It’s the right move, sparing House Republicans a tense and possibly unsuccessful contempt vote while showing that their priority is getting testimony from the president’s son.
As I suggested was likely and would be prudent on Saturday, the House committees that issued subpoenas flouted by Hunter Biden have decided that, rather than push the full House to proceed this week with a dicey contempt vote, they will issue a new subpoena to the president’s son.
In a letter to the younger Biden’s counsel, Chairmen Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and James Comer (R., Tenn.) of, respectively, the Judiciary and Oversight Committees wrote that, as an accommodation to Hunter, they would issue a new subpoena commanding him to appear for deposition testimony at a date yet to be determined.
Hunter was supposed to appear for a deposition on December 13, 2021, pursuant to subpoenas issued by Jordan and Comer in November. The president’s son not only defied the subpoenas; he brazenly showed up on Capitol Hill – on the Senate side, where the House sergeant-at-arms would have no enforcement authority – and gave a public statement mocking the committees’ investigation of Biden family influence-peddling.
The committees have thus far shown that Biden family members – led by the president’s son Hunter and brother Jim, and abetted by the president’s meetings and phone calls with their business associates – raked in an astounding $24 million over the five years between 2014 and 2019 (i.e., including the years from 2014 through 2016 when Joe Biden was vice-president) from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes.
Late last year, Hunter Biden was indicted on felony tax-evasion charges, only after the Biden Justice Department attempted to make the case against him disappear on a sweetheart plea deal calling for two misdemeanor pleas and a no-prison sentence. The deal would also have extinguished felony gun charges against the president’s son — for which he was also (and separately) indicted after the sweetheart deal imploded in scandal.
The House committees began the Biden family influence-peddling investigations shortly after Republicans took control of the House in January 2023. At the time that the younger Biden contemptuously defied the November subpoenas, the committees were bringing their probe under the auspices of a House impeachment inquiry, targeting President Biden.
Yet because the razor-thin GOP major lacked the votes for the inquiry to be approved by the full House, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Cal.) purported to approve the inquiry unilaterally in September. After McCarthy was ousted as speaker in an internal Republican squabble, new Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) cobbled together enough support to get the impeachment inquiry approved by the full House (in a party-line vote).
Alas, the subpoenas for Hunter’s deposition had been issued before the inquiry was authorized. In fact, the deposition was scheduled to occur the morning of December 13, but it was not until that evening that the House voted to approve the inquiry.
Consequently, Biden’s counsel, Abbe Lowell, has argued that the committee subpoenas issued in November 2023 were not valid. He is wrong about that, but it is a contention with political force. In the 2019 House impeachment inquiry regarding then-President Trump (the Ukraine impeachment), Republicans vehemently objected when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) unilaterally authorized the inquiry — with the Trump Justice Department maintaining that information demands made by standing committees prior to the full House’s eventual vote approving the inquiry were invalid.
Last week, Comer convened an Oversight Committee meeting (not an evidentiary hearing) for the purpose of referring to the full House a resolution to hold Hunter in contempt for defying the November subpoenas. The meeting was dramatically and calculatedly crashed by Hunter, Lowell, and Hunter’s close associate Kevin Morris (the Hollywood lawyer who advanced funds to pay Hunter’s millions in back-taxes). They continued to claim that Hunter was willing to testify, but at a public hearing, not a closed-door deposition. The committees refused to change their rules for the president’s son, just as Democratic-led committees insisted on deposition testimony and rebuffed witness demands to testify at public hearings during the Trump years.
At last week’s Oversight meeting, Hunter and his companions stayed for a few minutes so Democratic members — who were clearly prepared for his ploy — could emote about how Republicans are terrified to let Hunter testify publicly. But two can play that game. Hunter & Co. ended up fleeing the room after Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) vilified him for several minutes, and a second theatrical member, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), began to do likewise.
Last week’s stunt was intended to suggest that Hunter is willing to cooperate but that Republicans are refusing his reasonable demands because they want to pursue contempt as part of a political vendetta. I believe this is posturing: Facing two indictments and other potential criminal jeopardy, Hunter is highly likely to refuse to testify under the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. That would be politically damaging to the president, so Hunter’s team is trying to spin his refusal to show up for a deposition as a political dispute rather than a matter of his reluctance to take the Fifth.
After Hunter bolted the committee room, Oversight members voted to refer Hunter to the full House for a contempt-of-Congress citation, and the Judiciary Committee followed with a similar vote. The committees planned to push for a contempt vote this coming week. Thus, to stall for time and try to stave off a contempt vote, Lowell sent a letter to Jordan and Comer on Friday, claiming that the November subpoenas were invalid. He offered, though, that, with the impeachment inquiry now authorized by the full House, if a new subpoena were issued, Hunter would comply.
Jordan and Comer responded to Lowell’s letter with a letter of their own on Sunday. In it, the chairmen vigorously defend the legality of the standing committee’s subpoenas. Nevertheless, they add that they “welcome Mr. Biden’s newfound willingness to testify in a deposition setting under subpoena.” Hence, “as an accommodation to Mr. Biden and at [Lowell’s] request,” the chairmen assert that the committees “are prepared to issue subpoenas compelling Mr. Biden’s appearance at a deposition on a new date in the coming weeks.” Jordan and Comer emphasize that this “accommodation . . . does not in any way suggest or imply that the Committees believe the assertions in [Lowell’s] January 12 letter to have any merit.” Instead, the chairmen conclude, “our willingness to issue these subpoenas is rooted entirely in our interest in obtaining Mr. Biden’s testimony as expeditiously as possible.”
As I opined on Saturday, this is the best move for the committees — indeed, it should have been done a month ago. Yes, it’s a retreat, but it was rash of Republicans to threaten contempt when they cannot afford to lose more than two members on any party-line vote, and when 18 of their members — who were leery even of approving an impeachment inquiry that merely authorizes a worthy investigation — hold seats in districts that President Biden won in 2020. Those members (and probably others) would have a hard time voting to hold the president’s son in contempt when he is now claiming to be amenable to honoring a new House subpoena for deposition testimony. It would be humiliating for the slim House majority, having threatened contempt, to find itself impotent to pass a contempt resolution after Hunter so contemptuously thumbed his nose at the committees.
The decision to issue a new subpoena, now that the December 13 House vote has given the impeachment inquiry undeniable legitimacy, spares the Republican majority from what would be a very tense contempt vote. It also enables GOP investigators to argue, persuasively, that their priority is to obtain Hunter’s testimony in an important investigation, not to engage in political machinations.
Whether they will ever get Hunter’s testimony — including whether he’ll actually show up for a deposition and, if so, whether he’ll answer questions or simply take the Fifth — remains to be seen.