House Republicans hit pause on effort to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress
The House has stopped moving forward with a resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt after his lawyers and two House committees renewed talks about scheduling a date for Biden to testify.
The House has stopped moving forward with a resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress after Biden’s lawyers and the House Judiciary and Oversight committees renewed their conversations about scheduling a date for the president’s son to appear and testify.
The two Republican-led committees voted last week to recommend that the full House hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena in the Republican impeachment inquiry into his father. The younger Biden had offered to testify at a public hearing, and he appeared on Capitol Hill to make a statement in December on the day ordered in his subpoena but did not appear for the closed-door testimony the committees requested.
After the contempt vote, Biden’s lead attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a letter to the committees that the subpoenas were “legally invalid” because they were issued before the House’s vote last month to authorize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, but he said that if the committees issued new subpoenas, Hunter Biden’s legal team would accept it on their client’s behalf. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said they would issue new subpoenas, and sources said Monday that the committee chairmen would be willing to recommend to leadership to hold off on a potential vote to hold Biden in contempt of Congress if he genuinely cooperated with the committee and worked to set a date for a closed-door deposition.
“Following an exchange of letters between the parties on January 12 and January 14, staff for the committees and lawyers for Hunter Biden are working to schedule Hunter Biden’s appearance,” a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee said. “Negotiations are ongoing this afternoon, and in conjunction with the disruption to member travel and cancelling votes, the House Rules Committee isn’t considering the contempt resolution today to give the attorneys additional time to reach an agreement.”
Hunter Biden’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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