President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on Wednesday told lawmakers on Capitol Hill they have distorted facts, relied on lying witnesses and engaged in sensationalism to falsely accuse his father of illegally participating in his foreign business deals.
The 54-year-old Biden appeared under subpoena at a closed-door deposition with lawmakers to answer questions about the extent of his father’s involvement in the deals that netted the family and associates more than $20 million.
He accused the Republicans leading the inquiry of taking emails they obtained out of context and cherry-picking other information to create a false narrative that Mr. Biden engaged in influence peddling.
“For more than a year, your Committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism — all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any,” Hunter Biden said in an opening statement.
The media and public are excluded from witnessing the questioning which is likely to last all day. It will center on Hunter Biden’s deals with Chinese energy companies, a Ukrainian gas company, a Russian oligarch and other foreign associates. Lawmakers want to know the extent of President Biden’s involvement in the deals based on prior witness testimony that he phoned in and stopped by his son’s business meetings.
The House is conducting an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s businesses and those leading the probe say he played a key role in helping close lucrative deals.
“The House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees have unearthed a record of evidence revealing Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ his family sold to enrich the Bidens. Joe Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from these schemes,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, said.
House investigators obtained testimony from a fourth former business associate, Jason Galanis, who witnessed Mr. Biden discussing business deals with his son and heard him phoning into a meeting between Hunter Biden and a Russian oligarch who later invested up to $20 million in one of his companies.
Hunter Biden accused Mr. Galanis and several witnesses of lying.
He and his father both deny the two worked together to enrich the family and contend the impeachment inquiry is politically motivated and part of an effort by Republicans to thwart Mr. Biden’s re-election.
Democrats say none of the witnesses directly connect Mr. Biden to the deals and that the GOP’s impeachment probe has produced no evidence of wrongdoing.
“Every other witness that we’ve spoken to has confirmed this basic conclusion that Joe Biden was not involved in Hunter Biden‘s business ventures he did not profit from under Biden‘s business ventures,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, told reporters Wednesday.