House

Mace spars with lawmakers, calls out Hunter Biden: ‘You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes’

by Mychael Schnell - 01/10/24 12:23 PM ET

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) called out Hunter Biden and sparred with her colleagues during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Wednesday as the panel marked up a resolution to hold the president’s son in contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena last month.

Mace was one of the first lawmakers to speak at Wednesday’s hearing, shortly after Biden made a surprise appearance in the room, and she questioned his presence at the proceedings.

“My first question is who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today? That’s my first question. Second question, you are the epitome of white privilege. Coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a Congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here,” Mace said.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) cut off Mace and suggested the panel hold a vote at that moment to allow Biden to testify in public, prompting the South Carolina to shoot back and failed attempts by Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to control the hearing.

“I’m speaking; are women allowed to speak in here?” Mace asked the room over Moskowitz yelling “what are you afraid of.” Comer chimed in, banging his gavel and saying “order” a number of times, adding to the cacophony in the room.

“Are women allowed to speak in here, or no? Because you keep interrupting me,” Mace said.

“I’ll interrupt the chairman, I don’t know that he’s a lady,” Moskowitz responded.

Mace then said Biden “should be arrested right here, right now, and go straight to jail.”

“Our nation is founded on the rule of law and the premise that the law applies equally to everyone no matter what your last name is,” she added, prompting a lawmaker in the room to say “c’mon.” It is unclear which lawmaker made the remark.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is seen as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees’ go to conference for the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday, November 29, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Shortly after, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) stepped in to condemn the interruptions and his colleagues acting like “nimrods.”

“Are we gonna continue on with this blatant interruption? This is absurd and inappropriate,” Biggs said. “I intend to give my statement, I don’t intend to have anybody interrupt it. I’m not gonna interrupt your statements. I think you should have decorum and courtesy and don’t act like a bunch of nimrods.”

Mace then continued her remarks targeting Hunter Biden, arguing that he is “not above the law.”

“It does not matter who you are, where you come from or who your father is or your last name. Yes, I’m looking at you Hunter Biden as I’m speaking to you: you are not above the law at all,” he said.

“Hunter Biden broke the law. He did so deliberately, you did so flagrantly, you showed up on the hill on the senate side the day of that congressional subpoena to defy it and spit in the face of this committee. That’s what you did,” she later added. “The question the American people are asking us is what is Hunter Biden so afraid of? Why can’t you show up for a Congressional deposition? You’re here for a political stunt. This is just a PR stunt to you, this is just a game you are playing with the American people. You’re playing with the truth.”

She ended her remarks telling Biden: “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”

The Oversight and Judiciary committees held hearings Wednesday to mark up a resolution to hold Biden in contempt of Congress after he defied a congressional subpoena last month, refusing to sit for a closed-door deposition. Instead, the younger Biden delivered a statement on the Capitol complex and said his father “was not financially involved in my business.”

The request for testimony came as part of the House GOP’s impeachment investigation into President Biden. Hunter Biden offered to testify publicly, but Republicans on the panels have insisted he first sit for a private deposition. Biden’s team and Democrats have been quick to point out that Comer, before issuing the subpoena, said he would “drop everything” if Biden wanted to testify publicly.

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, delivered a statement after the pair departed Wednesday’s hearing, arguing that “Republicans have sought to use him as a surrogate to attack his father.”

“The Republican chairs today, then, are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions,” he later added. “The question there is, what are they afraid of?”

Later in the hearing, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, circled back to Mace’s remarks at the beginning of the markup and criticized her for saying that Hunter Biden showing up at the Capitol represented “white privilege.”

“I just want to run it back though to the very beginning because this is something that I just can’t get over. I just can’t get over the gentlelady from South Carolina talking about white privilege. It was a spit in the face, at least of mine as a Black woman, for you to talk about what white privilege looks like, especially from that side of the aisle,” she said.

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Crockett went on to paraphrase former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from last month when he reflected on the makeup of Congress during the 2019 State of the Union address, when he said Democrats “look like America” and Republicans “look like the most restrictive country club in America.”

“Ya’ll don’t know what white privilege looks like,” Crockett said.

Mace defended herself, noting that she was formerly the ranking member of the Civil Rights Subcommittee and saying “I take great pride as a white female Republican to address the inadequacies in our country.”

She then yielded to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who said: “Let’s be very clear, this isn’t about Hunter Biden’s white privilege, it’s about Hunter Biden’s Democrat privilege.”

Tags Hunter Biden Nancy Mace