Republican threats to advance contempt of Congress charges against Hunter Biden won’t hold up to scrutiny because he’s conducted himself much differently than other recalcitrant witnesses, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin has said.
Mr Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a former constitutional law professor who is serving in his fourth term in the House, drew a sharp contrast between President Joe Biden’s son and past targets of contempt citations in an interview with The Independent on Thursday, a day after the younger Mr Biden declined to give evidence in a closed session before the GOP-led oversight panel.
Though he had been issued a subpoena commanding him to appear before the committee on 13 December, the Yale-educated attorney and ex-lobbyist turned artist instead appeared on the Senate side of the Capitol on Wednesday morning to declare that he would only testify in an open hearing.
He said the GOP did not want “an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say”.
While top Republicans on that committee and the House Judiciary Committee threatened to commence contempt proceedings in response, Mr Raskin — who voted on several contempt resolutions while serving on the House January 6 select committee in the last congress — poured cold water on the idea.
“If you look at the January 6, committee, there were lots of people who were unable to appear when we first asked them to appear, or they wanted to alter the terms of it one way or another, and we were very flexible in negotiating some compromise solution. ” he told The Independent.
Jamie Raskin at a news conference on the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden— (AP)
“But there were a number of recipients of subpoenas who took the categorical position, that they were not going to cooperate in any way that followed Donald Trump's order to people in the federal government to stop complying with congressional subpoenas and requests for interviews when he was president.”
Mr Raskin cited the example of on-and-off-again Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who is currently appealing his conviction for contempt of congress after a 2022 trial before a Washington, DC federal jury.
Bannon, who was sentenced to four months in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons but has remained free during his appeal, refused to comply with a subpoena from the January 6 panel.
The Maryland Democrat drew a distinction between Mr Biden’s refusal to testify behind closed doors after his lawyers engaged in negotiations with the panel and the conduct of both Bannon and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, who also outright refused to honour a subpoena from the January 6 committee.
“Contrast that with Hunter Biden,” Mr Raskin said before explaining that Mr Biden, through his attorney, exchanged written communications with the panel and expressed a desire to cooperate.
“The question about Hunter Biden is one to be worked out between him and his legal team and that committee. To my mind, he substantially and materially complied with everything that was being asked of him,” he said.
The Oversight Committee ranking member said that Hunter Biden’s desire not to testify behind closed doors in a way that could be taken out of context was not an outright refusal to comply with the subpoena.
“He would come on the day they were asking him to come at the time they were asking him to come,” he said. “But he had one condition, which is that he did not want this to be a backroom secret interview because they had watched the process over the last 11 months and they saw how people were being questioned behind the scenes and then chairman Comer was refusing to release the transcripts.”
While the White House has zealously attempted to avoid weighing in on the president’s son’s legal matters, a source who spoke to The Independent said Biden administration figures who watched the president’s son speak outside the Capitol viewed his statement as “powerful, forceful and emotional”.
James Comer, left, and Jim Jordan are leading the impeachment probe against President Biden. Jordan himself has refused to honour a subpoena— (Getty Images)
The comment from the Biden administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was a rare foray into defence of the younger Mr Biden, even as the White House has steadfastly refused to offer rebuttals to the accusations House Republicans have made the centre of their nascent impeachment probe.
Although the GOP has routinely made outlandish allegations against President Biden, including claims that he has accepted bribes and engaged in wide-ranking “influence peddling” schemes through his son, Mr Raskin said it’s difficult for the White House to clap back because the allegations have been extremely light on detail..
“The President's been in a tough spot because they are not making any specific allegations of crimes,” Mr Raskin said. “So in a certain sense, they've never laid a glove on him. It's a set innuendo and absurdist extrapolations from things going on with his son. And, you know, I can see his reluctance to enter into every provocation about Hunter Biden.”
Mr Raskin added that the president needs to emphasize that he had no involvement with Hunter Biden in his business dealings. At the same time, he added that Democrats are not in the business of defending the younger Biden.
“It's not our job to be Hunter Biden's defence counsel or anyone's defence counsel,” he said.” The role of Democrats on the Oversight Committee is to provide oversight of the government and aggressive defence of democratic institutions and practices and values. We have strongly opposed aimless fishing expeditions that just constitute harassment of private individuals. But Hunter Biden doesn't need us to act as his defence lawyers and that's not our role.”
Mr Raskin and the Democrats on the House Oversight & Accountability Committee will serve as the front line of defence ahead of the impeachment inquiry from House Republicans, which Donald Trump pushed aggressively.
