House Republican says Hunter Biden wanted open hearing ‘to put on a spectacle’

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Sunday that Hunter Biden is only pushing for an open congressional hearing on the House GOP’s investigation into his business dealings “to put on a spectacle.”

The House GOP has been investigating President Biden’s son over his business dealings for months. The House Oversight Committee, which Donalds serves on, has demanded the president’s son give testimony in a Dec. 13 closed session, but the younger Biden said he would only give one in a public setting.

“What Hunter Biden wants to do is to use the open hearing aspects of congressional hearings to put on a show, to put on a spectacle, without actually having a deposition of his words under oath before he reaches an open session,” Donalds said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “So we’re not going to let that happen. He needs to sit for the closed-door deposition first.”

“Every witness we bring to Capitol Hill has to do the same thing. He is no different,” Donalds added.

Hunter Biden’s offer to testify publicly in an open hearing, but not in a closed-door deposition as House Republicans demanded in their subpoena, exposed some cracks in the GOP’s strategy in investigating the president’s son.

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) swiftly blasted the request — contradicting earlier comments saying they would “drop everything” if the president’s son wanted to testify “in front of the committee.”

Donalds said this latest development should not stop the House from having a closed-door session with Hunter Biden first, despite the president’s son being indicted by the Justice Department on three felony tax charges in relation to tax evasion and filing a false return, as well as six misdemeanor charges for failure to pay taxes between 2016 and 2019, according to a second indictment.

“So the fact that he’s now been indicted should not encumber our ability in the House to be able to have, number one, a closed-door session first, to have written testimony under oath, and then for him to be able to move towards an open hearing,” Donalds said.