House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing concerning President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s business affairs will move forward on March 20 without Hunter Biden.
Following his closed-door deposition before impeachment investigators last month, the younger Biden was invited to appear publicly before the committee alongside three of his former business associates: Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski, and Jason Galanis.
Mr. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, refused the invitation on behalf of his client last week, citing a scheduling conflict and denouncing the hearing as a “carnival sideshow.”
The referenced scheduling conflict is a March 21 court hearing in California, where Mr. Biden is currently fending off three felony and six misdemeanor tax charges.
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According to an Oversight Committee spokesperson, Mr. Bobulinski will testify before the committee in person. Mr. Galanis, who’s serving a 14-year prison sentence for fraud, will testify remotely.
Mr. Archer declined the invitation.
For months, the president’s son refused to appear before Congress—in defiance of a subpoena—stating that he would testify only if the hearing was public. Only when House Republicans were poised to hold him in contempt of Congress did he finally agree to the Feb. 28 deposition.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, noted this in his March 15 reply to Mr. Lowell.
“Only a few months ago, Hunter Biden demanded—outside the United States Capitol—a public hearing where he would answer questions in front of the American people. After facing questions during a deposition, Mr. Biden decided to reverse his position. The only conclusion that one can reach is that Mr. Biden knows his public testimony would not withstand scrutiny,” Mr. Comer wrote in the letter obtained by The Epoch Times.
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“Nonetheless, the Committee will proceed forward—with or without Mr. Biden. It is important to show publicly how the Biden brand was sold for so many years in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, and China, and to explain Joe Biden’s involvement in these lucrative transactions.”
House Republicans have long held that the president was an active participant in his family members’ business schemes, pointing to the testimony of his son’s former associates as evidence. Story continues below
Mr. Archer, for example, told the committee last August that the younger Biden was selling the Biden family “brand” to foreign business partners—a claim that Mr. Bobulinski backed up in February.
Mr. Archer also told ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the president’s claim of having no involvement in his family’s businesses was “categorically false.”
“He was aware of Hunter’s business; he met with Hunter’s business partners,” he said.
But Mr. Hunter Biden contradicted those claims in his testimony, asserting that he and his father had no business relationship. And in the eyes of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, the impeachment probe has only confirmed the veracity of that claim.
“Hunter Biden repeatedly made clear that Joe Biden was not involved in, did not profit from, and took no official actions to benefit any of his business ventures. Hunter Biden supported this testimony with specific evidence throughout the deposition about a variety of his own business ventures,” Mr. Raskin said on Feb. 29.
“More than 100,000 pages of documents and dozens of hours of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses have definitively established that there has been no wrongdoing by President Biden, much less an impeachable offense. It’s time to fold up the circus tent and send all the jugglers, clowns, and elephants home,” he added.
Democrats have reportedly invited businessman Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, as their witness for the March 20 hearing.
Mr. Parnas previously claimed to have assisted the former New York mayor in pushing for an investigation into alleged Biden family corruption in Ukraine ahead of the 2020 election. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison in June 2022 for wire fraud, making false statements, falsifying records, and soliciting foreign donations for political campaigns.
