House

Raskin rips GOP for not agreeing to open hearing for Hunter Biden

by Sarah Fortinsky - 11/28/23 12:48 PM ET

House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) ripped his GOP colleagues for rejecting Hunter Biden’s request for an open hearing on Dec. 13, when the president’s son is set to appear for a closed-door deposition.

In a statement Tuesday, Raskin called the GOP move “an epic humiliation” and “a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it,” referring to the Republicans on his committee.

“Let me get this straight,” Raskin said in his statement. “After wailing and moaning for ten months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast unproven family conspiracy, after sending Hunter Biden a subpoena to appear and testify, Chairman [James Comer (R-Ky.)] and the Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear before the full Committee and the eyes of the world and to answer any questions that they pose?”

Raskin’s statement comes after Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, responded Tuesday to a subpoena from the Oversight Committee proposing a public hearing on Dec. 13, instead of the committee’s proposal of a closed-door deposition.

In Lowell’s letter, he wrote that he did not trust the committee to provide an accurate account of closed-door proceedings.

“We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door,” Lowell wrote in a letter to Comer on Tuesday. “If, as you claim, your efforts are important and involve issues that Americans should know about, then let the light shine on these proceedings.”

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Comer rejected the request Tuesday, saying the committee expects Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on Dec. 13, but that he should have the opportunity to testify in public at a later date.

“Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won’t stand with House Republicans,” Comer said in a statement.

Raskin argued that Republicans were afraid a public hearing would make clear that House Republicans did not have evidence proving President Biden committed any wrongdoing.

House Republicans have brought public impeachment hearings against Biden in attempts to produce evidence and prove allegations that President Biden is involved in his son’s legal troubles. The first public impeachment hearing, however, came up short, with the GOP key witness admitting there was not yet evidence proving the president committed any impeachable offenses.

“After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in. The evidence has shown time and again President Biden has committed no wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense,” Raskin wrote.

“Chairman Comer’s insistence that Hunter Biden’s interview should happen behind closed doors proves it once again,” he added. “What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth.”

Other high-profile Democrats echoed this sentiment.

“The reason GOP don’t want a public hearing on Hunter Biden is because @OversightDems have hoisted them by their own petards in every public hearing this year. They’re scared of getting humiliated for not having an actual case (again), so they need to hide,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“There’s your answer,” she added.