probe on “a patchwork of conspiracies spun by convicted liars,” complained that the invite came without “prior communication,” and called the planned witnesses “discredited.”
Both Archer and Galanis have been sentenced to serve time in prison in connection with a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe.
Comer held out hope on Monday that the First Son would appear for Wednesday’s open hearing, telling Fox News “we hope to hear from Hunter Biden.”
“He said for months that he wanted a public hearing. The media attacked me for wanting to do a deposition and accused me of not wanting Hunter Biden testify in public. I always said after the deposition, we’d have the public hearing, so this is the week of the public hearing.”