CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez appeared to try to defend Hunter Biden after the president’s son defied a congressional subpoena Wednesday.
The younger Biden appeared in front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday morning to defend his father, President Joe Biden, as House Republicans continue its impeachment inquiry into an alleged influence-peddling scheme. The president’s son received a subpoena to testify in a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, but he told reporters he is only willing to testify before Congress publicly.
Perez accused Republicans of “twisting” what Biden has said, and cited the president’s son’s accusations that they mocked his drug addiction.
“He spoke more forcefully and confrontationally, really, about these allegations that Republicans have been making,” Perez said. “A lot of this stuff has been done on paper and by Republican members of Congress who are essentially twisting some of the things that Hunter says were in some of the evidence that they’ve obtained, some of the documents they’ve obtained and here, he confronts a lot of that saying that they were mocking his addiction, his struggles with addiction. Obviously, the problems he had with his finances and also trying to use this, really, to try to take down his father.”
Perez said Hunter believes he is charged with nine counts of alleged tax violations due to Republicans pressuring the Justice Department and ruining the plea deal made between himself and now-Special Counsel David Weiss. In the former plea deal that collapsed in July, the younger Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors brought against him in exchange for serving no jail time. (RELATED: ‘No, No, No’: Comer Spars With Reporter After Hunter Biden Defies Congressional Subpoena)
Perez then pushed the idea Republicans have no evidence the president committed any wrongdoing regarding his family’s overseas business dealings.
“The fact is, the Republicans have been pushing forward these claims that there’s evidence, but they’ve not actually produced any of it to prove that the president, his [Hunter’s] father, actually benefited from any of these financial dealings that Hunter had in Ukraine and in China,” he said.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, then-presidential candidate Biden said he never discussed business or had any involvement with his son’s business dealings and mentioned Ukraine and China specifically. Hunter said Wednesday his father was not “financially involved.”
House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer released bank records showing the elder Biden received a $40,000 check in September 2017 after the Biden family received money from Chinese business associates. The records show Hunter Biden, his uncle James and his aunt Sara wired money through several accounts before Sara sent Biden a check as a “loan repayment” less than a month after James Biden’s business relationship with Hudson West III, Hunter’s business venture with CEFC, began.
The president falsely said before the election his son never made money from China.