While Hunter Biden was testifying behind closed doors on February 28, congressional Democrats took pains to absent themselves from the deposition — even as it was underway — so they could rush to the media microphones and proclaim the president’s son a simply fabulous witness who had totally demolished the Republicans’ allegations of Biden family corruption. I know it will stun you, then, to learn that Hunter and his lawyers announced today that, on second thought, he’d rather not testify at that public hearing he has been demanding. (Our James Lynch has a report, here.)
I admit to being surprised that Hunter finally agreed to not only show up but actually testify at the February 28 deposition. He is facing two criminal indictments. The gun case indicted in Delaware (which has just been scheduled for a June 3 trial) is not especially germane to the House impeachment inquiry — except to the extent it shows that Hunter got favorable treatment, and that no country in its right mind would have been paying Hunter for his supposed business acumen. But the tax case significantly overlaps with the House impeachment inquiry; ergo, there was every reason to believe Hunter’s congressional testimony could cause him problems if the tax case eventually goes to trial.
Nevertheless, Hunter and the Biden White House obviously concluded that it would be a political wound the president could not afford if, after all the theatrics, Hunter declined to testify on Fifth Amendment grounds. Better that he seek to exculpate Biden père, however implausibly. Given the kid-gloves treatment Hunter has gotten from “special counsel” David Weiss, his defense team must have calculated that the risk of testifying in the House was not unacceptably high — when questions arose that could spell obvious trouble for him in the criminal cases, Hunter could try reverting to “I can’t recall” mode. (Although Weiss indicted the president’s son twice after the sweetheart plea deal imploded, Weiss made sure to drag his feet until the statute of limitations lapsed on some of Hunter’s most serious misconduct, and he took pains not to mention President Biden in the tax indictment even though the source of the income on which Hunter failed to pay taxes was exploitation of his father’s political influence.)
A public House hearing, though, proved to be a bridge too far. Despite how vociferously Hunter and his defense team demanded it, the likelihood that it would turn disastrous for him was so strong that they’ve raised the white flag.
Credit James Comer (R., Ky.), who chairs the Oversight Committee and has been steering the investigation. Hunter was invited to testify in public on March 20, at a hearing where it was anticipated he’d appear on a panel with three of his former business associates — Tony Bobulinski, Jason Galanis, and Devon Archer — each of whom has provided damning testimony about Biden family influence-peddling. House Republicans planned to walk the witnesses through the paper trail that, to date, shows $24 million pouring into the coffers of Biden family members and associates from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes. As the witnesses described how Joe Biden, along with Hunter and the president’s brother Jim, played active roles in generating this income by hyping the “Biden brand” (i.e., the benefits of access to Joe Biden’s political power), Hunter would have been left to mumble that he couldn’t recall, or that his father had nothing to do with what his father, patently, had everything to do with.
To repeat what I’ve previously contended, Hunter never wanted to testify — not in public and not behind closed doors. He made a show of demanding a public hearing to try to dissuade Republicans from forcing him to either testify or take the Fifth behind closed doors. After that didn’t work and Hunter gave his deposition testimony — which, contrary to the rehearsed insistence of congressional Democrats, was actually quite damaging to “the Big Guy,” further refuting the president’s absurd claims to have been uninvolved in the family business — Hunter suddenly stopped asking for a public hearing. It was Republicans who pressed the issue, realizing that Hunter would decline.
Biden attorney Abbe Lowell tried to put a defiant face on this retreat, claiming that the Republicans’ investigation had already been exposed as “baseless” and “dead” thanks to Hunter’s scintillating deposition testimony, along with Weiss’s recent indictment of FBI informant Alexander Smirnov (who, as we’ve related, had nothing to do with the vast majority of the evidence of Biden family influence-peddling). Lowell added that Hunter has a scheduling conflict — a court hearing in California the next day in the tax prosecution.
For now, it appears that the March 20 hearing will go forward without Hunter Biden. But by demanding the hearing and now declining to show up for it, he has succeeded in drawing more attention to the impending public testimony of Bobulinski, Galanis, and Archer.