Hunter Biden’s decision not to testify for House Republicans could add more fuel to the political fire for his father, GOP strategists and legal experts told the Daily Caller.
The president’s son arrived on Capitol Hill on Dec. 13, making the decision to defy the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena and skip a closed-door interrogation session on his foreign business dealings. Hunter Biden’s latest move will have political ramifications, as it draws more attention to President Joe Biden and his happenings just less than a year out from the 2024 presidential election, GOP strategists and legal experts agreed.
“Nearly every angle on the Hunter Biden story hurts Joe Biden,” Mark R. Weaver, a GOP strategist, told the Daily Caller.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November in an effort to have the first son attend a closed-door session to answer questions about his foreign business dealings. Instead, Hunter Biden chose to stand outside the Capitol on Dec. 13, denying President Biden ever played any part in his business dealings while blasting Republicans for bringing an impeachment inquiry on his father.
“[Denying the subpoena] will have the practical effect of drawing attention to his activities. That’s not good for President Biden,” Mike McKenna told the Daily Caller. “Also, the assumption out in the real world is that innocent people don’t refuse to testify.”
WATCH IT IN FULL:
Hunter Biden speaks to the press ahead of his closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill today. pic.twitter.com/1n4c96Lw1o
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 13, 2023
Hunter Biden added during his press conference he would testify publicly, an offer his attorney previously made to the committee. However, the Oversight Committee said the president’s son must attend the closed door session before testifying publicly.
Before Hunter Biden’s press conference, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan threatened Dec. 6 to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of congress if he refused to attend the closed-door interrogation session. Since then, the president’s statements from October 2021 when he said individuals who defy subpoenas from the January 6 House Select Committee should be prosecuted, have resurfaced. The Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Steve Bannon a month after the president’s 2021 statements for doing just that. (RELATED: Comer, Jordan To Begin Contempt Of Congress Proceedings Against Hunter Biden After He Defies Subpoena)
Because of Hunter’s latest action, media outlets are now pointing out Biden’s previous statements and calling into question whether the president will flip his position, Weaver told the Daily Caller.
“One of the downsides of being a politician with 40 or 50 years in office, is that there’s a wide range of things you’ve said about public and current events,” Weaver told the Daily Caller. “Joe Biden has no doubt criticized others who refuse to come forward and give testimony. He will now have to backtrack on those comments because it involves his son. This will remind voters that for many politicians, there is a double standard, one for the regular people and the rest for the elite. An unobserved one for the regular people and a different standard for the elite and their family.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a Dec. 13 press briefing the president was “very familiar” with what his son was going to say during his press conference on Capitol Hill. Several reporters continued to press Jean-Pierre throughout the briefing on Hunter Biden’s latest move, a testament to the attention the president’s son brings to the White House.(RELATED: KJP Blurts ‘No Evidence’ Five Times In A Row To Answer Question About Hunter Biden)
Scott Jennings, a longtime GOP adviser in Kentucky and veteran of numerous campaigns, told the Daily Caller that Hunter’s latest actions call more into question than the president’s past statements.
“I just think the overall idea that, for instance, Joe Biden is now saying people need to pay their fair share of taxes when his own family refused to do so and is indicted over it,” Jennings told the Daily Caller. “Anytime that’s in the news, I do think it draws attention to Joe Biden’s hypocrisy at a minimum. And certainly, the Biden family has problems at a maximum. So yeah, I do think there’s some political impact there. I also think that a lot of people would look at Hunter Biden and go, ‘Why does this guy not have to comply with a congressional subpoena?’”
President Joe Biden embraces his family after being sworn in during his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today’s inauguration ceremony Biden becomes the 46th President of the United States. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
A federal grand jury in California indicted Hunter Biden on Dec. 7 on nine counts related to his alleged failure to pay more than $1 million worth of taxes spanning across four years. The nine counts included three felonies and six misdemeanors including the failure to pay taxes and the failure to file taxes. Through foreign business dealings with Ukrainian, Romanian and Chinese entities, Hunter made more than $7 million in total gross income, according to the indictment.
Following Hunter’s December indictment, the New York Post pointed out that throughout his 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden demanded wealthy Americans pay their “fair share” in taxes.
“Under my tax plan, no one making under $400,000 will see their taxes go up,” Biden’s campaign tweeted in November 202o. “But it’s time large corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.”
Under my tax plan, no one making under $400,000 will see their taxes go up.
But it’s time large corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 2, 2020
While several legal experts told the Daily Caller that Hunter Biden’s latest move won’t have direct legal ramifications for President Biden, Philip A. Holloway, a criminal defense attorney and legal analyst, stressed how the decision could compound to bigger problems for the first son.
“Every time Hunter Biden gets a new case, new legal problem or ‘blows off a subpoena,’ the president’s son is opening himself up to more problems and his father to more attention,” Holloway told the Daily Caller.
“If Hunter Biden blows off a subpoena, Hunter Biden is now exposing himself to the potential for additional criminal prosecution,” Holloway told the Daily Caller. “Every time he gets a new case or a new legal problem, it allows investigators and prosecutors to dig deeper and to investigate Hunter even more. And the wisest thing to do, I think if I were representing Hunter Biden, would be to keep your mouth shut.”
Though Hunter Biden’s antics appear to draw more attention to the president, multiple Democratic strategists told the Daily Caller they don’t think his son’s issues will affect him politically, arguing other issues take priority to the average American. (RELATED: ‘Bunch Of Lies’: Biden Denies Interacting With Hunter’s Business Associates Despite Mountain Of New Evidence)
“[The voters] don’t think about it,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, told the Daily Caller. “They don’t focus on it. They don’t analyze it. They’ve got bigger fish to fry. I think they don’t make much of it at all, because I think they feel it’s something extraneous to the central issues facing the nation.”
Regardless of whether the drama with Hunter Biden and his father is enough to sway America’s votes, a majority of voters believe the president was involved in his son’s business dealings, according to a September CNN poll. Fifty-five percent of Americans think Biden acted inappropriately in relation to the DOJ’s investigation into Hunter Biden over potential crimes.
Biden currently trails former President Donald Trump in several swing state polls. The former president is currently leading Biden by 5 points in Georgia and has an even bigger lead in Michigan, with Trump sitting at 10 points ahead of the president, according to a CNN/SSRS poll. Nationally, Trump is beating Biden by 3.5 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
“I do think, though, that Hunter Biden defying the subpoena could hurt Joe Biden politically,” John Malcolm, vice president for the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government and former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Criminal Division, told the Daily Caller. “In fact, practically anything that Hunter Biden does at this point could hurt his father politically.”
“Hunter could hurt his father politically by defying the subpoena, by complying with the subpoena and asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, or by complying with the subpoena and providing self-serving, but not credible, statements that attempt to exonerate himself and his father,” Malcom continued.