House lawmakers announced that they would hold a public hearing in the “next phase” of their impeachment inquiry into President Biden after his son Hunter Biden provided testimony on Wednesday.
Hunter Biden, 54, testified for seven hours on Capitol Hill. He told lawmakers that they distorted facts, relied on lying witnesses and engaged in sensationalism to falsely accuse his father of illegally participating in his foreign business deals.
The president’s son appeared under subpoena at the closed-door deposition. Lawmakers said he provided answers that conflicted with the testimony of other witnesses about the extent of his father’s involvement in deals that netted the family and associates more than $20 million.
“I think that the public hearing hopefully will clear up some discrepancies between some of the statements that were made between some of the associates and what we heard today,” said House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, the Kentucky Republican leading the impeachment inquiry.
Mr. Comer said the president’s son provided contradictory statements.
“So, this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase, which will be a public hearing,” he said.
SEE ALSO: Hunter Biden tells House impeachment probe that its witnesses lied about his dad
Hunter Biden accused the Republicans leading the inquiry of taking emails they obtained from him and his associates out of context and cherry-picking other information to create a false narrative that Mr. Biden engaged in influence peddling.
He did not speak to reporters after the deposition, but his opening statement was leaked.
“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 his statement.
The media and public were excluded from the deposition, but lawmakers said their questions focused on Hunter Biden’s deals with Chinese energy companies, a Ukrainian gas company, a Russian oligarch and other foreign associates. Lawmakers wanted to know the extent of President Biden’s involvement in the deals based on witness testimony that he phoned into 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. Those leading the investigation say he played a key role in helping close the lucrative deals.
Mr. Comer said the oversight panel and the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees had uncovered evidence that Mr. Biden was “the brand” his family sold to enrich themselves.
“Joe Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from these schemes,” Mr. Comer said.
House investigators obtained testimony from four former business associates who say they either witnessed Mr. Biden discussing business deals with his son or heard Mr. Biden phoning into Hunter Biden’s meetings.
Former associate Jason Galanis, who is serving a 14-year sentence on a securities fraud conviction, said he overheard then-Vice President Biden on speakerphone during a meeting between Hunter Biden and a former mayor of Moscow and his wife, a Russian oligarch who later invested up to $20 million in one of his companies.
Hunter Biden accused Galanis and several witnesses of lying.
He and his father deny the two worked together to enrich the family and contend the impeachment inquiry is politically motivated and part of a Republican effort to thwart Mr. Biden’s reelection.
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, told reporters after the day of questioning that Republican lawmakers focused their inquiry on the addiction problems that once consumed the president’s son and did not uncover facts to support their impeachment investigation against the president.
“They have produced no evidence that would do anything to support the notion that there were any financial transactions that involved Hunter with his father, period,” Mr. Lowell said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who participated in the questioning, said Hunter Biden was caught giving conflicting statements about his involvement in Blue Star Strategies. The lobbying firm worked on behalf of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, which was paying Hunter Biden a $1 million annual salary.
The president’s son told lawmakers he was not involved in the lobbying firm, which would have violated the law requiring the disclosure of foreign lobbying.
“But yet we presented an email that showed he was involved as a matter of fact.” Ms. Greene said. “There was an email thread that he was a part of talking about setting up Blue Star Strategies with Burisma. So he went from denying any involvement until we put evidence right in front of his face that he was, in fact, involved.”
Democrats said none of the witnesses directly connected Mr. Biden to the deals and that the Republicans’ impeachment investigation has produced no evidence of wrongdoing.
Republicans have uncovered bank records showing the president’s brother James Biden paid him a total of $240,000 with money directly tied to business deals, but the checks were labeled loan repayments.
Last week, James Biden provided closed-door testimony in the impeachment inquiry and denied that his brother was ever involved in the deals or profited from them.
“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 committee, told reporters.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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