The attorney for Hunter Biden last week informed House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer that the president’s son would not accept Comer’s invitation to publicly testify before the committee in its March 20 hearing, CBS News reported.
The committee held its second public hearing on President Biden’s impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, this time to examine whether Biden engaged in influence peddling while in public office.
Chairman Comer announced on March 6 that he had invited Hunter and his business associates to appear at the March 20 hearing to answer questions on the president’s involvement in the Biden family’s foreign and domestic business dealings.
However, in a letter to Comer last week, Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell said neither he nor Hunter could make the hearing since they were scheduled to appear in a March 21 court hearing in California.
Lowell added that the scheduling conflict was only part of the reason Hunter would not testify. He told Comer that the “blatant planned-for-media” hearing was “not a proper proceeding.” Instead, it was “an obvious attempt” at a “Hail Mary pass after the game has ended.”
Lowell described the March 20 hearing as a “carnival sideshow” and said Hunter might consider testifying at a hearing that also included the family members of Donald Trump, whom he claimed engaged in their own foreign business deals after Trump left office.
In a March 13 statement responding to Lowell’s letter, Chairman Comer said the committee had “called Hunter Biden’s bluff.”
He noted that the younger Biden had for months demanded to testify in a public hearing but once he was invited to do so, Hunter refused.
Comer noted that during his closed-door deposition last month, some of Hunter’s testimony conflicted with testimony given by Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski, and Jason Galanis.
Comer said the American public was demanding “accountability for the Bidens’ corruption.”
