WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on Tuesday offered to testify publicly next month to a House Republican impeachment inquiry of his father’s Democratic administration, a dramatic escalation in a partisan brawl.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden in September, which focuses on Hunter Biden’s business dealings. House Republicans allege Biden and his family improperly traded access to Biden’s office as vice president in President Barack Obama’s administration. The White House denies wrongdoing.
As part of the inquiry, the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear before the panel in a closed-door interview on Dec. 13.
In a response, Hunter Biden’s lawyer blasted the panel’s probe as “a fishing expedition” and an “empty investigation,” telling the panel chairman a public hearing was the only way to prevent “your cloaked, one-sided process.”
“We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door,” attorney Abbe Lowell wrote committee chairman James Comer.
Representatives for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House has called the investigation a “smear campaign” that “has turned up zero evidence.”
Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has cheered on the impeachment probe. During his four years in the Oval Office, he became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice and cleared each time by the Senate.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone and Nick Zieminski)
