Defiant Hunter Biden defends business moves, invokes Kushner deals
by: Mychael Schnell, Mike Lillis, The Hill
Posted: Feb 28, 2024 / 06:24 PM EST
Updated: Feb 29, 2024 / 01:11 PM EST
Hunter Biden, the star witness in the GOP’s impeachment investigation into his father, appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where Republicans spent a long day drilling into the details of overseas business ventures they’ve portrayed as a web of corruption implicating President Biden.
Yet if Republicans were hoping to dig up the elusive evidence of financial wrongdoing to back their allegations, they didn’t seem to find it in the nearly seven hours of closed-door questioning with the president’s son.
Instead, a defiant Hunter Biden defended his various business dealings, amplified previous assertions that his father had no hand in those pursuits and turned the inquiry back onto Republicans by invoking the foreign business ventures of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Trump, who secured a huge investment deal from Saudi Arabia shortly after leaving the White House.
“One of his most powerful lines was when he made it very clear that none of the business dealings that he ever had were with any government entity. And he pointed out: unlike Jared Kushner, who received $2 billion from the Saudi Arabian government as soon as he left office, when he was the point person on Middle Eastern policy,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.).
Republicans are already eyeing another chance to confront the president’s son.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, left Wednesday’s marathon testimony saying it was “a great deposition for us” and promising to bring Hunter Biden back before the panel — this time for a public hearing. He said he hopes to “clear up some discrepancies” between statements made by the president’s son and previous witnesses.
“There are also some contradictory statements that I think need further review, so this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase, which will be a public hearing,” he said.
Asked when the hearing would take place, Comer responded, “The sooner the better.”
Wednesday’s testimony marked the latest in a long series of closed-door depositions conducted by Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary committees as they scramble for proof to back their allegations that the president’s family conducted shady overseas business deals that leaned heavily on the powerful Biden name.
Hunter Biden has denied those allegations publicly, and he did so again during the private deposition.
“I am here today to provide the committees with the one incontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never,” he said during his opening statement.
That message was echoed by President Biden’s Democratic allies on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, who have accused Republicans of conducting a witch hunt against the president to diminish his chances of winning reelection in November.
“It has been a comedy of errors from the beginning,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), senior Democrat on the Oversight panel who led the second impeachment of former President Trump.
Republicans, however, cast doubt on Biden’s testimony, criticizing his demeanor and questioning the veracity of his answers, which they said veered, at times, from other witness statements.
“They’re not sitting in the same hearing that I am,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a member of the Oversight Committee, said of the Democrats.
Mace, rather, said Hunter Biden was “defiant and also dishonest” after the first hour of his testimony and accused him of making statements “in direct conflict with other witnesses,” including Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
“The transcripts will be out. I won’t go into detail, you’ll be able to see it for yourself,” Mace said.
Source
https://www.wnct.com/hill-politics/defiant-hu...ner-deals/
by: Mychael Schnell, Mike Lillis, The Hill
Posted: Feb 28, 2024 / 06:24 PM EST
Updated: Feb 29, 2024 / 01:11 PM EST
Hunter Biden, the star witness in the GOP’s impeachment investigation into his father, appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where Republicans spent a long day drilling into the details of overseas business ventures they’ve portrayed as a web of corruption implicating President Biden.
Yet if Republicans were hoping to dig up the elusive evidence of financial wrongdoing to back their allegations, they didn’t seem to find it in the nearly seven hours of closed-door questioning with the president’s son.
Instead, a defiant Hunter Biden defended his various business dealings, amplified previous assertions that his father had no hand in those pursuits and turned the inquiry back onto Republicans by invoking the foreign business ventures of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Trump, who secured a huge investment deal from Saudi Arabia shortly after leaving the White House.
“One of his most powerful lines was when he made it very clear that none of the business dealings that he ever had were with any government entity. And he pointed out: unlike Jared Kushner, who received $2 billion from the Saudi Arabian government as soon as he left office, when he was the point person on Middle Eastern policy,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.).
Republicans are already eyeing another chance to confront the president’s son.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, left Wednesday’s marathon testimony saying it was “a great deposition for us” and promising to bring Hunter Biden back before the panel — this time for a public hearing. He said he hopes to “clear up some discrepancies” between statements made by the president’s son and previous witnesses.
“There are also some contradictory statements that I think need further review, so this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase, which will be a public hearing,” he said.
Asked when the hearing would take place, Comer responded, “The sooner the better.”
Wednesday’s testimony marked the latest in a long series of closed-door depositions conducted by Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary committees as they scramble for proof to back their allegations that the president’s family conducted shady overseas business deals that leaned heavily on the powerful Biden name.
Hunter Biden has denied those allegations publicly, and he did so again during the private deposition.
“I am here today to provide the committees with the one incontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never,” he said during his opening statement.
That message was echoed by President Biden’s Democratic allies on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, who have accused Republicans of conducting a witch hunt against the president to diminish his chances of winning reelection in November.
“It has been a comedy of errors from the beginning,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), senior Democrat on the Oversight panel who led the second impeachment of former President Trump.
Republicans, however, cast doubt on Biden’s testimony, criticizing his demeanor and questioning the veracity of his answers, which they said veered, at times, from other witness statements.
“They’re not sitting in the same hearing that I am,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a member of the Oversight Committee, said of the Democrats.
Mace, rather, said Hunter Biden was “defiant and also dishonest” after the first hour of his testimony and accused him of making statements “in direct conflict with other witnesses,” including Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
“The transcripts will be out. I won’t go into detail, you’ll be able to see it for yourself,” Mace said.
Source
https://www.wnct.com/hill-politics/defiant-hu...ner-deals/
