Hunter Biden’s Capitol Visit Surprised Republicans, and His Father’s Advisers

The White House is trying to keep its distance as the president’s son deploys an aggressive new strategy.

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Hunter Biden attended a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday. He has been eager to fight back against attacks and to try to wrest back control of his life story.

When Hunter Biden interrupted a House Oversight Committee vote over holding him in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, Republican lawmakers were not the only ones caught off guard. President Biden’s advisers were surprised to see him there, too.

According to several people with knowledge of the younger Mr. Biden’s legal strategy, he and his legal team, which includes the Washington scandal lawyer Abbe Lowell and the Los Angeles-based lawyer Kevin Morris, saw no reason to give the White House a heads-up.

Hunter Biden and his team had wanted the response they got: shock, surprise and, ultimately, unwillingness by Republicans to swear him in on the spot so he could testify in public, rather than in the closed-door deposition that the G.O.P. had demanded.

The chaotic scene on Capitol Hill came as the White House has been trying to keep its distance while the president’s son deploys an aggressive new legal strategy to hit back against the various political and legal battles he is facing.

President Biden, who talks to his son nearly every day, is supportive of him but is not kept informed of the details of every legal decision, according to the people familiar with the strategy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Hunter Biden, 53, has been eager to fight back against attacks and to try to wrest back control of his life story, one marked by tragedy and an addiction to crack cocaine, from people he believes are using him as a way to bring his father down.

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