The Memo: Hunter Biden goes on the offense against GOP tormentors

Hunter Biden fired the latest salvo in his counteroffensive against Republican critics Tuesday — and Democrats mostly cheered him on, even as some acknowledge risks in his approach.

President Biden’s son offered to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which has been aggressively investigating his past business activities — so long as the hearing was held in public, not behind closed doors. 

Biden was subpoenaed by the committee earlier this month.

Biden’s offer was set out in a letter from his attorney, Abbe Lowell, a famously combative figure who includes high-profile Democrats and Republicans in his past client list.

The three-page later lambasted Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) for an “empty investigation [that] has gone on too long, wasting too many better-used resources.”

The letter concluded: “All you will learn is that your allegations are baseless. However, the American people should see that for themselves.”

Comer pushed back soon afterward. The Kentucky Republican wrote that the president’s son was “trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else” — something Comer said “won’t stand.”

Comer held the door open, rather vaguely, to public testimony from the younger Biden “at a future date.” But he insisted that a deposition — which would occur behind closed doors — should go ahead on Dec. 13, as the original subpoena demanded.

That, in turn, set off a fresh round of congressional kabuki.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the committee, contended that Comer’s response was “a frank confession that [Republicans] are simply not interested in the facts.” 

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) argued that Comer was insisting “on hiding his work behind closed doors” and was fearful that allowing Biden to testify in the open would “expose this bogus ‘impeachment inquiry’ for the politically motivated, baseless sham that it is.” 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who, like Goldman, is a member of the committee, asserted on social media that the Republicans on the panel were “scared of getting humiliated for not having an actual case (again).” 

Publicly, at least, Democrats are enthused about Biden getting off the ropes in his fight with Republicans and their allies in conservative media.

He had for some time taken a more passive approach, seeming to calculate that the political damage for his father could be minimized by him doing as few newsworthy things as possible.

The rope-a-dope approach has been supplanted by a new willingness to punch back. One key turning point appears to have been the collapse, over the summer, of a plea deal that dealt with alleged tax misdemeanors and a separate gun-law violation.

Since then, the president’s son has begun suing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer, Robert Costello, alleging they wrongfully shared personal information obtained from his now-infamous laptop. 

He has sued another loyalist of former President Trump, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, for defamation. 

And he has sued the Internal Revenue Commission itself over the release of his tax records.

Each one of those actions is likely to be vigorously contested. But they serve a broader purpose in the public relations battle, putting Biden on the front foot, however briefly.

A similar objective was surely in mind when the president’s son wrote an op-ed for USA Today earlier this month. Biden, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, said that he was concerned about “the weaponization of my addiction by partisan and craven factions.”

He claimed that this process “represents a real threat to those desperate to get sober but [who] are afraid of what may await them if they do.”

Republicans and other critics will see that as a convenient rationale from Biden to try to dodge accountability.

But Democrats, for the most part, welcome his more assertive approach.

“I’m sure there are some inside the White House who would prefer him to be as quiet as possible, but as an outside observer, I think this is exactly the right move,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and onetime top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“Putting your head down and wishing it to go away is not going to happen, so it’s better to wage a public battle,” Manley added. “What’s the alternative? Just allowing these guys [in the GOP] to play to Fox and Newsmax is a losing proposition.”

Another Democratic strategist, Mark Longabaugh, was more circumspect but still argued that the president’s son is ultimately taking the least-bad course available.

“I don’t know all the facts of these cases, but he has been pretty much a punching bag. Among tough options, this to me seems like at least he is going to be forward on his skis and able to try to shape the narrative in his favor, to some degree,” Longabaugh said.

There’s no mistaking the challenges that face Hunter Biden when it comes to public perceptions.

In a September poll from Yahoo/YouGov, 67 percent of Americans, including 55 percent of Democrats, believed he had “probably” or “definitely” done something illegal.

That’s a tough spot from which to try to mount a comeback.

But for now, Democrats are — largely — glad that the younger Biden is willing to strike back.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.