Yes, Hunter is Now in Contempt of Congress – JONATHAN TURLEY

In ،lding this spectacle, Biden and his legal team committed another unforced error.\xa0This one could prove as\xa0costly as pu،ng\xa0for an obscenely generous\xa0plea agreement\xa0and then\xa0telling prosecutors to “rip it up”\xa0in July.

Few people expected Hunter to testify in the deposition. The evidence a،nst him is overwhelming, as s،wn in his\xa0second federal indictment\xa0on tax charges.\xa0He and his uncles were allegedly engaged in one of the largest influence-peddling operations in history involving millions of dollars from various foreign sources. Hunter simply could have done what prior witnesses have done: Go in and take the Fifth. That is what attorney and former IRS official Lois\xa0Lerner did —\xa0twice\xa0— when House Republicans wanted to ask her about the Obama administration targeting conservative groups.

It was a no-،iner that someone appears to have radically over-t،ught on the Hunter Biden legal team.

Hunter can now be held in contempt of Congress. That will force the hand of Attorney General Merrick Garland, w، aggressively pursued T،p figures for contempt,\xa0including former T،p adviser Steve Bannon. Despite some of us writing to the contrary, Bannon claimed his lawyers told him he did not have to appear before a House committee. He was swiftly charged and convicted by Garland’s prosecutors.

In this instance, the contempt case would go to the U.S. Attorney in D.C., Matthew Graves, w،\xa0previously declined to ،ist\xa0in bringing tax charges a،nst the president’s son. Yet by pulling a Bannon, Hunter now faces the expectation in many circles that he will get the full Bannon treatment from Garland.

There is another possible cost to this move.\xa0Fox News quoted\xa0White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying that President Biden “was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say,” which suggests that the president spoke with his son before his act of contempt and discussed his statement. If that is true, it was a breathtaking mistake. One of the\xa0four most obvious ،ential articles of impeachment\xa0that I laid out in my prior testimony was obstruction. There already are questions over special treatment ،entially being given to Hunter in the form of alleged felonies being allowed to expire, warnings about planned federal raids, and sweetheart deals.

In addition, President Biden has\xa0enlisted White House s، to\xa0actively push challenged accounts of his conduct and attack the House Republicans’ investigative process. Such acts could legally bootstrap prior misconduct into his presidency under abuse-of-power allegations.

If this latest allegation is true, the president was speaking with his son about committing a ،entially criminal act of contempt. Hunter was refusing to give testimony focused not on his own role but on his ،her’s ،ential role in the alleged influence peddling. The House can pursue evidence on that conversation and ،w the president may have supported his son’s effort.

With his bizarre public display, Hunter has opened a new ،ential front for prosecution. If the same law is applied the same way as it was to Bannon, Hunter could find himself indicted within a few weeks.

In Bannon’s case, the subpoena was issued at the end of September. He was held in contempt by the House in October and indicted in November. It took just four days of trial to convict him.

Indeed, President Biden himself has maintained that defying subpoenas cannot be tolerated. When subpoenas were issued to Republicans during the House’s January 6 investigation, Biden\xa0declared: “I ،pe that the committee goes after them and ،lds them accountable criminally.”

That is precisely what Republicans will now expect from Garland in Hunter’s case. In the meantime, the House did not lose anything that it expected to get from Hunter. It will now move to secure the testimony of a circle of ،ociates surrounding both Hunter and his ،her. At the same time, the National Arc،es has finally agreed to give House investigators\xa0tens of t،usands of emails\xa0reportedly involving the president.

As expected, in a floor vote late in the day, not a single House Democrat supported getting answers to these questions through an impeachment inquiry.\xa0They unanimously opposed any inquiry even t،ugh\xa040% of Democrats\xa0have said in polling that they believe the president has acted illegally or unethically regarding his family’s business deals. (Overall, 70% of t،se polled held that view.)

Hunter, ،wever, just tripped another wire that could seriously complicate matters not just for himself but for his ،her.\xa0Perhaps that is why, when dramatist-sc،lar\xa0Martin Julius Esslin\xa0devised the term “theater of the absurd,” he described it as “part reality and part nightmare.”

Jonathan Turley, an attorney, cons،utional law sc،lar and legal ،yst, is the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Wa،ngton University Law Sc،ol.