Hunter Biden, Facing Contempt Referral, Says House Subpoenas Are Invalid

With House Republicans on the brink of pushing through a contempt of Congress referral against President Biden’s son, his lawyers argued the subpoenas they have issued for his testimony carry no legal weight.

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Hunter Biden has embarked on an aggressive strategy to try to counter Republicans’ efforts to question him behind closed doors.

Hunter Biden argued Friday that the subpoenas House Republicans have issued to him are invalid, his latest attempt to elude their demands to question him behind closed doors in the impeachment inquiry into his father.

In a letter to Congress, Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that the subpoenas do not carry legal weight because they were authorized before the House had voted to open an impeachment investigation into President Biden.

“I write to make you aware (if you are not already) that your subpoenas were and are legally invalid and cannot form a legal basis to proceed with your misdirected and impermissible contempt resolution,” Mr. Lowell wrote to Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, and Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio.

The Oversight and Judiciary Committees, chaired by Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan, respectively, issued subpoenas for the younger Mr. Biden in November, but the full House did not vote to approve the inquiry until mid-December, more than a month later.

Republicans cried foul in 2019 when Democrats used a similar approach in their first impeachment investigation into former President Donald J. Trump.

To attempt to address the issue, their resolution authorizing the impeachment investigation into Mr. Biden retroactively approved subpoenas that had already been issued.

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