[Politics] GOP-led committee votes to recommend that House hold Hunter Biden in contempt

[El Máster Edwin]

The party-line vote comes after House Republicans released a report saying the president's son should be held in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena.

 

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted to formally recommend that the full House hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena in the Republican impeachment inquiry into his father.

The GOP-led committee voted along party lines, 23 to 14, in favor of advancing the contempt resolution. The vote comes hours after the president's son arrived on Capitol Hill to attend in person the congressional committee meetings on the matter.

Biden was accompanied Wednesday morning by his attorneys Kevin Morris and Abbe Lowell, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Judiciary Committee vote.

House Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees were holding separate votes Wednesday recommending a contempt charge for Biden, who's at odds with GOP lawmakers over their demand that he be deposed behind closed doors.

The president’s son, facing two separate indictments, has said he would testify publicly, an offer Republicans have refused, continuing to insist that the interview be held privately.

During the Oversight Committee's markup Wednesday morning, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., called for Biden's arrest on the spot for defying the congressional subpoena.

"Hunter Biden, you are too afraid for a deposition, and I still think you are today," she said.

"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes," she added.

Biden and his legal team left the hearing shortly before Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., delivered remarks at the Oversight hearing in which she called Biden a "coward."

Outside the chamber, Lowell said committee Republicans were motivated by "improper partisan motives." He said he and his client had offered to work with Republicans on the committees on a half dozen occasions since last February, including on Wednesday, to see "how relevant information to any legitimate inquiry could be provided," but their offers were ignored. He called a GOP subpoena in November for a closed-door deposition "a tactic that the Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said."

 

"The Republican chairs today then are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions," Lowell added. "The question there is, what are they afraid of?"

Asked by NBC News shortly after leaving the Oversight hearing whether he would testify Wednesday if asked, Biden replied, "Yes." He and his team then left the building.

During the Judiciary Committee's contempt markup, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., mentioned Biden’s unexpected appearance on Capitol Hill before moving to adjourn the meeting in order to have the president’s son testify in public given his presence down the hall at the time. The motion failed in a roll-call vote.

 

 

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