The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees have launched an investigation into allegations that President Biden obstructed justice by coordinating with or advising his son Hunter about publicly defying congressional subpoena. Republicans say that they may draft an article of impeachment if such obstruction occurred in violation of federal law. 

The committees’ chairmen, Congressman James Comer and Congressman Jim Jordan, say the White House press secretary publicly acknowledged that  the president had advance knowledge of his son’s intention to refuse to comply with the subpoena, and that therefore Mr. Biden may be guilty of trying “to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry.” 

The younger Mr. Biden delivered angry remarks on Capitol Hill on December 13 in which he said he refused to sit for a closed-door deposition with the Oversight Committee, saying he would only appear before a public hearing. Congressional Republicans said, however, that he would not get “special treatment” and must submit to a closed-door deposition conducted by committee lawyers, much like Trump Administration officials were forced to do for the House’s January 6 Committee.

“On December 13, when asked whether President Biden had watched Mr. Biden’s statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that President Biden was ‘certainly familiar with what his son was going to say,’” Messrs. Comer and Jordan write to White House counsel Ed Siskel. “Ms. Jean-Pierre’s statement suggests that the President had some amount of advanced knowledge that Mr. Biden would choose to defy two congressional subpoenas.”

“In light of Ms. Jean-Pierre’s statement,” the chairmen continue, “we are compelled to examine the involvement of the President in his son’s scheme to defy the Committees subpoenas. The Committees have accumulated substantial evidence that Hunter Biden’s business endeavors have improperly included his father, and the President has made false claims about his knowledge and involvement in these schemes.”

“The fact that the President had advanced awareness that Mr. Biden would defy the Committees’ subpoenas raises a troubling new question that we must examine: whether the President corruptly sought to influence or obstruct the Committees’ proceeding by preventing, discouraging, or dissuading his son from complying with the Committees’ subpoenas,” they write. “Such conduct could constitute an impeachable offense.”

The White House has insisted for more than a year that Hunter Biden handles his own legal affairs completely removed from the White House. Indeed, some press reports have said the White House was frustrated by Mr. Biden fils’ aggressive legal and public relations strategy, which has involved publishing a self-incriminating addiction memoir and suing those involved in the dissemination of the contents of his laptop.

The president’s son also filed an ethics complaint against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for displaying obscene photos of Hunter Biden and women who appear to be escorts at a Congressional hearing and wrote an op-ed blaming his problems on addiction. 

President Biden, however, has kept his son very close and in the public eye during his legal ordeals, even inviting him to a state dinner just after Hunter Biden announced that he would plead guilty to tax and firearms offenses. That plea deal later collapsed under scrutiny. Even after Hunter Biden was indicted twice for multiple felonies, President Biden was seen with him at the White House, and he recently brought his son to Camp David. 

Earlier this month, Politico reported that Hunter Biden’s legal woes were taking “a heavy toll” on the president. Hunter Biden himself recently told his friend, the techno artist Moby, on his liberal podcast that Republicans were seeking to “kill” him in order to crush his father and destroy a presidency.

The first son announced on November 28 — nearly three weeks after he was subpoenaed for a closed-door deposition with the Oversight Committee — that he would not be interviewed by lawyers, but rather only appear publicly before committee members. 

Public testimony before a congressional committee can be bogged down by speechifying by members who have an interest in protecting their fellow partisans — something Democrats would do for Mr. Biden just as GOP members did for President Trump during his first impeachment hearing when Democrats controlled the House. 

Mr. Comer previously told the Sun that taking depositions — with members of both political parties present — allows for greater transparency as trained lawyers extract the facts and force direct answers rather than engage in the stalling and grandstanding that is typical of public hearings.

The elder Mr. Biden is already at risk of being impeached on some kind of public corruption charge, though the House has so far failed to produce indisputable evidence that the president was given money explicitly for policy outcomes. When the lower chamber formally authorized an impeachment inquiry before the holiday break, many moderate members who had not been fully on board with articles of impeachment said that the American people still deserved all of the facts, and that the White House had not been sufficiently forthcoming. 

One Republican member who represents a district won by the president in 2020 and who voted to open an impeachment inquiry, Congressman Don Bacon, said that while he has seen no evidence of crimes committed by Mr. Biden, he still believes that the first son and other family members made money abroad for no reason other than their last name. 

One member who flipped a district to red from blue last year, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans, said that while she wants to get back to work on substantive policy issues, she believed the committees were entitled to the greater investigative powers offered by a formal impeachment inquiry. 

“The American people deserve to know answers to questions, however, I really also believe that we need to continue to focus on the priorities that we had coming into this Congress,” she said.