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The House Oversight Committee rejected a bid by Hunter Biden to testify before Congress in public, saying that they expect “full cooperation” with their original demand for a private deposition.
The panel suggests the President’s son can offer public testimony further down the line. This comes after they issued a subpoena earlier this month for him, the President’s brother James Biden, and former Hunter business associate Rob Walker.
“Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won’t stand with House Republicans,” committee chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on Tuesday.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Biden, suggested that his client would testify publicly in an effort to combat selective leaks and so-called misinformation by the committee. An astounding assumption, critics might say, considering the constant selective leaks Democrats engaged in with the Russia collusion and January 6th committee investigative panels over the last several years.
“We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public,” Lowell said in a letter to Comer. “We therefore propose opening the door.”
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Hunter Biden Wants To Testify In Public
Fox News contributor Emily Compagno suggested that Hunter wants to testify in public in an effort to portray himself as the “victim” of the hearings.
“I think it is the continued seeking attention and the fact that he perceives himself as the ultimate victim,” Compagno said during Tuesday’s episode of Outnumbered.
She also alleged Hunter has a history of trying to excuse his immoral and illegal behavior because he wants the “world to please have pity on him because of a certain habit.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity also blasted the First Son for what he called an attempt to “dodge a subpoena.”
“If you or I would receive a subpoena from Congress, we would be forced to comply or we would be facing possible jail time, but Hunter seems to think he’s above the law,” he told viewers.
RELATED: Liz Cheney Boasts, They Won’t Allow Trump To Turn Jan. 6 Testimony Into a ‘Circus’
Democrats Suddenly Big Fans Of Public Testimony
While conservative critics contend that Hunter is trying to dodge a subpoena by demanding he be allowed to testify publicly, the President’s son’s legal team recently filed a motion requesting to subpoena former President Donald Trump for his ongoing criminal gun case.
Would his team support Trump testifying in a public setting for that case? Based on past reactions, it seems unlikely.
We know members of the January 6th committee vehemently opposed a public deposition for Trump when he made such a request in 2022.
At the time, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney dismissed the possibility of live public testimony by Trump, insisting that the highly partisan panel wouldn’t allow him to turn the proceedings into a circus.
Oddly enough, another member of that panel now believes that refusing to allow Hunter to testify in public shows the House Oversight Committee is afraid of what might come out.
House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) thinks Comer’s rejection of the request is “an epic humiliation.”
“Let me get this straight,” a statement from Raskin reads. “After wailing and moaning for ten months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast unproven family conspiracy, after sending Hunter Biden a subpoena to appear and testify, Chairman [Comer] and the Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear before the full Committee and the eyes of the world and to answer any questions that they pose?”
Raskin contends that House Republicans are admitting that they “have no confidence in their own case.”
It should be noted that in addition to refusing to allow Trump to testify publicly, the January 6th committee at the direction of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused to allow panel members on board who might offer a contradictory view of the events of that day and make the investigation truly bipartisan.
By Raskin’s own measure, they were clearly not confident in their case.
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