As the House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden faces growing questions over its legitimacy and path forward, GOP investigators will finally get to press Hunter Biden on his business dealings today.
The president’s son will face a full day of questions during a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight and Judiciary panels. Republicans are investigating whether Joe Biden improperly acted while in office to benefit his family’s financial deals. To date, the GOP hasn’t found any conclusive evidence of impeachable offenses.
Today’s session also marks the biggest moment so far during the impeachment probe for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who’ve led the investigation.
There are three major dynamics we want to flag:
→ Hunter Biden is the president’s son. And of all the people likely to accuse Biden of impeachable offenses, Hunter Biden is far from the top of the list. This is an obstacle for GOP investigators, similar to what we saw with James Biden’s testimony last week. The same family members who have the most information on their business dealings are going to strongly deny that Joe Biden engaged in any high crimes and misdemeanors.
→ Hunter Biden is currently under federal criminal indictment by Special Counsel David Weiss for allegedly falsifying a gun purchase form and avoiding taxes. These indictments mean Hunter Biden is likely going to refuse to answer many questions today.
House Republicans agreed that the interview will not be videotaped, and both sides have pledged to make the transcript available to the public as quickly as possible.
→A major revelation from the impeachment inquiry has been witnesses testifying that Hunter Biden placed then-Vice President Biden on speaker phone during business meetings. We’ll be watching to see how the younger Biden addresses these conversations during today’s questioning. To be clear, the witnesses have added that these conversations never touched on the details of any deals.
The outside game: The Congressional Integrity Project, a progressive outside group, is running a multi-pronged Hill campaign calling on Republicans to drop their impeachment inquiry. The group is launching a new website, rolling out a mobile billboard outside of the deposition room and has a new digital ad.
CIP is seizing on the arrest and indictment of an FBI informant who alleged a Biden bribery plot. The informant, Alexander Smirnov, is accused of making up a claim that Joe and Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from Ukrainian energy company officials. This has dealt a major blow to the House GOP impeachment inquiry.
— Max Cohen
