During the fight over whether to remove Kevin McCarthy as HousesSpeaker, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asked during a floor speech why McCarthy had not yet issued a subpoena for the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
The House Oversight Committee and other Republican-controlled committees have spent much of the last year frequently seeking subpoenas to go through the Biden family’s financial records, in order to try — unsuccessfully, so far — to find evidence of any crime by the president
They had not actually subpoenaed Hunter Biden himself, or other members of the family, to testify. Now, they have.
In recent weeks, following a disastrous first impeachment hearing, the investigation had mostly gone on the back burner. But the Oversight Committee on Wednesday announced that it had issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden, the president’s brother James Biden, and business associate Rob Walker to appear for depositions before the committee. Also, “additional members of the Biden family and their associates” have been asked to appear for “transcribed interviews.”
Per The Hill, those people include Hunter Biden’s wife Melissa, James Biden’s wife Sarah Biden, and Hailee Biden, the widow of the president’s late son Beau Biden, and a woman with whom Hunter Biden engaged in a romantic relationship following his brother’s death.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence-peddling schemes. Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said in a statement.
“Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family’s business schemes, bank records don’t lie. These records reveal how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around to the world to benefit the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself, to the detriment of U.S. interests. The House Oversight Committee, along with the Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means, will continue to follow the facts and deliver the transparency and accountability that the American people demand and deserve.”
It’s not clear when Hunter and James Biden will be testifying.
The White House responded to the news.
“With just over a week to go until House Republicans may again thrust the country into a harmful and chaotic government shutdown, the most extreme voices in their party like James Comer are trying to distract from their repeated failures to govern,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, said.
An attorney for Hunter Biden, meanwhile, said this week that he is “eager” to testify following the subpoena.
“This is yet another political stunt aimed at distracting from the glaring failure of Rep. Comer and his MAGA allies to prove a single one of their wild and now discredited conspiracies about the Biden family,” attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement Wednesday, per Fox News.
Earlier this month, Hunter Biden wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he ripped Republicans for making him a scapegoat as he fights to maintain his sobriety, which he says he has done for four years. It follows this recent strategy of sometimes suing people, including Rudy Giuliani.
“I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me,” the headline of Hunter’s USA Today piece says.
“My struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against him, and an all-out annihilation of my reputation through high-pitched but fruitless congressional investigations and, more recently, criminal charges for possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days five years ago – charges that appear to be the first-ever of their kind brought in the history of Delaware,” he writes.
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles over the years that focus on politics, technology, and the economy for over a decade. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
