“Epic humiliation”: GOP mocked for rejecting Hunter Biden offer to testify publicly

The House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin, D-Md., slammed his GOP colleagues for denying Hunter Biden’s request for an open hearing on Dec. 13, the date the president’s son is scheduled to appear for a closed-door deposition. Raskin in a statement on Tuesday called House Republicans’ move “an epic humiliation” and “a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it,” referring to his GOP committee members, according to The Hill. 

“Let me get this straight,” the Maryland Democrat wrote. “After wailing and moaning for ten months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast unproven family conspiracy, after sending Hunter Biden a subpoena to appear and testify, Chairman [James Comer (R-Ky.)] and the Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear before the full Committee and the eyes of the world and to answer any questions that they pose?” He further argued that Committee Republicans rejected the request because they feared a public hearing would show they did not have evidence to prove President Biden’s wrongdoing. “What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth,” Raskin wrote. 

Raskin’s statement comes after Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, responded Tuesday to a subpoena from the Oversight Committee suggesting a public hearing instead of the committee’s proposed closed-door deposition. In his letter, Lowell explained that he did not trust the committee to provide and accurate account of the closed-door proceedings, citing how they have seen the committee “use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public.” Comer on Tuesday rejected the request but asserted that Biden will have the opportunity to publicly testify at a later date.