Hunter Biden made a surprise appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday but walked out roughly half an hour into it — right as GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia began speaking.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” Greene said when she was recognized. Moments later, Biden stood up and began walking out.
“Excuse me, Hunter, apparently you’re afraid of my words,” Greene said as Hunter Biden left the hearing room. Others were heard exclaiming in the background, and one person was overheard asking, “Where’s he going?”
“Aw,” Greene said. “Wow, that’s too bad.”
The House Oversight Committee was meeting to vote on whether to hold Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, in contempt of Congress after he failed to appear for a closed-door deposition last month in response to a subpoena.
The younger Biden said he would testify only publicly. He told reporters at a press conference last month that GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chair of the committee, previously said he would “drop everything” if Biden wanted to answer questions in a public setting.
Even before Biden walked out, the hearing had devolved into chaos. Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, reacted to the president’s son’s attendance by arguing that he should be “immediately sent to jail.”
“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?” Mace said. “You have no balls.”
House Republicans are conducting an impeachment inquiry into the president, which includes questions about whether he improperly benefited from his son’s and other family members’ business deals while serving as vice president. Thus far, Republicans have yet to find any direct evidence of wrongdoing. They have billed the younger Biden as a prospective key witness in their investigation.
If the oversight panel holds Biden in contempt, the next step will likely be a vote from the entire House. If the House holds the president’s son in contempt, it will be up to the Justice Department to decide whether to bring charges against him.
In recent years, Attorney General Merrick Garland has pursued some but not all contempt charges that have come out of the investigation by the House committee on January 6, 2021.
The former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was convicted of defying his congressional subpoena. While Garland’s department ultimately decided not to charge the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Meadows’ case was tricky as he initially cooperated with the inquiry before refusing to testify.
